CẢM NGHIỆM TÌNH CHÚA -BRENDAN -DÂNG CHÚA NGÀY XUÂN
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- Category: 14. Cảm Nghiệm Tình Chúa Yêu Tôi
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Mo NguyenJan 25 at 1:18 AM
THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME / A - 26 JANUARY 2020
DÂNG CHÚA MÙA XUÂN
REFLECTIONS ON THE GOSPEL
THE COMING OF A GREAT LIGHT (Mt 4: 12-23)
In today’s Gospel Jesus moves back to Galilee to begin his public mission. St Matthew describes his return as the coming of a ‘great light’ to people who ‘sit in darkness and the shadow of death’. Taken from the prophet Isaiah, these words beautifully capture the hope that his appearance and his message have to bring to a darkened world – then and now.
Central to that message is the summons: ‘Repent, because the kingdom of heaven is close at hand’. For Jesus, ‘repent’ means more than sorrow for sin. The Greek word implies a ‘change of mind’ – not merely in an intellectual sense but in the sense of a wholesale transformation of attitude at a deeply personal level. It means being prepared to let the rule of God (‘the kingdom of heaven’) rearrange one’s life.
In Jesus’ day there was a widespread sense that Israel had somehow fallen out of God’s hand and lay in helpless bondage to malign influences, chief among them being the oppressive occupation of the land by the Romans. People longed for the restoration of God’s ‘rule’. Jesus proclaimed the coming of that reign of God. But for him what was central and prior to any political or economic freedom was a transformed relationship with God, a divine reclaiming of the human heart.
And his first action is to call disciples, the nucleus of the later Church. From now on, these fishermen will ‘fish for people’, ‘catching’ them for the community of the Kingdom, to be hope and light for the world.
Brendan Byrne, SJ
Light of the world - Tim Hughes with lyrics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aa9FIUHKIWQ
Xuân tạ ơn (Tố Hà) David Dong: