POPE FRANCIS’ REFLECTION ON THE 2ND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME YEAR B
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Angelus, 14 January 2024
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Dear brothers and sisters, happy Sunday!
Today the Gospel presents Jesus’ encounter with the first disciples (cf. Jn 1:35-42). This scene invites us to remember our first encounter with Jesus. Each one of us has had the first encounter with Jesus, as a child, as an adolescent, as a young person, as an adult… When did I encounter Jesus for the first time? Try to remember this a bit. And after this thought, this memory, to renew the joy of following Him and to ask ourselves – following Jesus means being a disciple of Jesus – what does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? According to today’s Gospel we can take three words: to seek Jesus, to stay with Jesus, and to proclaim Jesus. To seek, to stay, to proclaim.
First of all, to seek. Two disciples, thanks to the Baptist’s witness, start to follow Jesus; He “saw them following, and said to them, ‘What do you seek?’” (v. 38). They are the first words Jesus addresses to them: first of all, He invites them to look within, to ask themselves about the desires they carry in their heart. “What are you seeking?”. The Lord does not want to make proselytes, He does not want to gain superficial followers; the Lord wants people who question themselves and let themselves be challenged by His Word. Therefore, to be disciples of Jesus, it is necessary first of all to seek Him, it is necessary to seek Him, then to have an open, searching heart, not a satiated or complacent heart.
What were the first disciples seeking through the second verb: to stay? They were not seeking news or information about God, or signs or miracles, but they wished to meet Jesus, to meet the Messiah, to talk with Him, to stay with Him, to listen to Him. What is the first question they ask? “Where are you staying?” (v. 38). And Christ invites them to stay with Him: “Come and see” (v. 39). To stay with Him, to remain with Him: this is the most important thing for the disciple of the Lord. In short, faith is not a theory, no; it is an encounter – it is an encounter. It is going to see where the Lord stays, and dwelling with Him. Encountering the Lord and staying with Him.
To seek, to stay, and finally, to proclaim. The disciples sought Jesus, then they went with Him and stayed the entire evening with Him. And now, to proclaim. Then, they return and they proclaim. To seek, to stay, to proclaim. Do I seek Jesus? Do I stay with Jesus? Do I have the courage to proclaim Jesus? The disciples’ first encounter with Jesus was such a powerful experience that the two disciples always remembered the time: “it was about the tenth hour” (v. 39). This lets us see the power of that encounter. And their hearts were so full of joy that straight away they felt the need to communicate the gift they had received. Indeed, one of the two, Andrew, hastens to share it with his brother.
Brothers and sisters, let us too recall today our first encounter with the Lord. Each one of us has had the first encounter, either within the family or outside… When did I encounter the Lord? When did the Lord touch my heart? And let us ask ourselves: are we still disciples, enamoured of the Lord, do we seek the Lord, or do we settle into a faith made up of habits? Do we stay with Him in prayer, do we know how to stay in silence with Him? Do I know how to stay in prayer with the Lord, to stay in silence with Him? And then, do we feel the desire to share, to proclaim this beauty of the encounter with the Lord?
May Mary Most Holy, first disciple of Jesus, give us the desire to seek Him, the desire to stay with Him, and the desire to proclaim Him.
Source and copyright https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2024/documents/20240114-angelus.html
EMPHASIS MINE
Angelus, 17 January 2021
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Buongiorno!
The Gospel for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (see Jn 1:35-42) presents the meeting between Jesus and His first disciples. The scene unfolds along the Jordan River the day after Jesus’s baptism. It is John the Baptist himself who points out the Messiah to the two with these words: “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (v. 36). And those two, trusting the Baptist’s testimony, follow Jesus. He realizes this and asks: “What are you looking for?”, and they ask Him: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” (v. 38).
