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January 14, 2024

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2nd Sunday of Year B

The calling or vocation is at the center of the readings for this Sunday with which Ordinary Time begins. This is the call to follow, or in other words, to abide with Jesus Christ, like the two disciples in the Gospel. It is a calling to which we must reply generously, as Samuel did: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening” (first reading). A call implies “self-emptying”, not belonging to oneself, but to God and to his Spirit; hence the clear awareness of and demand for a pure life, far from lust and all that prevents one from belonging to the Lord (second reading).

DOCTRINAL MESSAGES

2nd Sunday of Year B

At the root of the Christian conception of life, there is the reality of a call. God calls us to life, to the Christian Faith, to the lay, consecrated or priestly life, to the happy encounter with him in eternity. Already in itself, this call implies the awareness that man is not altogether autonomous. He depends on Someone who pronounces his name, calls him. At the very beginning of life there is God’s call, and the development of life itself is nothing but the development of God’s calls. It is in this general context of his call that we find the priestly vocation, the call God addresses to a few men, so that they will abide with him and build bridges between him and other people. Every person, every priest is "called", and it is on the response to this call that his identity, his personal fulfillment and his temporal and eternal happiness depend.

Each vocation to the priestly life – and this applies equally to the consecrated life – is unrepeatable in time, in place and in manner. Moreover, it is not we who determine the circumstances, but God himself who calls. God can call a man at 12, 15, 18, 23, or 34 years of age, without us being entitled to answer: Why so soon? Why so late? The place and the moment are also chosen by God. At school, at home, in a discothèque, in a church. And what can be said of the many different ways in which God calls men to the priestly ministry? And what of the very original process through which God manifests his will and brings a man to respond?

The first step of the call is the quest that God himself sows in the hearts of men. The anxiety which gives rise to the quest wells up spontaneously in man, but it is God who puts it there, as a stepping stone for his vocation. This is how the divine call appears to human eyes as an outlet for his anxiety and his quest. To the two disciples who followed him on the bank of the Jordan, Jesus asked: What do you want? They would not have been searching if God had not given them the desire to search, but the quest itself is something personal, non-transferable; it is already a first response.

Those who "seek" in a certain way are not called by God, at least not in an ordinary, direct manner, but he calls them through human mediation: Eli was the mediator between God and Samuel, as Jesus was between God and the first disciples. For Christians, the Church, which is the "place" of salvation, is also the place of "mediation"; it is in her and through her that God continues to call people. A call to the priesthood outside the Church is inconceivable. In any case, one should say that it is not a divine calling.

The priestly vocation is a call to self-emptying, to being stripped of oneself so as to become the exclusive property of God. This is the origin of the fundamental reason for priestly celibacy, and of the Church’s right to require it. But the vocation is a self-emptying that brings with it an investiture, an expropriation that implies an appropriation, an emptying of self that leads to possession. In this process man does not "alienate" himself, he does not suffer an alienation of the personality. On the contrary, he reaches the highest degree of identity and of self-fulfillment by responding in full conscience and freedom to God’s voice.

When someone calls another person, the latter is obliged to give an answer. This can be positive, negative, neutral or indifferent. What the person cannot do is leave a call unanswered. When Jesus said to the two disciples: "Come and see," what did they do? "They went and saw where he lived, and stayed with him the rest of that day." And when Samuel realized that it was God calling him, he did not hesitate to answer: "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening." The person is free to give one answer or another, but he is obliged to answer, given that he is the one who is called.

PASTORAL SUGGESTIONS

2nd Sunday of Year B

In our world, in our environment, God continues to call people to the priesthood and to the consecrated life, as he has done throughout the history of salvation. However, there has been a very notable decrease in the number of positive answers and consequently in the number of priestly vocations, although in the last decade the downward trend has ceased and it seems that the number of vocations has begun to rise. While certain cultural and historical factors may have had an influence – and these are well known – I do not think that we Christians are exempt from a certain responsibility in the matter. Have we perhaps not done enough? It may be that we did very little to promote, renew and revive our faith after the great ecclesiastical event of the Second Vatican Council. Maybe we thought that vocations were a matter to be taken care of by the "clergy" and, if we are the clergy, we are those who are responsible for the pastoral care of vocations. The environment in which young people grow up today requires bold and controversial answers. The parish and diocesan communities must sustain and support them in these answers. The future of the community of believers and of the Church itself is at stake. With everyone’s help, the boldness of the answer will be stronger and more convincing.

