{"id":1248,"date":"2013-12-08T09:49:03","date_gmt":"2013-12-08T14:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/?p=1248"},"modified":"2013-12-08T09:49:03","modified_gmt":"2013-12-08T14:49:03","slug":"homily-second-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/homily-second-sunday-in-ordinary-time-year-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Homily – Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A"},"content":{"rendered":"

2nd<\/sup> Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A<\/a>
\nIsaiah 11:1-10
\nRomans 15:4-9
\nMatthew 3:1-12
\nDecember 8, 2013<\/p>\n

Every time we celebrate Mass we listen to words from the Bible.\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n

Paul offers us an explanation when he writes to the Romans, \u201cWhatever was written previously was written for our instruction that by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope<\/b>.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

When we read scripture, we are reading stories of events in the past but not to simply as nice stories of history.\u00a0 The stories found in the Bible give us instruction about what it means to believe in God.\u00a0 The scriptures also tell us how God has always kept his promises to the people so that we can have hope<\/i> in God\u2019s promises for the future.<\/p>\n

One of the promises we read about in scripture is told by Isaiah in our first reading today.\u00a0 Isaiah tells what the coming Messiah would be like with the spirit of the Lord upon him with gifts of knowledge, courage, and strength to name a few.\u00a0 Jesus clearly is the fulfillment of this.<\/p>\n

But when we talk about God fulfilling his promises, there is a second part to this reading that doesn\u2019t seem to have been fulfilled in Jesus.\u00a0 Isaiah speaks of how the wolf will lie with the lamb and the baby shall play by the cobra\u2019s den<\/i><\/p>\n

This would seem impossible and history would say it hasn\u2019t happened.\u00a0 Has God let us down?<\/p>\n

No.\u00a0 Jesus came to offer all this to us but not all have accepted it.\u00a0 Jesus came to transform the world but not all have accepted the transformation.<\/p>\n

Have we?\u00a0 Have we become Christian?<\/p>\n

It begins with Baptism.\u00a0 For John baptism was for the forgiveness of sins.\u00a0 John tells us that Jesus\u2019 baptism will be so much powerful than his.\u00a0 Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire.<\/i><\/p>\n

With the baptism of the Holy Spirit we receive the gifts of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, courage, counsel, and fear of the Lord.\u00a0 What do we do with these gifts?\u00a0 Do we allow ourselves to be transformed by them?<\/p>\n

As we think about the Second Coming of Jesus, we must ask ourselves are we ready?<\/p>\n

Soon we will celebrate the first coming of Jesus at Christmas.\u00a0 People will spend a lot of time preparing ranging from shopping to cooking to cleaning and decorating at home.<\/p>\n

How much time will you spend getting your house ready for the guests you will have?<\/p>\n

There is one guest who must never be forgotten, Jesus!<\/i>\u00a0 However, Jesus isn\u2019t interested in how clean our homes are or how they are decorated.\u00a0 Jesus wants to come into our lives spiritually.<\/p>\n

You work to get your house ready for others.\u00a0 What are you doing to get your heart ready for Jesus to come as your guest?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Isaiah 11:1-10 Romans 15:4-9 Matthew 3:1-12 December 8, 2013 Every time we celebrate Mass we listen to words from the Bible.\u00a0 Why? Paul offers us an explanation when he writes to the Romans, \u201cWhatever was written previously was written for our instruction that by endurance and by the …<\/p>\n

Continue reading ‘Homily – Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A’ »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMTPk-k8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1249,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions\/1249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.renewaloffaith.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}