Saint Gertrude Parish - Lasne
January 26, 2025
On this page you will find:
The readings for Mass, the Mass leaflet with the choice of hymns
A sample universal prayer available for download , in PDF and editable Word formats.
A meditation on the Sunday Gospel , a spiritual text and a commentary by Marie-Noëlle Thabut
3rd Sunday
Ordinary Time
Sunday of the Word
“Today this passage of Scripture is fulfilled”
that you just heard
Luke 4:21
Readings from the Mass
Mass leaflet
Universal Prayer
Lectio Divina
Consult this page for a prayerful preparation for the liturgy and then read the meditations below.
Meditation
In today's Gospel, the evangelist Luke, before presenting Jesus' programmatic discourse in Nazareth, briefly summarizes his evangelizing activity. This is an activity he carries out with the power of the Holy Spirit: his word is original because it reveals the meaning of the Scriptures; it is an authoritative word because it commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey (cf. Mk 1:27). Jesus is different from the teachers of his time: for example, he did not open a school for the study of the Law, but went about preaching and teaching everywhere: in synagogues, in the streets, in homes, always on the move! Jesus is also different from John the Baptist, who proclaims God's imminent judgment, while Jesus announces his forgiveness as a Father.
Now, let us imagine that we too enter the synagogue in Nazareth, the village where Jesus grew up until he was about thirty years old. What takes place there is an important event, one that defines Jesus' mission. He stands up to read from Scripture. He unrolls the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and chooses the passage where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” (Luke 4:18). Then, after a moment of silence filled with expectation from everyone, he says, to everyone's astonishment: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (v. 21).
Evangelizing the poor: this is Jesus' mission, according to what He says; it is also the mission of the Church, and of every baptized person in the Church. To be a Christian and to be a missionary are one and the same. Proclaiming the Gospel, through words and even more so through life, is the primary purpose of the Christian community and of each of its members. Here we see that Jesus addresses the Good News to everyone, without excluding anyone, and even giving special attention to those furthest away, the suffering and the sick, the outcasts of society.
Let us ask ourselves: what does it mean to evangelize the poor? It means, above all, drawing near to them; it means having the joy of serving them, of freeing them from their oppression, and all this in the name and with the Spirit of Christ, because He is the Gospel of God, He is the mercy of God, He is the liberation of God; He is the one who became poor to enrich us with His poverty. The text of Isaiah, reinforced by small adaptations introduced by Jesus, indicates that the messianic proclamation of the Kingdom of God come among us is addressed primarily to the excluded, the prisoners, the oppressed.
In Jesus' time, these people were probably not at the center of the faith community. We can ask ourselves: today, in our parish communities, in associations, in movements, are we faithful to Christ's program? Is the evangelization of the poor, bringing them the Good News, the priority? Let us be clear: this is not simply about offering social assistance, and even less about political activity. It is about offering the power of God's Gospel, which converts hearts, heals wounds, and transforms human and social relationships according to the logic of love. Indeed, the poor are at the heart of the Gospel.
May the Virgin Mary, Mother of Evangelizers, help us to feel keenly the hunger and thirst for the Gospel that exists in the world, especially in the hearts and bodies of the poor. And may she obtain for each of us and for every Christian community the grace to bear concrete witness to the mercy, the great mercy that Christ has given us.
POPE FRANCIS
ANGELUS
Saint Peter's Square
Sunday, January 24, 2016
The Gospel for this Sunday
presented to children
(and to those who resemble them)
Interview with Bernadette Dumont
for Magnificat
(I highly recommend subscribing: here )
The Lord sent me to carry
Good News to the poor
to announce to the captives their release.
◗ When Jesus returns to Galilee, where does he come from?
He is returning from Judea, the Roman province whose capital is Jerusalem, in southern Palestine. Between Nazareth and the probable place where Jesus' baptism took place, there are a little over 100 kilometers, or 4 days of walking.
◗ Who was Saint Luke, the author of the 3rd Gospel, an Apostle of Jesus?
No, Luke was not of the same generation as the Apostles; he did not know Jesus. As he himself says, he wrote his Gospel after the other three (those of Mark, Matthew, and John) had been published. After a long investigation involving the last living witnesses of Jesus' life, he finished writing his Gospel around the year 80, that is, about fifty years after Jesus' resurrection.
◗ We don't have any other information about him?
Ancient traditions tell us that he was a young physician of pagan origin who became a disciple of Saint Paul. This experience would have allowed him to also write, as a privileged witness, the Book of Acts.
◗ And Theophilus, to whom the Gospel of Saint Luke is addressed, who was he?