First and foremost he calls us to belong to him and to be with him. Whoever is called to the priesthood must be convinced that his vocation is a special relationship with God and with Our Lord Jesus Christ. Without a sound and well-founded spirituality, whoever is called will yield to the temptations of the world and will collapse like a house of cards. God also calls us above all to be radical and exclusive in our love for him, with him and from him, to be able to open our souls and hearts to all men. This is why God calls us also to the ministry of salvation. Priests serve mankind, offering it God’s salvation. That is their specific role. All the rest depends on this love. Has it not been the case in the last few decades that priests have frequently devoted themselves more to social service than to the ministry of salvation? This is a theme of reflection for all priests. If the Church is the community of those who hope in the coming of the Lord, is it not true that we have easily forgotten in our preaching, our catechesis and our spiritual direction the great reality of the ultimate truths of man’s earthly existence? This is an important task to be carried out at the beginning of the third millennium of the Christian era.

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The Lord’s Call

17 January 2021 | Library of the Apostolic Palace

2nd Sunday of Year B

The Gospel for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time (cf. Jn 1:35-42) presents the meeting between Jesus and his first disciples. The scene unfolds along the River Jordan the day after Jesus’ baptism. It is John the Baptist himself who points out the Messiah to the two of them with these words: “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (v. 36). And those two, trusting the Baptist’s testimony, follow Jesus. He realizes this and asks: “What do you seek?”, and they ask Him: “Rabbi, where are you staying?” (v. 38).

Jesus does not respond: “I live in Capernaum, or in Nazareth”, but says: “Come and see” (v. 39). Not a calling card, but an invitation to an encounter. The two follow him and remain with him that afternoon. It is not difficult to imagine them seated, asking him questions and above all listening to him, feeling their hearts inflamed ever more while the Teacher speaks. They sense the beauty of the words that respond to their greatest hope. And all of a sudden they discover that, as evening was drawing around them, the light that God alone can give was exploding within their hearts. One thing catches our attention: 60 years later, or perhaps more, one of them would write in his Gospel: “it was about four in the afternoon” (cf. Jn 1:39) — he wrote the time. And this is one thing that makes us think: every authentic encounter with Jesus remains alive in memory; it is never forgotten. You forget many encounters, but a true encounter with Jesus remains forever. And many years later, those two even remembered the time. They were unable to forget this encounter that had changed their lives and was so happy and so complete. Then, when they leave from that encounter and return to their brothers, that joy, that light overflows from their hearts like a raging river. One of the two, Andrew, says to his brother, Simon — whom Jesus will call Peter when He meets him — “We have found the Messiah” (v. 41). They left sure that Jesus was the Messiah, certain.

Let us pause for a moment on this experience of the encounter with Christ who calls us to remain with him. Each one of God’s calls is an initiative of his love. He is the one who always takes the initiative. He calls you. God calls to life, he calls to faith, and he calls to a particular state in life: “I want you here”. God’s first call is to life, through which he makes us persons; it is an individual call because God does not make things in series. Then God calls us to faith and to become part of his family as children of God. Lastly, God calls us to a particular state in life: to give of ourselves on the path of matrimony, or that of the priesthood or consecrated life. They are different ways of realizing God’s design, the one he has for each of us that is always a design of love. God always calls. And the greatest joy for every believer is to respond to this call, offering one’s entire being to the service of God and our brothers and sisters.

Brothers and sisters, before the Lord’s call, which can reach us in a thousand ways — through others, happy or sad events — our attitude at times might be rejection. No… “I am afraid”… Rejection because it seems to be in contrast to our aspirations; and even fear because we believe it is too demanding and uncomfortable: “Oh no, I will never be able to do it, better not to, a calmer life is better… God over there, me here”. But God’s call is always love: we have to try to discover the love behind each call, and it should be responded to only with love. This is the language: the response to a call that comes from love is only love. At the beginning there is an encounter, or rather, there is the encounter with Jesus who speaks to us of his Father, he makes His love known to us. And then the desire to communicate it to the people that we love arises spontaneously in us too: “I met Love”, “I met the Messiah”, “I met God”, I met Jesus”, “I found the meaning of my life”. In a word: “I found God”.

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Seeking Jesus, Encountering Jesus, Following Jesus

14 January 2018 | Saint Peter’s Square

2nd Sunday of Year B

As in the Feast of the Epiphany and in that of the Baptism of Jesus, so too today’s Gospel passage (cf. Jn 1:35-42) proposes the theme of the manifestation of the Lord. This time it is John the Baptist who points Him out to his disciples as “the Lamb of God” (v. 36), thus inviting them to follow Him. And thus it is for us: the One whom we have contemplated in the Mystery of Christmas, we are now called to follow in daily life. Therefore, today’s Gospel passage introduces us perfectly into Ordinary Liturgical Time, a time that helps to invigorate and affirm our journey of faith in ordinary life, in a dynamic that moves between epiphany and sequela, between manifestation and vocation.

