what time is it?

Homily

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time B

St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at the University of Kansas

24 January 2021

AMDG +JMJ +m

What time is it?  The time is now.  That's always true.  It's true literally, of course. What time is it now?  it's now now.  Yet it's just as true in the spiritual and moral sense.  When is the time of repentance and conversion?  Of course it's not limited to Advent or Lent.  The time is now.

The time we are in right now is ordinary.  Yet ordinary is not boring, unless I make it so. Quite the opposite, it's the best time to put our lives in order.  It's about making resolutions and forming habits in response to the Gospel that substantially change our lives.  Ordinary time is about increasing our freedom to live beautifully and differently.  It's true that in Ordinary time we do not highlight any particular piece of the Christian mystery.  Yet Pope Francis declared this 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time as Word of God Sunday.  It's an urgent call to take a new journey through the Good News, and to translate that encounter into doing the will of God.

This last week, for example, was not ordinary!  A practicing Catholic was inaugurated as President of the United States, for only the second time in history.  History is always being made, yet it always comes with the urgency and challenge of the moment.   President Biden stands publicly athwart of essential, fundamental, life-giving moral teaching of his own Church, regarding the sanctity of life, the definition of marriage and the meaning of sexuality.  For his own good, and the good of all, the Church cannot and will not stop seeking his conversion on these issues.  Guess what?  There's nothing new here.  We live in urgent, dramatic times. We always have, and we always will!  So we pray for, support and challenge each other to get better.  Now is the time, an urgent time for conversion and repentance.

Jonah was sent to challenge the morality of the secular society of his enemies.  He hated it.  He tried to excuse, avoid, escape, complain and procrastinate in the mission that came with the gift of his life.  His is like me.  Yet in the word of God, the time is always now!  The apostles instead fulfilled the call of St. Paul in our 2nd reading to be completely free and detached.  They heard the word of God in the voice of Jesus, and put that word into practice.

My job, and yours if you choose to accept it, is to receive the mission that comes along with the gift of your life.  You have a problem to solve.  You have a life to touch.  You have a path of penance and conversion to walk.  So do I. Now is the urgent time for me to put the word of God into practice.  Now is the time for me to set aside obsessions and excuses, and to order my days aright.

The time is now.