Thoughts from the Second Floor Front
The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 17, 2021
Ecce Agnus Dei!
Who pointed Jesus out for you? Today, in the gospel proclamation, we have the incident in the fourth gospel in which John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus. These two, who became Jesus’s disciples, were initially John’s disciples. It was John’s role to proclaim the arrival of the Messiah. John was never one to engage in self aggrandizing posturing. It was President Reagan who said: You can accomplish a lot if you don’t care who gets the credit. That’s one thing for a President of the United States to claim but in making that statement it was almost like Reagan was being too humble; after all, he was the President of the United States. John’s self-abnegation came at a great price. It literally cost him his head. Recall that it was he who said of Jesus He must increase; I must decrease. (John 3:30)
In this passage John sends his own disciples to Jesus. John pointed out Jesus for others. Who pointed Jesus out for you? In all probability you came to the faith through your family, especially your parents, who made the decision to have you baptized. A few weeks ago, we celebrated the feast of the Holy Family. The human family is the basic cell of society. Our Holy Father regularly refers to the family as the domestic church. Someone pointed Jesus out to you and because of that someone, now you are charged to proclaim the name of the Messiah. We do that sometimes weakly and sometimes with great commitment. The responsibility is ours, like John the Baptist, to point Jesus out to others. We do this in the ordinary, everyday world in which we work, live and love.
When the disciples come to Jesus, He puts the question to them with characteristic directness: What are you looking for? (John 1: 38a) With that the dialogue begins a new life for these two disciples. In response they address Him as Rabbi, a title which indicates that they already recognize Him as having a certain status. After staying with Him that day, their first response is to tell others about him. Enter Simon soon to be Peter. Changing his name from Simon to Kephas – Peter – signifies taking on a new way of life. This was not just a nickname leveled on the one on whom Jesus would found His church. This was a charge that was given to him that day. He was to be named rock and be the rock.
Names are very important. Think about yourself and your name. I remember reading at some point when I was teaching high school that many people at some point in their life do not like their name. I am named for my paternal grandfather and when I discovered what my name means I thought that it’s a lot to live up to. The names parents give their children ought to be charged with meaning. It is more than an identifier, one’s name points to a profound reality.
We all share in a name, Christian – a follower, a disciple of Christ. The word initially may have been a term of derision. In Acts 11:26 we find that it is first used at Antioch to refer to Christians in that community, possibly to distinguish those believers from the Jewish community in that city. We bear the name Christian because we know Jesus the Christ. We are to be, to live, to act, to speak in a manner that will manifest our identity as His follower. We must be different because of our knowledge of Jesus from those who have no knowledge of Jesus or choose not to know Him.
There is a teaching that emerged from Aristotelean and Scholastic Philosophy:
Agere sequitur esse. Roughly translated: Action follows being. Simply put: You can tell what a thing is by what a thing does. If something appears to have feathers and webbed feet and it waddles and makes a sound that is amazingly similar to “quack, quack” the thing is, in all probability, a duck. By analogy we can talk about a disciple of Christ by a similar exercise in logic. If a person treats others with an inherent dignity that they deserve simply because they too are a child of God; and if that same person prays with frequency relying on a power greater than himself or herself; and if that individual’s character is marked by charity in word and work, then in all probability they are a Christian.
Answer to the name you have acquired by your love of Jesus. In your answer use you life not only your words.
Faithfully,
Msgr. Diamond