Basilica of the National Shrine
2nd Sunday of Year B
The Cost of Discipleship
In his 2018 homily, Fr. Mullins discusses the concept of the cost of discipleship, as coined by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He reflects on the sacrifices made by Andrew, Peter, and the other apostles who followed Jesus, noting that they gave up their lives for him. Fr. Mullins emphasizes that the cost of discipleship is different for each person but is still significant. For us, the cost includes surrendering our sins, bad habits, and anything that separates us from Christ. We are called to leave behind anger, gossip, bitterness, and immorality. The reward for this sacrifice is the beauty of the kingdom of heaven and the consolation of being followers of Christ. Fr. Mullins highlights the importance of the sacraments and the presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, encouraging the congregation to come and see for themselves.
Homiletic Pastoral Review
2nd Sunday of Year B
Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – January 14. 2024
In his homily, Fr. Trummer highlights the theme of vocation and hearing the call of the Lord in the readings for Ordinary Time. He starts by referencing the Epiphany and emphasizes that Ordinary Time leads us through the life of Christ and helps us mature as his disciples. He focuses on the calling of the first disciples in the Gospel and the prophet Samuel’s response to God’s call in the first reading. Fr. Trummer emphasizes the importance of placing ourselves in God’s presence through practices like spending time before the Eucharist. He emphasizes the need for obedience and eagerness to serve, as demonstrated by Samuel’s response. Fr. Trummer also highlights the importance of persistence in prayer and trusting in the process. He notes that, like Samuel, if we spend time in the Lord’s presence, we will carry His presence in a powerful way and be able to effectively speak on His behalf. In the Gospel, he points out that just as Samuel needed advice from Eli, we also need the help of trusted people to follow the Lord. He discusses the interdependence and reliance on each other within the Body of Christ. Fr. Trummer concludes by inviting Jesus to help us hear His voice clearly and increase our desire for His presence and words, so that we can become instruments to bring others to Him.
Association of Catholic Priests
2nd Sunday of Year B
Opening Doors in Life
We can probably all think of people who opened doors for us in life. Perhaps at a crucial moment in our lives they pointed us in the right direction. They were an influence for good on us; maybe they shared with us some gift they possessed, or allowed us to benefit from an experience they had or some discovery they made. We appreciate these people because they had the freedom and the generosity to give something worthwhile away for the benefit of others, rather than keeping it to themselves.
Fr. Charles E. Irvin
2nd Sunday of Year B
Our Catholic Faith is one of the largest and most influential in the world and it’s membership is presently over one billion souls. It has built thousands of churches, hospitals, children’s homes, nursing homes, schools, and even universities. It has rites, rituals, ceremonies, and the holy Sacraments of Jesus Christ. It has theologies, philosophies, systems of ethics, moral codes and even a Code of Canon Law abound. It is vast; it is intricate; and it is complex. But it is built on one thing and one thing alone, namely a personal, warm, intimate, and loving friendship with Jesus Christ. From that flows all of Christianity’s hope, power, and vision of the truth about who we are.
Fr. Jim Chern
2nd Sunday of Year B
The Space Between
There used to be a television program named “The Biggest Loser” – which I believe just went off the air a couple of years ago. To be honest, I had never seen the show, but just from the commercials you can tell that it’s a reality show where a group of people chronicle their attempts to lose weight. Even more than that, the show was about how they changed their lives, themselves… It was their transformation from who “they are” to who “they will be.” Television reality shows love to present these in neat-compact hour long 22 episode seasons. But for the majority of us, we know that the journey is far less scripted, or completed in one season. Whether it’s weight loss or the other aspects of our lives.
Dominican Blackfriars
2nd Sunday of Year B
‘What do you seek?’ This is the question that he continues to pose to each of us. What do we want for ourselves, for our world, from our God? Is it wealth and material goods? Is it power and position? Is it the freedom to do just as we want? Or is it indeed ‘God’s mercy and yours?’ It is an open question to which we are free to answer as we choose.
Bishop Robert Barron
2nd Sunday of Year B
Fr. Joe Jagodensky, SDS
2nd Sunday of Year B
Second Sunday in Ordinary Catholic Time
Jesus turns to his newly stolen-from-John disciples and says, “What are you looking for?”
(They reply, “A strong 401K, with Roth IRA investment and deferred tax benefits while on missionary work, a per diem that includes a rental donkey with AM/FM radio, and a small 4-bedroom loft overlooking the sea of Galilee.)
Fr. George Smiga
2nd Sunday of Year B
The Call of Eli
The character of Eli reminds us that God may ask us to help someone understand their own calling. God may ask us to be an agent through whom another person recognizes God’s will. This could happen in our own family, when a family member is stuck, unable to make the decisions that will allow life to move forward. It could happen with a close friend who is hurt by a person or a situation and now is unable to live because he or she cannot find the path to forgiveness. It could happen in our workplace or in our school when we see someone overwhelmed by their responsibilities, fighting to keep their head above the water and wondering whether their life has a future. In any one of these circumstances and in many others, God may be asking us to give that person a little push in the right direction. God might be calling us to be an Eli and help someone else recognize God’s will.
Fr. Anthony Ekpunobi, C.M.
