Lord’s Day Reflection: Today is the day

By Fr Luke Gregory, OFM*

Today’s gospel tells us about Jesus’ return to His hometown of Nazareth, the familiar place where He grew up, where everyone knew Him and He knew them. There He attended the synagogue with His parents and neighbours, it is in that familiar setting that He reads from the Prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” 

Those words from the prophet are the first recording of Jesus’ public ministry and thus have an important significance for His missions and ours too.

Throughout His early years He has surely been paying attention to and discerning about the life that He wants to share with His people. He would most likely have thought about what matters most to Him and the values He wants to embody, to live and to share. He is not harking back to the past nor attempting to predict the future. He comes to His own people in His own home and speaks directly about today. He says that today is the day of fulfillment.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, here Today; it is the day of anointing. It is the day to bring good news to the poor. It is the day to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind. It is the day to let the oppressed go free. It is the year of the Lord’s favour, and so indeed today is the day to proclaim that we are “Pilgrims of Hope”

The fulfillment of being “pilgrims of hope” does not end with the reading of this proclamation, it must be realized and sent to the ends of the earth, for today is the day to love, to be truthful, to forgive, to end racism, to welcome the refugee and the migrant, to feed the hungry, to reconcile and to make peace amongst all men and women.

When thinking about what we will do today, we are not reflecting on yesterday nor about tomorrow, we simply do not know what tomorrow may bring, so it is this very day that is the day of fulfillment. We cannot go back to yesterday and we do not know what will happen tomorrow. Today is the day. If not today, then when? In what ways is this fulfillment happening in our own lives today? In what ways are we participating in this fulfillment in the life of our brothers and sisters today, especially those in need, sharing our hope, giving them hope? The fulfillment desired and expected by Jesus urges us to move forward as pilgrims of hope in this world, developing and joyfully making progress, touching those whom we meet along the way with the message of salvation.

So, today are we willing to give of ourselves? Are we going to allow Christ to enter our lives and through us into the lives of others. Jesus is the Anointed One, (the "Anointed One" is said to come bringing good news, healing, and liberation) but so are, we through our baptism and we too are asked to share His mission as He proclaimed so clearly in His hometown of Nazareth today. So let us ask ourselves today, what is Jesus asking us to fulfill in our lives for the Kingdom of heaven for the benefit of our brothers and sisters as true “pilgrims of hope”.

* Custody of the Holy Land