Kevin will receive a copy of The Catholic Family Connections Bible, a $26.95 value.

The Catholic Family Connections Bible helps families connect to:

- Each other- through family faith conversations
- Faith through practices of prayer and devotion
- Community-through participating in Christian service together

The Catholic Family Connections Bible uses the New American Bible text and is woven around the core content of the bestselling Catholic Youth Bible® (loved by nearly two million Catholic young people), which includes:

- Over 700 lively articles help you Pray It! Study It! Live It!®
- Catholic Connection" articles provide a presentation of key Catholic doctrine
- 28 articles address the seven principles of Catholic social teaching
- 75 inspirational illustrations
- Helpful index to life and faith issues
- Easy-to-use glossary of Scripture-related terms
- Sunday Lectionary readings for all three cycles
- "Catholic Connections" index
- "Sacraments Connections" index

The Catholic Family Connections Bible
ISBN: 978-1-59982-088-0, paper, 1968 pages

Happy New Year! May it be so for you, your loved ones, and your students!

Unfortunately, for many people in our own country and around the world, the New Year did not begin happily and may not end happily. There are so many threats to human well-being in our world and in our country: war, violence, starvation, joblessness, homelessness. As human beings and as one in the Body of Christ, how can we cope? What can we do?

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development, under the auspices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has declared January to be Poverty Awareness Month. The Campaign has developed a very nifty calendar for the month of January. Each day has a suggestion which can be accessed online. It can be found at www.usccb.org/cchd. Find direct access in the box titled, "What’s New?," in the third paragraph.

Here are a few samples:

January 25

What’s it like to live at the poverty line? View these Snapshots of Poverty (direct link given) to see how life is for individuals and families, young and old, who try to scrape by.

January 28

Lift up in prayer an issue you are concerned about. Use the prayers from the U.S. bishops (direct link given) on topics like work, peace, immigration, and care for creation.

This link led to a long list of prayers. Here is one of them, appropriate to many people in our times:

Prayer During Difficult Economic Times

Merciful God,

We ask that you give our leaders the wisdom to guide our nation and the world out of the current economic crisis.

Help us to protect the poor and all those who are struggling during this difficult time.

Provide for their needs and give them hope.

Open new opportunities for them and furnish the resources they need to live with dignity. Encourage those who have enough to share essential resources with those who lack the necessities of life, and to do so with humble, grateful, and loving hearts.

We ask this through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

(from http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers/)

Blessings on your ministry!

Peace and joy,

Joanna Dailey

Our Light has come! As we begin Ordinary Time, the Gospel readings from the Gospel of Mark show Jesus "going about doing good." This is our mission as well, and this activity can be used to mark the beginning of a new year of following Jesus. You may want to include the "Prayer During Difficult Economic Times" given above. Song suggestions can be found at the end of the activity.

Preparation
Gather the following items:

• a Catholic Youth Bible or other Bible
• music and lyrics for the song "Go Light Your World," by Chris Rice, in Spirit & Song, or music and lyrics for another song on a similar theme
  
  

• Prepare the prayer space by placing one small candle per participant around a large lit candle.
• Recruit someone to read Luke 4:16–21.

1. Gather the participants into the prayer space. Invite the volunteer you recruited before the session to read Luke 4:16–21.

2. Comment on the Scripture passage by summarizing the following points:

• Jesus was not just speaking to the Jews when he said the Scriptures were being fulfilled in their hearing. He was also speaking to us. We too are called to bring the Good News to those who are poor, to proclaim release of the captives and recovery of sight to those who are blind.

• Jesus can only proclaim those things to those people if we are the ones who, through the grace and courage of the Holy Spirit, can carry these tasks out. We are called to carry God’s bright light and Good News to the farthest, darkest reaches of the earth.

3. As a symbol of this reality, invite each person in turn to pick up one of the small candles and light it from the large candle. As this activity unfolds, lead the young people in singing "Go Light Your World."

4. Remind the young people that they cannot do this task without the love, support, and encouragement of the faithful community. As a symbol of that love, invite them to exchange a gesture of peace with one another after they extinguish the candles.

Spirit & Song connections
◆ "Go Make a Difference," by Steve Angrisano and Tom Tomaszek
◆ "Go Ye Out," by Tom Booth
◆ "What Is Our Service to Be?" by Scot Crandal
◆ "Somos el Cuerpo de Cristo/We Are the Body of Christ," by Jaime Cortez
◆ "We Are God’s People," by Jeffrey Roscoe

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 28, 2013
Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Opening Prayer
Jesus the Christ, you came into the world to win salvation for all people through your death and Resurrection. As we share our reflections on your word today, help us understand that you are truly the Messiah--the promised one from God--who came to earth to establish the Kingdom of God. Amen.

