Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

This week we take a tour through St. Paul’s powerful first letter to the Corinthians. In it, he calls the Corinthians to clean up their act and return to the Gospel. He tells them that he didn’t come to them with “sublimity” or high and mighty words. He came to them with the truth of the Gospel. I do believe that he was calling the Corinthians to look past sophistry and get to the substance of what really matters. He wanted them to consider what really matters most; coming to know, love, and accept Jesus as God. We can see this in the irony of the Gospel where Jesus comes to His hometown of Nazareth. He enters the synagogue and reads from the prophet Isaiah. His own people do not accept Him as Messiah. He fulfills all that the Jewish people, and also the world, had been quietly waiting for, the coming of the Messiah, the Son of God.

He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb, ‘Physician, cure yourself…” Luke 4:23. Jesus called the people of Nazareth to taste their own medicine — basically to practice what they preach. St. Paul called the Corinthians to do the same, to return to an authentic following of the Gospel and convert from the sins they were committing. Let us not make the mistake of the people of Nazareth or the people of Corinth. We need to be aware of “the grace of the present moment.” God comes to us every day. If we miss out on this grace, we become like a physician that can’t cure himself.

Reflection Question: Are you aware of the grace that surrounds you at every moment? One name for this is “the Sacrament of the Present Moment.” Consider adding a nightly Examen to your prayer life to help you to see God’s grace at work in your life.

Reflection by Br. Matthew Marie, OSB