Jesus’ — and Paul’s — Family, Third Tuesday in Ordinary Time (I), January 26, 2021

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the Third Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
Memorial of SS. Timothy and Titus
January 26, 2021
2 Tim 1:1-8, Ps 96, Mk 3:31-36

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

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

• Two days ago we celebrated Sunday of the Word of God dedicated to helping us grow in our love for, knowledge of and living of what God has revealed. In today’s Gospel, Jesus reveals to us that he has come to found a family and his family — as shown so eminently in the life of his mother whose whole life can be summarized by her fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum — are distinguished by doing the will of God that he reveals. This isn’t about sometime of cold, extrinsic obedience to arbitrary commands, but a loving, faithful adhesion to God and with trust and affection seeking to do what pleases him. It’s not a clash of wills but a concordance, in which we want to accomplish what God wants, knowing that what he wants and commands is out of love for us.
• We had a chance, yesterday, to ponder St. Paul’s doing the will of God. He sought to do it, erroneously, prior to his conversion, when out of zeal for God’s law he was persecuting Jesus in his Mystical Body, the Church. After the Lord met him outside the gates of Damascus, he asked, “What do you want me to do, Lord?,” and then not only did what Jesus asked, but spent the rest of his life preaching and exemplifying the loving, trusting obedience of faith. SS. Timothy and Titus, whom we celebrate today, were those who learned from St. Paul this lesson and in turn sought to proclaim and model this faithful fulfillment of God’s word and will and thereby build up the family of God. St. Paul praises St. Timothy for having been acquainted with the Scriptures since childhood (2 Tim 1:5) and he stresses with him in his letter to have greater confidence still. “Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed, because you know from whom you learned it and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction and for training in righteousness so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3:14-16). When in today’s passage St. Paul urges him to “stir into a flame the gift of God” Timothy had received, a key part of that gift was love for God and his holy word. We are all called to have our love for knowing God’s word and doing it grow into a bonfire.
• Likewise St. Paul communicated that same holy desire to do God’s will to his collaborator St. Titus. In the passage the Church proposes today as an alternate first reading, St. Paul described how God “at the proper time revealed his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted.” He heard the Word of God, meditated upon it and had an inner woe until he shared it as of the first importance with others. He knew that Titus, too, had been entrusted with the proclamation of that word and throughout his letter he urged Titus to “say what is consistent with sound doctrine (Tit 2:1), saying that the way that he would be able to exhort in that way would be by “holding fast to the true message as taught” (Tit 1:9).
• As we, like Paul, Timothy and Titus, seek to “proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations,” to “sing to the Lord a new song,” to “bless his name,” to “announce his salvation day after day,” to “tell his glory among the nations, [and] among all peoples his wondrous deeds,” to “give to the Lord glory and praise, … the glory due his name!,” we need to get to know more and more deeply the “lyrics” of Sacred Scripture, the deeds of God throughout salvation history, the sound doctrine for training in holiness we find there. We sing that song ever new, because the deeper we enter into it, the more we discover and we learn how to sing those truths in different melodies, modes and moods. St. Paul and his collaborators proclaimed this message in all its freshness not with, as Paul says to Timothy today, “a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.” They were willing to suffer for it, to “bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God,” knowing that God’s word gives strength to do his will.
• St. Paul, St. Timothy, St. Titus proclaimed the Word of God in various ways as they built up the Church, but the most privileged way of all was in the celebration of the Mass, as they went from the Word of God to the sacrament of the Word made flesh. This is the means by God stirs into a flame the gifts he has given us. This is the means by which we do his will, as we “do this in memory of” him. This is what strengthens us to leave Mass with a holy woe to  proclaim these most marvelous gifts of all to the whole world!

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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