In Greek, Theophilus means "friend of God." It is believed that by dedicating his Gospel to Theophilus, Saint Luke intended to dedicate it to all "friends of God" in search of the truth. To all those who, like us today, thirst to know better the only Good News that truly matters: the Gospel proclaimed by Jesus.
◗ What good news?
This is precisely the passage from the Book of Isaiah that Jesus read in the synagogue of Nazareth, attesting that this prophecy was fulfilled in him. God keeps his promises. In Jesus, he comes to definitively liberate us from the sin that makes us miserable, captive, and blind. All of this will be accomplished through the words and deeds of Jesus, inseparable from his very person: he is the awaited Messiah, the Good News sent to humanity.
◗ What should our state of mind be when we hear Jesus himself proclaim the fulfillment in him of all Holy Scripture?
A great feeling of joy, gratitude, and love for God, our Father, for the gift He has given us of His beloved Son. A feeling we express at Mass by singing the fourth verse of the psalm:
Accept the words of my mouth, the murmur of my heart; let them come before you, Lord, my rock, my defender!
Bernadette Dumont is a mother and grandmother, catechist and author of children's books.
Better understanding the Gospel
with Marie-Noëlle Thabut
Better understanding the Gospel
with Marie-Noëlle Thabut
IN THE SYNAGOGUE OF NAZARETH...
We know very little about how the Gospels were written, and especially their date: but from what we have just read, we can deduce a few clues. There was certainly oral preaching before the Gospels were written down, since Luke tells Theophilus that he wants to allow him to test "the certainty of the things which he has heard." Luke also acknowledges that he was not an eyewitness to the events; he could only have gathered information from eyewitnesses, which implies that they were still alive when he wrote. We can therefore assume that the preaching of the Resurrection of Christ began as early as Pentecost and that Luke's Gospel was written down later, but before the death of the last eyewitnesses, which gives a cutoff date of around 80-90 AD.
The story we read today takes place after Jesus' baptism and the account of his temptations in the desert. Apparently, everything is going well for the new preacher; I remind you of Luke's words: "When Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, his fame spread throughout the whole region. He taught in the Jewish synagogues, and everyone praised him." Everything seemed to be going well that morning: Jesus is a good Jew like any other: he has just returned from a journey, and like any good Jew, on Saturday morning, he goes to the service at the synagogue.
It was no surprise that he was entrusted with a reading, since every believer has the right to read the Scriptures. The service at the synagogue proceeded quite normally... until Jesus read the day's reading, which happened to be the well-known text from the prophet Isaiah. And in the profound, fervent silence that followed, he calmly declared something enormous: "Today this passage of Scripture, which you have just heard, is fulfilled." There was certainly a moment of silence, while everyone grasped what he meant. Everyone in the synagogue fully expected Jesus to make a comment, as was the custom, but not this one!
JESUS REVEALS HIS IDENTITY
We struggle to imagine the audacity of this seemingly calm statement by Jesus; for all his contemporaries, this venerable text from the prophet Isaiah concerned the Messiah. Only the King-Messiah, when he came, could presume to say: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me…” For, from the very beginning of the monarchy, the ritual of the coronation of kings included a rite of anointing with oil. This anointing was the sign that God himself constantly inspired the king so that he would be able to fulfill his mission of saving the people. The king was then said to be “mashiah,” a Hebrew word that simply means “anointed with oil.” It is this word “mashiah” that is translated as “messiah” in English and “Christos” in Greek. In Jesus' time, there was no longer a king on the throne of Jerusalem, but people were waiting for God to finally send the ideal king who would bring freedom, justice, and peace to his people. In particular, in the land of Israel, then occupied by the Romans, people were waiting for the one who would deliver them from Roman occupation.
Clearly, Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter's son, could not claim to be the King-Messiah everyone was expecting. Let's be frank, Jesus never ceased to amaze his contemporaries: he was indeed the Messiah they were waiting for, but so different from what they had anticipated! Luke, to help his readers, took great care from the very beginning of his book to tell them that he had thoroughly researched everything from the beginning; and, moreover, he emphasized in the introduction to this passage that Jesus was accompanied by the power of the Spirit, which was indeed the characteristic of the Messiah. But it is Luke, the Christian, who affirms this; the inhabitants of Nazareth, for their part, did not know that, in reality, the Spirit of the Lord rested upon Jesus.
One final remark on this Gospel: the quotation from Isaiah that Jesus adopts as his own sounds like a true manifesto: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me… He has sent me to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This is the work of the Spirit through those he has consecrated. We who sometimes seek criteria for discernment are given them here; for what is said of Christ is valid for all of us who have been confirmed, to the best of our humble extent, of course.