Daily Gospel Reflection
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January 27, 2019
Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events
that have been fulfilled among us,
just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning
and ministers of the word have handed them down to us,
I too have decided,
after investigating everything accurately anew,
to write it down in an orderly sequence for you,
most excellent Theophilus,
so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings
you have received.
Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit,
and news of him spread throughout the whole region.
He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus returns from the temptation in the desert to embark upon his ministry of teaching and healing. Jesus stands before his hometown congregation and says, “It’s me; I’m the one you’ve been waiting for.” Surely, that dramatic, triumphant moment would ignite strong, enduring faith in the hearts of Jesus’ fellow townsfolk!
But we need only read a few more lines to see that’s not the case. Jesus’ teachings quickly turn his townspeople against him, and they drive him out of town intending to kill him. The people who knew him best reject him.
It’s a little depressing. If Jesus’ contemporaries—his neighbors and friends who knew him his whole life, who heard him speak, who witnessed his miracles first-hand—couldn’t accept him, then what chance do we have, living nearly two millennia after he walked the Earth?
But upon further reflection, I realize this Gospel is hopeful rather than depressing. One of the lessons of this reading for me is that the path to faithful Christian discipleship is available to us all, no matter how far removed from the historical Jesus we are. To achieve it, we dig into the scriptures, like the “friend of God,” Theophilus, named in Luke’s prologue.
We endeavor to live out Jesus’ proclamations in the synagogue: to serve the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed we encounter throughout our daily lives. In-person access to Jesus didn’t keep the people of Nazareth from missing the Messiah. But we all have the chance—every day, for all time—to come to know Jesus by living out his teachings.
Prayer
Jesus, help us always to remember that you are Lord and Savior. You are the fulfillment of history’s yearning. At the close of this day, we pray that we, too, can “bring good news to the poor.” Guide us to walk with those in pain. And bring us the insight to let go of anything that keeps us captive.
Saint of the Day
St. Angela Merici was a laywoman in fifteenth-century Italy who revolutionized the education of women as well as religious life.
She was born in 1474, the younger of two girls. By the time Angela was 15, the sisters were orphaned and sent to live with an uncle. Angela was distraught when her older sister died suddenly without receiving a final anointing. This event sent Angela to prayer—she joined a group of laypeople who lived in the spirituality of St. Francis, and she prayed fervently for the soul of her sister. She eventually received a vision in which she saw her sister celebrating in heaven.
Angela was admired for her beauty, and people found her hair especially pretty. To divert attention from herself, Angela covered her hair in ashes.
When she was 20, her uncle died, and she returned to her family home. She saw a great need for Christian education for girls—at the time women were educated only if they were rich or if they became religious sisters. Angela, herself, had only received an education by her own hard work.
At the time, girls fell through cracks in the educational system because women were not allowed to be teachers. Unmarried women could not do their own work outside of the house, and nuns lived in cloisters and could not leave the convent.
In response, Angela turned her house into a school to teach girls in her city of Brescia. Other young women joined her there; she formed these teachers into a community dedicated to the education of young women, and their work began to spread. “You have a greater need to serve the poor than they have of your service,” she told her companions.
In 1524, she took a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On the way, she stopped in Crete and was suddenly struck blind. She continued on the pilgrimage, visiting all the sites as though she could see. When she was returning home, she stopped in Crete again, and her sight was restored while she was praying in front of a crucifix. For this reason, she is a patron saint of sick people and those who are disabled.
When the pope heard of the good work she was doing, he invited her to move to Rome. Angela saw this opportunity as a temptation to pride and decided to remain in Brescia with the community she had formed.
In 1534, she chose 12 of the women who shared her work and established a formal religious community, known as the Company of St. Ursula (now known as the Ursulines, or the Angelines). These sisters dedicated their lives to serving God and others but were not to remove themselves from the world, as cloistered orders do. The sisters would live celibate lives in their own homes.
When she died in 1540, there were 24 different communities of Ursuline sisters, and today these sisters lead educational institutions throughout the world. They were the first religious sisters to land in Canada in 1639. Her relics rest in the reliquary chapel in the Basilica on campus, and her image appears in these stained glass windows in the Basilica.
St. Angela Merici, teacher of young women and patron saint of those who are disabled—pray for us!