Second Sunday of the Ordinary Time [A]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
January 19, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
John 1:29-34<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We begin the ordinary time of the liturgical year. In the Church, we\nhave three cycles of the liturgical year: A, B, and C. every year, we have a\ndifferent set of readings. In year A, the Gospel readings are mainly from the\nGospel of Matthew, meanwhile, year B is from Mark and year C is from Luke. The\nGospel of John does not have its separate year, but the readings from John are\nscattered through the years, especially in the Easter season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first reading is usually taken from the Old Testament and it is\nthematically related to the Gospel. While the second reading is coming from the\nletters of the apostles like St. Peter, St. John and the letter to the Hebrews,\nyet the majority of the second reading comes from letters of St. Paul. The\nsecond readings have their own sequence and it is not necessarily thematically\nrelated to the Gospel. The reason behind why we have this kind of liturgical\nsetting is that to help us, the regular mass-goers, to read the Scriptures\ntogether with the Church. If we are faithfully attending the mass every Sunday,\nor even every day, and attentive to the readings, we will have a good grasp of\nthe Scriptures and especially the life and works of Jesus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, not all the Scriptures are there in the Mass. If we go every\nday to participate in the Eucharist for three years, we only listen to around\n30 percent of the Bible. We still have 70 percent to complete the Bible! Thus,\nit is highly recommended that we take the initiative to read the Bible on our\nown. Three to four chapters a day, and hopefully, within a year, we are able to\nread the entire Bible cover to cover. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I guess one of the \u201cgreat sickness\u201d of Catholics nowadays is the\nignorance of the Scriptures. When I ask some Catholics whether they have the\nBible, they unanimously answer that they have a Bible, and in fact, they have a\ncollection of Bible coming from different countries. However, when I inquire\nwhether they read the Bible regularly, only a few would confidently reply that\nthey do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The task of reading the Bible is getting difficult in our time because\nyoung generations or the millennials and generation Z, despite their high\neducation, prefer to playing electronic gadgets rather than to read books, and\nprinted materials become an obsolete. Yes, it is easy now to install a Bible on\nour cellphone but to spend time to read it is another thing. With so many other\ncompeting applications in our handheld device, reading the Word of God is\neasily relegated to the sideline. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
St. Jerome reminds us that ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of\nChrist. Indeed, it is too easy to say \u201cI love Jesus\u201d, but in reality, we are\nignoring Him because we never read or attentively listen to the Scriptures. St.\nPaul in the beginning of his letter to the Corinthians reminds us that we are\ncalled to saints or holy. And holiness for Paul is nothing but living in\nChrist, but how we can live in Christ, if we do not know Christ, worse ignore\nhim? Reading a Bible on a daily basis can become a simple yet concrete act of\nloving Jesus, and in fact, the way to holiness as we become more and more like\nChrist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Valentinus Bayuhadi Ruseno, OP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Second Sunday of the Ordinary Time [A]
\nJanuary 19, 2020
\nJohn 1:29-34<\/p>\n
We begin the ordinary time of the liturgical year. In the Church, we have three cycles of the liturgical year: A, B, and C. every year, we have a different set of readings. In year A, the Gospel readings are mainly from the Gospel of Matthew, meanwhile, year B is from Mark and year C is from Luke. The Gospel of John does not have its separate year, but the readings from John are scattered through the years, especially in the Easter season. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[57,58],"class_list":["post-9136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-renungan","tag-english","tag-sunday-reflection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9136"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9137,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9136\/revisions\/9137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lubukhati.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}