Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
“The Lord said to me: you are my servant, Israel, through whom I show my glory.”
The revelation made to ancient Israel and fulfilled in Jesus, is not about destiny but glory! God’s People were taught that we are not guided by empty dreams, or the stars or other impersonal forces. But each of us does have a mission.
In the ancient revelation made to Israel, we hear of the mysterious figure of “The Servant.” Sometimes it is a single man and other times it is the People, Israel. Israel was given a mission, a mission to show the world that history moves, not, as the ancients thought, in circles, but in a line, toward a goal. God began to walk with Abraham and his ancestors in order to show them this goal. When the Apostles came along, after Jesus had died and rose and went to heaven, they saw that Jesus was this Servant. God the Father chose him to show the goal of the world its glory in God. “You are my servant, Israel, through whom I show my glory.”
We figure into this glory, not “destiny” but mission! We are guided not by impersonal forces but by Divine Providence, God who is not some supreme puppeteer. God in his supreme guidance – a matchless care for all that is.
Yet it is much, much more! The “glory” that God wishes to show the world, through each one of us, is the “gift-love” that God shows in Christ. We have “need-love.” God comes among us to show us “gift-love.” This kind of “glory” our society does not appreciate. It teaches its children, not to respond to a call but to use their talents to become what they think they want to become. In other words, they have to discover their own destiny.
Jesus comes to offer us both the way and the power of mission. The mission is the gift-love. In the space and time given to each of us, something of eternity is at work. Each unique person, a speck in the cosmos, is offered a part in the work of God’s transforming love. From each small point, each child of God, transforming love is meant to move out-wards.
St. John Henry Newman expressed it in these words:
“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next…. I have a part in a great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling. Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away…. He knows what He is about.”
Reflection by Fr. Xavier Nacke, OSB
Posted in Articles for Ordinary Time, Daily Reflections