Following Christ, Our Light and Our Salvation, Third Sunday (A), January 22, 2023

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Columbia Catholic Ministry, Notre Dame Church, Manhattan
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A
Sunday of the Word of God
January 22, 2023
Is 8:23-9:3, Ps 27, 1Cor 1:10-13.17, Mt 4:12-23

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• Today we celebrate a special feast in the Church’s liturgical calendar, one that Pope Francis decreed in 2019 would take place each year on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time. It’s the Sunday of the Word of God. While every Mass is focused on the Word of God and every day should be an opportunity for us to thank God for revealing himself to us, Pope Francis said that he wanted to establish it to give special emphasis to the Word of God in Catholic life and to help believers “grow in religious and intimate familiarity with the sacred Scriptures,” “appreciate the inexhaustible riches contained in that constant dialogue between the Lord and his people,” “experience anew how the risen Lord opens up for us the treasury of his word and enables us to proclaim its unfathomable riches before the world,” and “marked by this decisive relationship with the living word…, grow in love and faithful witness.” And so we approach the gift of God’s word in today’s readings with those papal hopes in mind!
• In the Gospel, we see various dimensions of the gift and power of the Word of God. St. Matthew tells us that Jesus left his native Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali. He did so to fulfill the prophecy Isaiah had announced 700 years before, which we encounter in today’s first reading: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles: the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” By that point in history, Zebulun and Napthali, regions named respectively after two of the 12 sons of Jacob, had been annihilated by the invading Assyrians. Those who survived were still in the darkness not only of collective trauma but of subjugation. Isaiah’s words were those of hope, that God, their light and their salvation, would eventually illumine their existential gloom and bring redemption to their slavery and abjection. God’s word remained a lifeline in their darkest times and served as a lamp for their feet and light for their path (Ps 119:105). In the Gospel, we see the fulfillment of Isaiah’s inspiring prophecy. Jesus, the Light of the World, the long-awaited Messiah, the Word of God made flesh, came to them and by his teaching, by his miracles, by his presence, and eventually by his passion, death and resurrection led them on an exodus from darkness into great light. God himself came to help them see the light, live in the light, and walk as children of the light. That’s why, as St. Matthew recounts for us, Jesus’ first words were “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is another way of saying, “Leave the darkness behind; come, believe in, and live in, the light!”
• Then Jesus made the fulfillment of the Word of God, the pilgrimage from darkness into light God had announced through Isaiah, even more specific. He saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, fishing. He said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Even though St. Peter’s first words to the Lord, recounted in St. Luke’s version of this encounter, were “Depart from me, O Lord, because I am a sinful man,” even though he was a man vexed by a life at least partially mired in darkness, Christ called him. And Peter left the darkness of sin behind, as well as his boats, the biggest catch of fish in his life, and everything else immediately to follow Christ into the light. As did his brother Andrew. As did James and John moments later. Such was the power of Christ, of his personality, of the way he emitted the luminous presence of enfleshed divinity, that ordinary, hard-working men would leave everything on an instant to follow him.
• But that was just the beginning for the apostles, as we get a glimpse of today. They accompanied the Lord as he went throughout Galilee, passing on the light of his teaching and curing every disease and sickness, showing others that he wanted to take their souls and others’, too, from the darkness of sin and doubt, the gloom of depression, the pall of grief, into the radiance of a life changing relationship of love with him. The call that was so personal for Peter, Andrew, James, John, is meant to be just as personal for us. The Lord calls each of us by name and summons us to follow him into the light so that we, in turn, can become his light illumining the paths of others to him — and through, with and in Him, to his body the Church, and ultimately to the radiant house of the eternal Father.