Context Connection
Sunday's reading from the Gospel of Luke begins with the preface (1:1-4). This paragraph reads like a memo that Luke might have attached to his writings to tell readers why he wrote about the life of Jesus. What do we learn from this preface? Luke tells us he did not witness Jesus's teachings or the events of Jesus's life. Just like the original readers of his Gospel that he is addressing, Luke is a second-generation Christian. Through traveling preachers and other written material, the Gospel story would already have been told to many people. We know that the Gospel of Mark already existed. So why did Luke write this additional account of the life of Jesus of Nazareth? He wrote it to verify the information. Many early Christians had Jewish roots, but Luke was a member of a gentile, or non-Jewish community. Most of the other writings about Jesus had come from communities or people with Jewish roots. Through his writing, Luke is telling his people that he is one of them and is looking out for their interests. Luke offers his readers a guarantee that he has made his own painstaking investigation into the authenticity of the Gospel he wrote and intends to present its content in an orderly fashion. Luke wants to help the gentile converts to Christianity trace their faith roots to the historical Jesus. Writing in a classical Greek style, Luke reaches a broad gentile audience to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.

Luke addresses his preface to "you, most excellent Theophilus." Theophilus may have been a person who was known to Luke, or he may have been the patron who supported Luke while he was writing; we don't know. But notice his name. Theo-philus would translate from Greek as "God-lover." Is Luke addressing all of us who love God?

The second part of Sunday's Gospel (4:14-21) picks up the story of Jesus after his baptism and time in the desert. Luke begins the story of Jesus's public life in Galilee, a region in present-day northern Israel where Jesus taught in the synagogues. In this passage, Jesus returns to Nazareth and reads the scrolls at the weekly Sabbath service in the synagogue. Jesus was a celebrity throughout Galilee because of his teaching. His celebrity status is confirmed in verse 4:15, which says, "He [Jesus] began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone." The traditional Sabbath service at this time would have included two readings, one from the Pentateuch or Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and the other from the prophets. Jesus had probably been invited in advance to proclaim the second reading--perhaps because of his celebrity status. Luke tells us that on this day Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 61, verses 1-2. The reading promises that Israel will be restored. The passage speaks of the good news of God's salvation: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me" (4:18). During Jesus's time, people understood that this passage from Isaiah was talking about the Messiah--the anointed one. After Jesus proclaims the reading, he says, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (4:21). With those words, Jesus reveals his true identity as the anointed one of God--the Messiah.

Tradition Connection
Jesus Christ, the title most often used in the New Testament to describe Jesus, proclaims that Jesus was the Messiah (Christ is the Greek translation of the Hebrew word Messiah). The Jewish concept of the Messiah developed over the course of Israel's history. For non-Christians, the Christian use of the title Messiah for Jesus was confusing because of Jesus's death and the manner in which he died. None of the messianic expectations from the Jewish tradition envisioned a messiah who would suffer and die a humiliating death. Within the Jewish tradition, belief in the Messiah and his appearance had these manifestations:

• The Messiah would restore the native Judahite dynasty and thus be a king of the Davidic family.
• The Messiah would assert independence from the world power that ruled the territory of the old kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

At first, it seemed that Jesus did neither.

Every book of the New Testament except one--the Third Letter of John, which doesn't mention Jesus at all--acknowledges Jesus as the Christ or Messiah. This title expressed the writers' basic faith in Jesus: Jesus was the Savior that God had promised to Israel. But using this title to describe Jesus challenged the early Christians to describe how Jesus could be proclaimed the Messiah when he did not seem to resemble the expected Messiah. For early Christians, Jesus's Resurrection proved he was the Messiah. Jesus's followers understood that when God resurrected Jesus from the dead, he was declaring that Jesus was truly the Messiah. How did early Christians reconcile what they knew in their hearts to be true with the expectations? In their writings and teachings they explained how Jesus was descended from David, did the work of the Messiah, saved humankind, and established the Kingdom of God. What had to change was their understanding of what a kingdom was. They had to grasp the difference between the earthly political kingdoms they were used to and the kind of heavenly Kingdom God would inaugurate.

Wisdom Connection
In Sunday's passage, Luke emphasizes two points:

• Though he [Luke] was not an eyewitness to what he wrote about, the stories are true because he has authenticated what happened.
• What everyone has been saying is true: Jesus was the greatest prophet in the line of prophets; in fact he was the long-awaited Messiah.

In the preface Luke writes that he verified with eyewitnesses the truth of what they have come to know about Jesus Christ. Luke's Greek readers would have valued an orderly and systematic investigation done by one of their own people and would have confidently come to know for themselves the truth about Jesus Christ through Luke's writing style.

The second part of the passage places Jesus back in Nazareth, his home town, in a public forum. Here we get the first public proclamation of Jesus as the greatest prophet. But there is more. Jesus is the Messiah that the prophets had predicted would come to restore the dignity of humankind through a right relationship with God and to bring about redemption of the whole world. The passage from Isaiah that Jesus reads gives us some hints as to what this new kind of kingdom, this Kingdom of God, is about: "bringing good news to the poor," releasing captives, giving sight to the blind, and letting the oppressed go free (Luke 4:18). This is what the Messiah is all about. Through these actions the Messiah asserts independence from the earthly power that rules the area of the old kingdoms of Israel and Judah.

