BEGINNING IN LOVE

THURSDAY AFTER EPIPHANY

1 John 4:19–5:4; Psalm 72; Luke 4:14–22

We are still in the season of beginnings! We are still in the beginning month of the new year 2015. Only four days have passed since we began our second semester. And probably all of us today are beginning to feel excited because exactly a week from now, Pope Francis will finally walk on Philippine soil. And on a more personal note, today, January 8, also marks the beginning of the novena to Sr. Santo Nino.

Our Gospel today also marks the beginning of the public ministry of Jesus according to the version of Luke. Jesus, on a Sabbath day, entered into a synagogue, took the scroll, and borrowing the words of the prophet Isaiah, laid out his mission on earth. After returning the scroll to the attendant, he claimed that “today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” And everyone was amazed at what they have heard.

First impressions last. What impression then can we get from this beginning narrative of Jesus’s public ministry? Our first reading gives us the answer when John said, “This is the commandment we have from him: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” Thus, Jesus proclaims liberty to captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed, all because he loves God. Thus, he must also love his brother.

Indeed, such impression lasted because the last episode in the Lukan version of the public ministry of Jesus is all about Zacchaeus who experienced such love from Jesus when he came down from the tree and welcomed him at home.

This is then our challenge—that we begin our year, our semester, and every day of our lives right by always falling and staying in love with God and neighbors. It is not an ideal or verbose kind of love. But a love, according to Pope Benedict, “that is a light, the only light—that can always illuminate a world grown dim and give us the courage needed to keep living and working.” However, we must persevere in our loving because sometimes when God’s love seems vague and dry, we easily turn ourselves to other “loves” that are fancy and fleeting.

We are still in the season of beginnings. We are now beginning to meet our new set of either lax or demanding professors. We are now beginning to experience once again the “joys and sorrows” of seminary formation. Yet over and above these things, we are now called to persevere in love until the end so that in the beginning of our lives, God will tell us, “Today, this Scripture has been fulfilled in his life,” and at its end, he too will tell us, “Today, salvation has entered into this person for he has loved me more dearly, more sincerely, and more intimately.” Amen.