• It’s important, as we listen each Sunday to the Word of God, that we grasp that the Gospel is not meant to be just informative, but transformative. The Lord wants to change us, by filling us with the light of his truth and the incandescent flame of his love, so that having transformed us, he might transform the world by sending us out to illumine and inflame others. It’s key to recognize the personal call that Christ makes to each of us every day in the Word of God to repent and leave any and all darkness behind, and to believe by following him into the light and by living and walking always illumined by him. It’s not enough for his disciples just to turn the lights on for an hour on Sundays or for a few minutes before we go to bed and to live the rest of our life as if the shades are constantly down. Jesus calls us to find in him our light and salvation, to walk and live with him in the light and maturely and responsibly to follow him on the pilgrimage out of Plato’s cave.
• We can examine today two particular ways that the Word of God, the Light of Truth, is meant to change us. The first is with regard to Church unity. We are now in the fifth day of the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity. When Pope Francis established the Sunday of the Word of God, he expressed hope that since the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time would fall each year either within or at the end of the Octave of Prayer for Christian Unity, the Sunday of the Word of God might bear great ecumenical fruit. “The Scriptures point out,” he said, “for those who listen, the path to authentic and firm unity.”
• We see that, obviously, in the seventeenth chapter of St. John’s Gospel, where Jesus, on Holy Thursday, the night he was betrayed, at the end of the celebration of the first Eucharist, prayed that believers might be one, just as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus in the Father, so that the world may know that the Father sent the Son and that the Father loves us just as much as he loves the Son. That’s a mind-blowing reality in every aspect: that we’re called to have a communion among us that resembles the Trinity and that communion will be the way that others will find Jesus’ whole mission and message credible and grasp by the way they see us love each other how much God loves us and them.
• But we also see that appeal for Christian unity in today’s second reading, taken from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians. He urged the first Christians in Corinth, “in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” as his very ambassador, “that there be no divisions among you but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.” Division is a severe wound to the Mystical Body of Christ and a scandal to believers and non-believers alike. Division, disharmony, separation and schism are all part of the devil’s playbook. In Corinth, the rivalries came because people lost their focus on Christ and adopted a sense of celebrity cliques. The apostle writes, “Each of you is saying, ‘I believe to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’” Paul we know. Apollos was the very eloquent convert from Alexandria, Egypt, whom several of the early fathers of the Church thought wrote the Letter to the Hebrews. Cephas is the Greek transliteration of the Aramaic name Kepha, meaning “rock” or St. Peter. They were divided because the Christians were choosing among their favorites among the various ministers who had proclaimed the Gospel to them. Paul reminds them that Christ isn’t divided. He states that Christ was crucified for them to take away the sins that cause division, and on Calvary, he was to draw all people to himself (Jn 12:32), to gather what had been scattered (Mt 12:30). St. Paul says that the Christians in Corinth were baptized into Jesus’ name, not anyone else’s, and they were supposed to live according to “one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Eph 4:5-6). He points out the road to unity by urging them fully to commit anew to adhering to Christ. Disunity flows when people prioritize their spiritual descent from Peter, Andrew, Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, Henry VIII, Wesley or others more than to Christ, when they associate more with particular popes, priests, megachurch pastors, or movements in the Church that they do with the Lord. If we truly ground our existence on Jesus, on his passion, death and resurrection, on our baptism, on the Word of God, then we will seek to become living commentaries of that word and of Christ’s clarion call to a communion among us that resembles the Trinity. To live by the Word of God is to seek the unity for which Christ prayed during Holy Thursday and prays still.
• The second way the Word of God is meant to change us this Sunday is in response to Jesus’ desire that we “might have life and have it to the full” (Jn 10:10). We mark today the fiftieth anniversary of the dreadful, indeed diabolically inspired, Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the United States, led to the industrial slaughter of over 65 million children made in Jesus’ image and likeness, and is at the root not just of the lamentable political and social polarization in our country but the cause of some of the greatest fissures among the baptized. Jesus, our light and salvation, came into the world to bring great light to a people sitting in darkness and dwelling in a land overshadowed by death and he sent out his Church — he sent out us — with the light of his teaching and the flame of his love to continue that mission. There’s no greater darkness than a culture that seeks to snuff out the light of life and love at its very beginning. There’s no greater obscurity than the biology-ignoring euphemisms that pretend that the child in the womb is not human or deserving of protection. There’s no greater blindness than to shut one’s eyes and ears to the radiant and consoling truth of Jesus’ words that whoever receives a little child in God’s name receives him (Mk 9:37) and that whatever we do to the least of Jesus’ brothers and sisters, we do to him (Mt 25:40). We give thanks to God that last year, after 49 years of constant prayer, penance, witness, political and cultural engagement and legal argumentation, the Supreme Court saw the light and overturned the pitch blackness of But we know that the Dobbs decision was just a beginning, not the end. There’s still much work to do to create the conditions so that no one will ever be tempted to think that abortion is necessary, so that pregnant women will be supported in every circumstance to bring their babies literally into the light and to have confidence that they will have is needed for them to grow in that light. There’s still so much work to change habits, attitudes and practices that put women in vulnerable circumstances. There’s still so much work to do in states that permit abortion or even celebrate its darkness, like New York, as if abortion is somehow light itself. On Friday, several dozen Columbia students and I walked in the March for Life in Washington, together with more than a hundred thousand from across the country, in peaceful witness to the gift of human life and reaffirming the commitment of the pro-life movement to care for moms in need both during and after pregnancy. So many choose abortion because, regardless of their circumstances, they find themselves pregnant, afraid, and often alone, abandoned and shamed even by family members, friends and even, scandalously, by Christians. Christ calls every Catholic to a light in that darkness, to sacrifice for the mother and her child, to give them the love that they deserve and should be able to count on, but don’t often receive, from the child’s father, grandparents, uncles, aunts and other relatives. The Church exists as one big worldwide crisis pregnancy center, to help mothers and their children long-term. If a friend or a sibling ever tells you that she is pregnant and afraid, please be prepared to commit yourself to be Christ’s instrument and to say, “I promise to help both of you as much as I possibly can.” On my own part, please know that I promise to be there for you myself, to help you get through it. For the last seven years I was chaplain to the Sisters of Life here in town where I assisted them in their beautiful work of helping thousands of women a year in New York City and beyond to make the choice of life and love and I’ve had the privilege to baptize many of those beautiful babies of joyful, smiling mothers. Already here in Columbia I have helped students who have found themselves pregnant to be able to access the resources they need, both on campus and off. Christ entered the world as a little baby, in fact as an embryo in Mary’s womb, to teach us the value of human life from its very beginning and to help moms, dads and everyone to learn to love every child, however small, like we love him, and from that love of the most vulnerable and helpless, to create the civilization of love that is part of his kingdom. As we mark the fiftieth anniversary of Roe with the sadness at how much death and destruction it unleashed, and gratitude that it is no longer the law of the land, we ask God for his grace so that the light that Jesus brought into the world, the light that shines in the darkness, will radiate in all its splendor through the Church and through each of us as his disciples, so that every child will be loved, wanted, protected and assisted, and every vulnerable mother embraced, with the love that God has for each of us.
• On this Sunday of the Word of God, Jesus summons us anew to repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. He calls us to himself just as he called his first apostles. He teaches us here in our Church, proclaims the Gospel of his kingdom, and offers healing. Let us ask him for the grace to respond to him and his words as immediately, wholeheartedly, heroically and perseveringly as the first disciples in today’s Gospel. Let us ask him, too, to send the Holy Spirit to us so that as we recommit to bring the gift of his light to all those persons and areas living in darkness, like the darkness of division in the Church and within the hearts of believers, and to all those dwelling in any way in the valley of the culture of death. Let us ask for the grace to be effective instruments to draw them join us on the pilgrimage mapped out by the Word of God as a light for our path, so that with them, we may enter into God’s kingdom of light, life and love, in this world and ultimately in the Heavenly Jerusalem where, the Book of Revelation tells us, “night will be no more, nor will they need light from a lamp or the sun,” for the Lord God will be our light and will reign in splendor forever and ever.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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