14 January 2024 – 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

by Fr Francis Anthony

Very appropriate Readings and prayers for the Mass for this Sunday. As I said earlier, it is the First Ordinary Sunday of the year 2024. And what is it that strikes me as I was preparing this? In the opening prayer which we had just now, we addressed to the living God who governed all things, both in heaven and on earth. And to this God who is governing everything, we have come to meet Him during this liturgical celebration. And we are asking Him:

Mercifully hear the pleading of your people and bestow your peace on our times.

Yes, we are besieging to this God who is governing heaven and earth, mercifully to look to each one of us and to protect us and most of all bestow peace on our times. And this is not just some words thrown but it situates beautifully into the world politics today.

We go through the news, the foreign news, you will see all the places where there are sufferings, war, ethnic warfare and people are starving. This is in Sudan and northern Nigeria. People are starving and we, far away from those places, are showing our solidarity to be one with them and we are asking God: Mercifully, hear the pleading of your people (we, we are praying on their behalf) and bestow peace in our times.

And in the Readings, it goes further. There is a requisite if you want our prayer to reach out to this merciful God, to listen to Him. Yes, that is what in the First Reading from the book of Samuel. God calls: Samuel, Samuel. And He goes further due to Eli the High Priest who was there governing the temple: Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.

Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.

And let this be a prayer for each one of us. Speak, Lord, your servant (we are the servant), we are listening. What do you want of me? What do you want me to do? What it is you want me to trace out for this year 2024? How am I to live my faith?

And in the Gospel text, John the Baptist indicated to his disciples: Look, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. And two of his disciples were beginning to be curious and they followed Jesus. Jesus asked them: What do you want? And they just simply said: Where do you stay?

For very many of us, it would just mean ‘where do you stay?’ = ‘What is your address?’ No. What is your identity. You are being very special, you have been indicated by John to us. Where is your life based?

They are going more than the address. What is your identity.

Yes, and Jesus just simply says: Come and see.

Yes, find out for yourself. Come and see. It is not like going to an exhibition. You see and you go off. No. That ‘seeing’ is going to open your mind and heart to see the reality of God.

And let us ask God to help us in this journey of ours, especially this year 2024 which began with a lot of fighting, people are starving, no electricity, no water and we had the experience here – lack of water. Yes, look at the inconvenience we went through due to the four days we had dry pipes but somehow or other the water came back by the second day for us. We see the hardships. So let us have in our prayer to pray for others. 

Very often: Lord, bless me, bless me, bless me. But our Readings here is telling us to look beyond, see what is around and to reach out. Use our body to reach out to others. Let us be people who are conscious of the realities of life, the realities the people are going through and to respond in accordance to that need of my neighbour. So as the prayer, the text here in the Responsorial Psalm says:

Lord, you are not asking for sacrifices and offerings but an open ear (that is us).

The Psalmist is praying: Open my ear and my eyes to be able to see the situation and to respond according to that situation.

Let this year be a gracious year for all of us. Let us see Jesus through the Eucharist, through the Readings and to be people who are able to respond and to pray with others and for others.

Click below to listen to the homily and watch the video:-

Click to live-stream Mass on 14 January 2024