Jesus does not respond: “I live in Capernaum, or in Nazareth”, but says: “Come and you will see” (v. 39). Not a calling card, but an invitation for an encounter. The two follow Him and remained that afternoon with Him. It is not difficult to imagine them seated asking Him questions and above all listening to Him, feeling their hearts enflamed ever more while the Master speaks. They sense the beauty of the words that respond to their greatest hope. And all of a sudden they discover that, even though it is evening, in their hearts, that light that only God can give was exploding within them. One thing that catches our attention: sixty years later, or maybe more, one of them would write in his Gospel: “it was about four in the afternoon” – he wrote the time. And this is one thing that makes us think: every authentic encounter with Jesus remains alive in the memory, it is never forgotten. You forget many encounters, but a true encounter with Jesus remains forever. And many years later, those two even remembered the time, they had not forgotten that encounter that was so happy, so complete, that it changed their lives. Then, when they leave from that meeting and return to their brothers, that joy, that light overflows from their hearts like a raging river. One of the two, Andrew, says to his brother, Simon – whom Jesus will call Peter when He will meet him – “We have found the Messiah” (v. 41). They left sure that Jesus was the Messiah, certain.
Let us pause a moment on this experience of meeting Christ who calls us to remain with Him. Each one of God’s calls is an initiative of His love. He is the one who always takes the initiative. He calls you. God calls to life, He calls to faith, and He calls to a particular state in life: “I want you here”. God’s first call is to life, through which He makes us persons; it is an individual call because God does not make things in series. Then God calls us to faith and to become part of His family as children of God. Lastly, God calls us to a particular state in life: to give of ourselves on the path of matrimony, or that of the priesthood or the consecrated life. They are different ways of realizing God’s design that He has for each one of us that is always a design of love. But God calls always. And the greatest joy for every believer is to respond to that call, offering one’s entire being to the service of God and the brothers and sisters.
Brothers and sisters, before the Lord’s call, which reaches us in a thousand ways – through others, happy or sad events – our attitude at times might be rejection. No… “I am afraid”… Rejection because it seems to be in contrast to our aspirations; and even fear because we believe it is too demanding and uncomfortable: “Oh no, I will never be able to do it, better not to, a calmer life is better… God over there, me here”. But God’s call is always love: we need to try to discover the love behind each call, and it should be responded to only with love. This is the language: the response to a call that comes out of love, only love. At the beginning there is an encounter, or rather, there is the encounter with Jesus who speaks to us of His Father, He makes His love known to us. And then the spontaneous desire will arise even in us to communicate it to the people that we love: “I met Love”, “I met the Messiah”, “I met Jesus”, “I found the meaning of my life”. In a word: “I found God”.
May the Virgin Mary help us make of our lives a hymn of praise to God in response to His call and in the humble and joyful fulfillment of His will.
But let us remember this: there was a moment for each one of us, in his or her life, in which God made Himself present more strongly, with a call. Let us remember that. Let us go back to that moment so that the memory of that moment might always renew that encounter with Jesus for us.
© Copyright – Libreria Editrice Vaticana
SOURCE: http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2021/documents/papa-francesco_angelus_20210117.html
EMPHASIS MINE.
ANGELUS ADDRESS
14 January 2018
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!
As in the Feast of the Epiphany and in that of the Baptism of Jesus, so too today’s Gospel passage (cf. Jn 1:35-42) proposes the theme of the manifestation of the Lord. This time it is John the Baptist who points Him out to his disciples as “the Lamb of God” (v. 36), thus inviting them to follow Him. And thus it is for us: the One whom we have contemplated in the Mystery of Christmas, we are now called to follow in daily life. Therefore, today’s Gospel passage introduces us perfectly into Ordinary Liturgical Time, a time that helps to invigorate and affirm our journey of faith in ordinary life, in a dynamic that moves between epiphany and sequela, between manifestation and vocation.
The Gospel narrative [2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time year B] indicates the essential characteristics of the journey of faith. There is a journey of faith, and this is the journey of the disciples of all times, ours too, beginning with the question that Jesus asks the two who, urged by the Baptist, set out to follow Him: “What do you seek?” (v. 38). It is the same question that the Risen One asks Mary Magdalene on Easter morning: “Woman, whom do you seek?” (cf. Jn 20:15). Each of us, as a human being, is seeking: seeking happiness, seeking love, a good and full life. God the Father has given us all this in his Son Jesus.
In this search, the role of a true witness — of a person who first made the journey and encountered the Lord — is fundamental. In the Gospel, John the Baptist is this witness. For this reason he is able to direct the disciples toward Jesus, who engages them in a new experience, saying: “Come and see” (Jn 1:39). And those two [disciples] will never forget the beauty of that encounter, to the extent that the Evangelist even notes the time of it: “It was about the tenth hour” (ibid.). Only a personal encounter with Jesus engenders a journey of faith and of discipleship. We will be able to experience many things, to accomplish many things, to establish relationships with many people, but only the appointment with Jesus, at that hour that God knows, can give full meaning to our life and render our plans and our initiatives fruitful.
