January 23, 2022 – Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Click here for the readings (https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012322.cfm)

The Lord Be with you. And with your spirit. (LBWU). Junimkeso yorobonkwa hamke. Tohan sajee yongkwa hamke. Sumainyo ang Panginoon…at sumaiyo rin. Ang Ginoo maanaa kaninyo…maanaa usab kanimo. Ang Ginoo Yara sa Inyo… kag yara man sa imo.

How are you today? Kamusta kayo? Jal Jinezoyo? With this question, easy for us to say in response: “I’m okay, I’m fine, I’m good.” However, are we not supposed to be more than just feel okay, fine, and good, but be happy, glad, thankful, and lucky today? Why? Simply because of the good news that the Lord is with you and be with us.

Our first reading today calls us “not to be sad and not to weep, but rejoice with the Lord” – because our Joy with Lord must be our Strength. Yes, we sometimes become so familiar with that message that it becomes so ordinary for us that we don’t anymore give value to its importance. We should feel lucky and blessed, as well as be happy, joyful, and thankful because of the good news that the Lord is and be with you and us. Rejoice then for the Lord is with you.

LBWU. Do you believe in the good news that the LBWU? Normally it is difficult for us to believe in the good news that the Lord is with us. Easier for us to accept that Maybe or Perhaps the Lord is with me, him, them, or us, but we at times doubt and ask: how can this be? How can the Lord be with me and us when we experience the world otherwise, especially during these pandemic times? The same thing happened with Jesus in our gospel today. When he proclaimed to his townsfolk the message that the Lord is with Him and upon them, people doubt, cannot accept, and believe in the message, asking same doubt: How can this be?

However, ever since before and until now, Jesus as Immanuel always proclaim to us and the world the same message: God is with US. Believe it or not, but the message and reality is still the same: Immanuel, He, the God-with-us, is with Us. Now the question is: Are we with Him?

LBWU – And also with you. Notice Now our response has more conviction than before. This is because we are now aware of the implications and consequences of this message. If the Lord is with us, what does it mean? As our 2^nd reading reminds us that we are part of one body, LBWU means that He is with me and I am with Him – He is part of me, and I am part of Him. In other words, if He is with me, I should and have to be responsible for Him as much as He has been responsible for me and us. (vice-versa)

For the past three Sundays now after Christmas we have been reflecting about the Mystery of the Light or the Luminous Mystery of the Holy Rosary. Here in our gospel today, we recognize the Public ministry of Jesus where it expresses how Jesus makes known the Gospel to us that our God the Father reveals Himself to us that through His son Jesus, God-is-with-us. In the Lord’s baptism, Jesus affirms and reminds us that He is God’s beloved son, as well as that through our faith in Him, We, you and I, are also God’s beloved children. With Jesus, God’s beloved child is our very identity & dignity before God. (Ako, ikaw, tayo Anak ng Dios). In the Wedding in Cana, Jesus discloses to us that God continues to bless and perform miracles in the world by the way of the Sacrament of Christian marriage and family life with the Sto. Nino, Holy Child. And today, Jesus proclaims to ever-present Good News that God, through the Lord Jesus, is and be with Us.

LBWU – the Lord Be With You…

May we always Rejoice, Believe and Be responsible now for the Good News that God is with Us, as proclaimed and shared to us by our Lord Jesus Christ whenever & whatever life may be now & forever. Amen.