Father Matthew Wiering Podcast

Today as we celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation for our young people, the Gospel of Jesus getting "up close and personal" with the man born blind in order to heal him is fulfilled in the Sacrament we celebrate today. Each of the Sacraments involve this aspect of getting "up close and personal" -- Jesus in the person of the priest comes to us in our vulnerability, he comes in close proximity to us and gives us Himself as the remedy for our healing. May we see in the Sacraments our direct access to Jesus the Healer!

In today's Gospel Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. The woman's need to visit the well every day is a symbol of her fundamental thirst for love (which is also evidenced in her having had five previous husbands and a current live-in boyfriend -- she is looking for love in all the wrong places)! But, after encountering Jesus, she goes back to town and leaves her water jug at the well, a symbol of her thirst having been quenched. She won't need to keep returning to the water that does not satisfy (nor to the men who did not satisfy). She has found the living water! And the One for whom she has always been searching.

Our first reading today presents us with Abram, who will later be renamed "Abraham". God calls him to uproot his family and servants and flocks and go to a a different place -- to where God does not say but simply says that He will show him. Isn't this a frequent theme in the Scriptures? To the apostles, too, Jesus says, "Follow me," but doesn't say "to where" yet promises to lead them where He wants them to go. Why should it be any different with us? To each of those whom God loves He leads into uncharted and unknown territory ... He will lead and guide and bring us to a place of greater trust and intimacy with Himself.

In this Sunday's "Greatest Hits" of Scripture readings presented to us, we hear the story of how man and woman fell pray to the Devil's temptation and were exiled to the desert wilderness. In today's Gospel, where does Jesus go immediately before beginning his public ministry? He goes precisely into the desert wilderness, in search of the exiled Adam and Eve, but first he must contend with the Devil. Jesus does not waver or cower in fear before the Devil like our first parents did, but he goes forth as a Warrior going into Battle, and he triumphs over the Devil's temptations! Jesus will continue to win each battle against Satan until our Enemy is definitively defeated in the Cross and Resurrection. This is why we begin our Lenten journey with Jesus's first battle against the Devil, and we'll end it with His final one: Jesus's victory over sin and death on Easter Sunday of the Resurrection.

In today's Gospel Jesus takes some broad commandments that many people probably don't find too difficult to follow and deepens them, making them much more challenging. From now on, it's not enough just that we don't "kill anybody". We must love our neighbor in body and soul. It's not enough that we don't sleep around. We must have purity of heart. The good news is that if Jesus commands it, this means it is possible for us -- but only possible if it's actually Jesus who does it: Jesus's charity in me. Jesus's purity in me.

Towards the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus uses a couple of familiar metaphors: He says to his disciples, "You are the salt of the earth," and, "You are the light of the world." Both indicate that Christians are "for" others, as salt and light are not so much good in and of themselves but rather essential for the effect that they have on others. Regarding the former image, let us consider how the Lord is inviting us to be "salt" in the various arenas of our lives, that, like salt, we may enhance and elevate and make more authentic the diverse areas of life: precisely the effect that Jesus demands that his followers have on the world.

Hearing the Beatitudes of Jesus anew help us to see how different Jesus's plan for building the Kingdom is than that of our political leaders on the left and the right. How tempted we are to construct an earthly kingdom using force of will, rhetoric that demonizes our political opponents, and, in some cases, violence! As we construct our own "kingdoms" on earth, will we use these means of the Evil One? Or the means of heaven, which are the Beatitudes?

In today's Gospel we hear the wonderful and mysterious account of the calling of the first four disciples, all fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James, and John. The act of fishing has a few essential aspects: attracting, hooking, and reeling in fish. The same holds true with the new vocation of these men, who will become "fishers of men": attracting, hooking, and bringing in for God. But before these men can fish for men, they first must follow. They must go with Jesus everywhere he goes. Through sustained contact with him, they themselves will be transformed into "other Christ's", and then the light of God will shine from them as it shines from Jesus. Then they (and we) will become "fishers of men"!

Every year we celebrate this feast in which we commemorate Jesus receiving the baptism of John, which is a baptism of repentance. Immediately this gets confusing, since Jesus was all-holy; he never committed a personal sin. But yet we see him in the Gospel getting in line with sinners. In doing so, he takes responsibility for and ownership not of his own sins but of mine. He drowns my sins in the baptismal waters, and as he emerges from the water, gives me a new life of grace. May our hearts be moved with love today for this totally generous gift from our Savior!

In today's rich feast day of the Epiphany we see the Old Testament prophecy fulfilled in which the Lord's light shines over Jerusalem, and the foreign nations come and worship the true God of Israel. But we also see in the Gospel how the Magi were not able to reach Jesus their destination on their own -- they needed the assistance of those in Jerusalem. Will we in the Church lead the seekers in our lives to Jesus?