It is not enough to build an image of God based on the words that are heard; one must go in search of the divine Master and go to where he lives. The two disciples ask Jesus, “where are you staying?” (v. 38). This question has a powerful spiritual meaning: it expresses the wish to know where the Lord lives, so as to abide with him. The life of faith consists in the wish to abide in the Lord, and thus in a continuing search for the place where he lives. This means that we are called to surpass a methodical and predictable religiosity, rekindling the encounter with Jesus in prayer, in meditating on the Word of God and in practicing the Sacraments, in order to abide with him and bear fruit thanks to him, to his help, to his grace.
Seeking Jesus, encountering Jesus, following Jesus: this is the journey. Seeking Jesus, encountering Jesus, following Jesus.
May the Virgin Mary support us in this prospect of following Jesus, of going to abide where he lives, in order to listen to his Word of life, to adhere to him who takes away the sin of the world, to recover in him hope and spiritual impulse.
SOURCE: http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2018/documents/papa-francesco_angelus_20180114.html
EMPHASIS MINE.
ANGELUS ADDRESS
25 January 2015
Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning,
The Gospel today presents to us the beginning of Jesus’ preaching ministry in Galilee. St Mark stresses that Jesus began to preach “after John [the Baptist] was arrested” (1:14). Precisely at the moment in which the prophetic voice of the Baptist, who proclaimed the coming of the Kingdom of God, was silenced by Herod, Jesus begins to travel the roads of his land to bring to all, especially the poor, “the gospel of God” (cf. ibid.). The proclamation of Jesus is like that of John, with the essential difference that Jesus no longer points to another who must come: Jesus is Himself the fulfilment of those promises; He Himself is the “good news” to believe in, to receive and to communicate to all men and women of every time that they too may entrust their life to Him. Jesus Christ in his person is the Word living and working in history: whoever hears and follows Him may enter the Kingdom of God.
Jesus is the fulfilment of divine promises for He is the One who gives to man the Holy Spirit, the “living water” that quenches our restless heart, thirsting for life, love, freedom and peace: thirsting for God. How often do we feel, or have we felt that thirst in our hearts! He Himself revealed it to the Samaritan woman, whom he met at Jacob’s well to whom he says: “Give me a drink” (Jn 4:7). These very words of Christ, addressed to the Samaritan, have constituted the theme of this year’s Week of Prayer for Christian Unity which is concluding today. This evening, with the faithful of the Diocese of Rome and with the Representatives of different Churches and ecclesial communities, we will gather together in the Basilica of St Paul Outside-the-Walls to pray intensely that the Lord may strengthen our commitment to bring about the full unity of all Christians. That Christians remain divided is a very bad thing! Jesus wants us to be united: one body. Our sins, history, have divided us and that is why we must pray that the same Holy Spirit unite us anew.
God, in becoming man, made our thirst his own, a thirst not only for water itself, but especially for a full life, a life free from the slavery of evil and death. At the same time by his Incarnation God placed his own thirst — because God too thirsts — in the heart of a man: Jesus of Nazareth. God thirsts for us, for our hearts, for our love, and placed this thirst in the heart of Jesus. Therefore, human and divine thirst meet in Christ’s heart. And His disciples’ desire for unity is part of this thirst. We find it expressed in the prayer raised to the Father before the Passion: “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). That is what Jesus wanted: the unity of all! The devil — we know — is the father of division, the one who always divides, always makes war, does so much evil.
May Jesus’ thirst become ever more our own thirst! Let us continue, therefore to pray and commit ourselves to the full unity of the disciples of Christ, in the certainty that He Himself is at our side and sustains us by the power of his Spirit so that we may bring this goal closer. And let us entrust this our prayer to the motherly intercession of the Virgin Mary, Mother of Christ and Mother of the Church, that she may unite us all like a good mother.
SOURCE: http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/angelus/2015/documents/papa-francesco_angelus_20150125.html
EMPHASIS MINE.
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