3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B – Homily
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 (4a)
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20
You can see near the end of this homily, I did something different to help people understanding the Bible shapes how we celebrate Mass and what we say. This is not easy to capture in typed words. So, click here to view a video recording of this homily.
“The word of the LORD came to Jonah.” Jonah was given a message from the Lord to share with Nineveh. What was the message? “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed.”
Why would Nineveh be destroyed? Because they had sinned. The people reacted to the message Jonah delivered as God wants us to react when we sin. They repented.
“Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God.” What did He proclaim as the gospel of God? “Repent and believe in the gospel.” To believe it, you need to read it. You need to be taught.
In Psalm 25, the psalmist says, “Your ways, O LORD, make known to me, teach me your path, guide me…”
How does the Lord make known his ways to us? How does He guide and teach us? We find God’s instructions to us in the Bible and He guides us to fulfill them through the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps you’ve heard televangelists and/or Evangelical Protestants say you need to join a Bible-based church.
I agree with them.
We need to belong to a Bible-based church. Let me tell you the name of the best Bible-based church I know, The Roman Catholic Church.
Yes, I know that as Catholics, we don’t have a good reputation for knowing the Bible. Some people think we have replaced the Bible with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We have not. The Catechism flows from the Bible. In fact, if you look at the first 100 footnotes in the Catechism, at least forty of them point us to specific Bible verses on what the Catechism helps us understand. That’s Bible-based.
At every Sunday Mass, we hear a reading from the Old Testament (or the Acts of the Apostles during Easter), a psalm, a reading from a New Testament letter, and a gospel reading. The first half of every Mass focuses on God’s Word. That’s Bible-based.
Today is the Sunday of the Word of God as set by Pope Francis in 2019. Pope Francis set this because he wants us to understand the importance of the Word of God in our lives.
From what I said about the readings, it should be clear that the Bible is important at Mass and I encourage you to read it at home.
The more we read it, the more we will realize how important it is for us as Catholics. Do you realize how many of the prayers we say at Mass are based on Bible verses? Do you realize how the way we celebrate Mass is shaped by what we find in the Bible?
When you get home and read your bulletin, you will find an insert I made showing how parts of the Mass come from the Bible. It is not a complete list and I’m not going to go through every one but I do want to go over some of it now. (see below for the bulletin insert.)
I hope this helps you realize how important the Bible is to us. I encourage you to read the Bible at home.
Now, I leave you with a question. I’ve tried to help you understand how important the Word of God in the Bible is to us. The question? How has the Word of God changed you?