Monday of the Twenty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

During the weekdays of Ordinary time, we read successively from the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke. We read most of each of these gospels, but parts are left out. Today, on Monday of the 22^nd week in Ordinary Time, we begin the Gospel of Luke. We actually begin with Luke 4:16-30. In this particular passage, Jesus returns to his hometown, Nazareth, and goes into the synagogue on the Sabbath, reads a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, and teaches on it. This passage marks the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in the Gospel of Luke, and so we can consider it to set the theme for Jesus’ ministry as Luke presents it.

The passage from Isaiah as Luke presents it (it is actually two separate passages of Isaiah), is as follows: 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. His teaching is brief and to the point: Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.

Even though he spoke this nearly 2,000 years ago, we should not see this statement as something from the past. Rather, because it is Jesus who speaks, this passage is fulfilled for us today as we hear it. And though we can think of others who are poorer than us, who are blind, who are captive and oppressed more than us, we should first see ourselves as the poor, the blind, the captive and oppressed whom Jesus has come to deliver. It is only when we ourselves are delivered by Jesus that we can do something for those others who are also poor, blind, captive, and oppressed.

Reflection by Fr. Aquinas Keusenkothen, OSB