Restored in the Spirit of Justice

V/​ I will turn to you O God, 

R/​ to God who gives joy to my youth

V/​ Give me the Wisdom that sits by your throne; 

R/ that I may be counted among your children

Lord, in your all-providential plan, you have led me to this moment to rediscover me in your Word and Wisdom. Aid me to make this time of meditation and prayer enriching, transforming, and liberating for my well-being and others. Amen!

3RD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YR C

26th January 2025

By Dr. Heather Ward, OCD

Nehemiah 2:2-10; Psalm 19(18):8-10, 15; 1 Corinthians 12:12-30; Luke 1:1-21

Today’s gospel, Jesus’ reading from Isaiah picks up on our theme from last week’s gospel on the abundance that comes from God’s promised restoration of Israel, his re-affirmation of his everlasting covenant. We can be tempted to read Jesus’ proclamation of “liberation” simply as a call to social justice. But the rest of this Isaiah chapter makes it clear that we need to be thinking about the meaning of salvation in terms of the triumph of righteousness, of God’s restorative justice not ours supposed retributive justice.

It is too easy for us to think of all the people mentioned as “other” – people not like me, and so miss where we, too, might be described in similar terms, like the church in Laodicea: You say I am rich, I have prospered, I need nothing, not knowing that you are pitiable, poor, blind & naked. (Apoc 3:17)

I think we can then, let this Gospel passage challenge us by asking: Where does my poverty lie? In what ways might my response to this be “Good news”? What imprisons & oppresses me? In what ways am I blind?

If I say “I have no poverty in my life” am I not ruling myself out of salvation, as someone who has no need of it? I think if we look honestly at our lives, we become more conscious of our woundedness and our need for respite that is beyond our capacity to bring about. Perhaps we are more enabled to see the truth in that t-shirt slogan “Blessed are the cracked for they let in the light” and the related truth of John of the Cross’ insistence that God is like the sun diffusing himself through any crack (Living Flame 1:15)

If we ask “What imprisons or oppresses me?” we can often find that we are entrapped within our own desires, our way of seeing & doing things. We are burdened by the weight of our often unmet expectations, unfulfilled dreams, painful memories, illusions we nurture & cling to and the life narrative we have created to justify our attitudes & actions. All these, John of the Cross would identify as attachments which clutter up our lives, restricting our response to grace, trapping us within narrow confines; we are like a bird held by a chain or cord which is unable to take flight.

This is not to deny the reality of external burdens & confinements but to prevent them from becoming spiritually oppressive by heeding the call of Jesus:

Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. (Matt 11:28).

And what about blindness? Perhaps our deepest blindness is to the deepest truths about our nature. This leads me to the diptych of the two opening chapters of St Teresa’s Interior Castle. In the first, the human soul is like a beautiful diamond or crystal in whose centre is God; that he indwells us is our primary truth. But Chapter 2 presents the accompanying truth: this beauty is covered by pitch, the consequence of sin. Our modern tendency is to be blind to both or see one & be blind to the other. Release from such blindness frees us for new depths of gratitude for the wonder of our being, new depths of compunction but also new depths of compassion, giving us fresh eyes to see the suffering, need & injustice of our world in which we participate. Our earlier apprehension of the call for social justice in our passage now takes on fuller and deeper dimensions.