The Gospel narrative indicates the essential characteristics of the journey of faith. There is a journey of faith, and this is the journey of the disciples of all times, ours too, beginning with the question that Jesus asks the two who, urged by the Baptist, set out to follow Him: “What do you seek?” (v. 38). It is the same question that the Risen One asks Mary Magdalene on Easter morning: “Woman, whom do you seek?” (cf. Jn 20:15). Each of us, as a human being, is seeking: seeking happiness, seeking love, a good and full life. God the Father has given us all this in his Son Jesus.

In this search, the role of a true witness — of a person who first made the journey and encountered the Lord — is fundamental. In the Gospel, John the Baptist is this witness. For this reason he is able to direct the disciples toward Jesus, who engages them in a new experience, saying: “Come and see” (Jn 1:39). And those two [disciples] will never forget the beauty of that encounter, to the extent that the Evangelist even notes the time of it: “It was about the tenth hour” (ibid.). Only a personal encounter with Jesusengenders a journey of faith and of discipleship. We will be able to experience many things, to accomplish many things, to establish relationships with many people, but only the appointment with Jesus, at that hour that God knows, can give full meaning to our life and render our plans and our initiatives fruitful.

It is not enough to build an image of God based on the words that are heard; one must go in search of the divine Master and go to where he lives. The two disciples ask Jesus, “where are you staying?” (v. 38). This question has a powerful spiritual meaning: it expresses the wish to know where the Lord lives, so as to abide with him. The life of faith consists in the wish to abide in the Lord, and thus in a continuing search for the place where he lives. This means that we are called to surpass a methodical and predictable religiosity, rekindling the encounter with Jesus in prayer, in meditating on the Word of God and in practicing the Sacraments, in order to abide with him and bear fruit thanks to him, to his help, to his grace.

Seeking Jesus, encountering Jesus, following Jesus: this is the journey. Seeking Jesus, encountering Jesus, following Jesus.

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To Seek and Find Christ

15 January 2006 | Saint Peter’s Square

2nd Sunday of Year B

Last Sunday, in which we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord, the Ordinary Time of the liturgical year began. The beauty of this season lies in the fact that it invites us to live our ordinary life as a journey of holiness, that is, of faith and friendship with Jesus continually discovered and rediscovered as Teacher and Lord, the Way, the Truth and the Life of man.

This is what John’s Gospel suggests to us in today’s liturgy when it presents the first meeting between Jesus and some of those who were to become his Apostles. They had been disciples of John the Baptist and John himself directed them to Jesus when, after baptizing him in the Jordan, he pointed him out as “the Lamb of God” (Jn 1: 36).

Two of his disciples then followed the Messiah who asked them: “What are you looking for?”. The two asked him: “Teacher, where do you stay?”. And Jesus answered: “Come and see”, that is, he invited them to follow him and stay with him for a while. They were so impressed in the few hours that they spent with Jesus that one of them, Andrew, said to his brother Simon: “We have found the Messiah”. Here are two especially important words: “seek” and “find”.

From the page of today’s Gospel, we can take these two words and find a fundamental instruction in them for the New Year: we would like it to be a time when we renew our spiritual journey with Jesus, in the joy of ceaselessly looking for and finding him. Indeed, the purest joy lies in the relationship with him, encountered, followed, known and loved, thanks to a constant effort of mind and heart. To be a disciple of Christ: for a Christian this suffices. Friendship with the Teacher guarantees profound peace and serenity to the soul even in the dark moments and in the most arduous trials. When faith meets with dark nights, in which the presence of God is no longer “felt” or “seen”, friendship with Jesus guarantees that in reality nothing can ever separate us from his love (cf. Rom 8: 39).

To seek and find Christ, the inexhaustible source of truth and life: the Word of God asks us to take up, at the beginning of the New Year, this never-ending journey of faith. We too ask Jesus: “Teacher, where do you stay?”, and he answers us: “Come and see”. For the believer it is always a ceaseless search and a new discovery, because Christ is the same yesterday, today and for ever, but we, the world and history, are never the same, and he comes to meet us to give us his communion and the fullness of life. Let us ask the Virgin Mary to help us to follow Jesus, savouring each day the joy of penetrating deeper and deeper into his mystery.

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