2nd Sunday of Year B
Msgr. Joseph Pellegrino
2nd Sunday of Year B
The Call to Be Church
We need to respond to the call of the Lord by first dedicating ourselves to knowing Him. We do this by having a strong prayer life and a consistent prayer life. We need to be serious about our morning and evening prayers. We need to search out new ways of growing closer to the Lord; perhaps in some of the spiritual reading available. We have two thousand years of the prayers of saints that we can reflect on. More than this, we have the Sacred Scriptures, the Bible, which are always new to each of us. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the Word of God, reaches out to each of us in unique ways.
Fr. Michael Chua
2nd Sunday of Year B
Fr. Tom Lynch
2nd Sunday of Year B
Clergy E-Notes
“…if the family is the sanctuary of life, the place where life is conceived and cared for, it is a horrendous contradiction when it becomes a place where life is rejected and destroyed. So great is the value of a human life, and so inalienable the right to life of an innocent child growing in the mother’s womb, that no alleged right to one’s own body can justify a decision to terminate that life, which is an end in itself and which can never be considered the “property” of another human being.”
— Pope Francis
Bishop Anthony B. Taylor
2nd Sunday of Year B
No Homily Available
2nd Sunday of Year B
God’s Call and our Response
God wants to associate humanity (men, women and children) with the announcement of the Kingdom. The Call of Samuel reminds us that every person has a vocation. This entails that God calls individuals and destines them to accomplish their own irreplaceable tasks.
2nd Sunday of Year B
Listening is Essential for any True and Meaningful Communication
In his 2018 homily, Fr. Hahn discusses the importance of communication, particularly listening, in the context of faith and human connection. He suggests that communication is a vital aspect of our humanity and our image of God, as God is referred to as an eternal communication of love among the Holy Trinity.
The role of listening in communication is highlighted through the stories of Samuel, who hears and responds to God’s call, resulting in a shift in his life trajectory, and Andrew’s interaction with Jesus. Both instances underscore the transformative power of attentive listening.
Fr. Phil Bloom
2nd Sunday of Year B
Chosen with Care
Bottom line: Like a great director, selecting exactly the right person for a part, God chooses you or me.
God continues to call people today – sometimes in very unlikely circumstances. At the beginning of the twentieth century, an Italian boy heard God’s call. He was an unlikely choice because his father was quite anti-Catholic. A member of the Italian Socialist Party, he constantly mocked the Church. His son, Albino, heard a Franciscan preacher and felt himself called to the priesthood. Albino’s dad was working in another city so – with great trepidation – he wrote him a letter. It took some time for the response. Trembling, Albino opened the letter. It contained a small piece of paper, on which his father wrote, “If that is what you wish, do it.” Eventually his dad was reconciled with the Church. Albino kept the note all his life – and he still had it in 1978, when as Bishop of Venice, he entered the papal conclave. Against everyone’s expectations, the Cardinals elected him. He became known as “the smiling pope,” Pope John Paul I. His papacy lasted only thirty-three days, but it made a deep impression.
Fr. Vincent Hawkswell
2nd Sunday of Year B
Looking for Homilies with Catechism Themes?
AND MORE
Fr. Tommy Lane
2nd Sunday of Year B
What are You Looking For?
The very first words of Jesus in John’s Gospel are his words which we heard him say today to Andrew and the other disciple, “What are you looking for?” or “What do you want?” which is another way of saying it. It is an invitation to us to look into our hearts and see what is going on in our hearts. The saints are those who wanted one thing in life, what God wanted. What do we most want in life? Is it to draw closer to Jesus? There is a saying about voting with our feet. If in any way we are not voting with our feet for God, so to speak, can we reflect on how to fix it? If you want a closer relationship with God, ask God for it. If you want to be closer to Jesus, ask Jesus to help you draw closer to him. “What are you looking for?” “What do you want?” The saints are those who wanted one thing in life, what God wanted.
Fr. John Kavanaugh, S.J.
2nd Sunday of Year B
The Body Sacred
If we ask God to speak to us in Christ, if we wish to abide with him, he simply tells us to follow, to look, and to hear.
Should we do so, however, all things will look different.
Paul does not let us escape this fact. In the transforming mission of Jesus, even our bodies will look different. If God can inhabit human flesh, it cannot be made for immorality. If our bodies are temples of God, we must not desecrate them. They are, Paul says, the very glory of God.
This is difficult for us today. How dare someone tell us “You are not your own”? We pride ourselves on autonomy. Our bodies are our property, there for our use or abuse, our pleasure or management, ours to begin or end at will.
Bishop Frank Schuster
2nd Sunday of Year B
Where is God?
have you ever considered that Jesus might have walked by a hundred people the morning he walked by John the Baptist? It was only John, however, who had the eyes to see Jesus and proclaim to his two disciples, “Behold, the Lamb of God.” The Gospel says the two disciples heard what John said and followed Jesus. Notice that these two disciple’s initial faith in Jesus came from the spiritual advice they received from their mentor, John the Baptist. Little fish asking the big fish, “Show me water”. This is similar to the way Samuel came to faith in God through the advice of his spiritual mentor, Eli in our first reading. It is also how evangelization happens. Simon would not have met Jesus unless his brother Andrew invited him.
Fr. Michael Cummins
2nd Sunday of Year B
Authentic Love
We are Church. We are meant to help one another along. There is much concern today about the need for vocations to lives of service within the Church and for our world. Today’s readings have much to teach us. One of the lessons I believe is that the witness of authentic love is the necessary seedbed of vocations. The witness of both Eli and John the Baptist testifies to this.