Acknowledgments
The scriptural quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition. Copyright © 1993 and 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

The Lord's Prayer is from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America. Copyright © 1994 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.--Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 3, 2013
Luke 4:21-30

Opening Prayer
Jesus, in the Gospel reading today we learn about the rejection you experienced in your hometown when you challenged the norms of your culture. As we reflect on your word, send your Spirit to be among us so that we may understand how we can be witnesses of the truth of your word in our world today. Amen.

Context Connection
Sunday's Gospel provides the rest of the story of Jesus's return to Nazareth. The last verse of last Sunday's Gospel is the first verse this Sunday. Jesus has just finished reading from the prophet Isaiah to those gathered in the synagogue, and he says, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing" (4:21). We then read about the reaction of the townspeople. At first people reacted positively; Luke tells us that "all spoke well of [Jesus] and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth (4:22)." But almost immediately, the voices of suspicion--the voices of those who could not accept the fact that Jesus the son of Joseph the carpenter could be more than an artisan was claiming he was a prophet--arose and could be heard throughout the Gospels. The suspicious say, "Is not this Joseph's son?" (4:22). The strict social codes of Jesus's time dictated that sons continue the trades of their fathers. Such hereditary occupations brought honor to the family. No one was allowed to leave the status quo without consequences. Our American society is different; here we are expected to try to better ourselves. In the Gospel, Jesus's neighbors remind him of his duty as proscribed by the social code of the time.

Jesus has an interesting response to the townspeople's suspicion. "Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown" (4:24), he says. But he also realizes that the people will be two-faced about the issue. "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Doctor, cure yourself!' And you will say, 'Do here also in your hometown the things that we heard you did at Capernaum" (4:23), he tells them. Members of Jewish communities in those days took care of their own people. One's duty was to take care of family, neighbors, and fellow Jews. As Americans we tend to call this nepotism. Jesus, who had healed people in Capernaum, had not healed anyone in his hometown of Nazareth. Members of his community would have seen his actions as caring for foreigners, gentiles even, before caring for his own people--Jews. The townspeople slowly become outraged as they realize that when Jesus read that passage from Isaiah, he was criticizing the way they lived. People are uncomfortable that Jesus is not taking up the trade of his father and offended that he has healed foreigners before providing for his family and neighbors in Nazareth. But all the rejection Jesus suffers at home helps Luke make a point that his readers will embrace: Jesus's mission of salvation was not exclusively for the Jews but was extended to all people--Jews and Gentiles alike.

The crowd became so angry that they "drove him [Jesus] out of town, and led him to the brow of the hill. . . so that they might hurl him off the cliff" (4:29). Luke uses this scene to tell us how outraged and impassioned the people of Nazareth were at Jesus because of his unwillingness to comply with the social norms of their culture. They wanted to kill Jesus. In this way Luke tells the gentiles that Jesus was willing to face extreme hardship for the sake of doing what was right, regardless of the social pressure on him.

Finally, Luke tells us that the masterful Jesus managed to slip away unharmed in the midst of this angry crowd. In other places in the Gospels, Jesus exercises this same ability to escape when he is in an angry crowd. This reference is a subtle but unmistakable reminder to us that when the crowd of soldiers came to arrest Jesus, he could have gotten away but didn't.

Tradition Connection
In verses 25-27 of Sunday's Gospel reading, Jesus compares himself to the great prophets Elijah and Elisha. You can read more about the many works of these two men in the books of Kings (1 Kings 17--2 Kings 13). Jesus, though, refers to two particular incidents involving the prophets as they cared for foreigners while their own people suffered. Even though Israel had many widows during a particular famine, Elijah cared for the widow Zarephath in Sidon, which is north of Israel on the Mediterranean Sea and today is in the country of Lebanon (1 Kings 17:8-24). Likewise, Elisha, even though there were many lepers in Israel, healed Naaman, a leper and the commander of the army of the king of Ar'am (2 Kings 5:1-19).

Let's take a closer look at the role of the prophet that Jesus acknowledges in this passage. In its broadest sense, the term "prophet" means someone who was sent by God to "form the people" (Catechism, page 895). "Form the people" means to form them spiritually, to mold them to reflect God's image.

At Jesus's baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon him, Jesus was anointed priest, prophet, and king. He carried out the role of prophet in his miracles, teachings, and actions. Traditionally, prophets were social critics (a role we saw Jesus assume last week) and called people to have a change of heart and live according to the Law. Not everyone likes to have their way of life challenged, so prophets are often not accepted.

The Catechism tells us that among other ways "Christ . . . fulfills this prophetic office . . . by the laity" (paragraph 904). In the sacrament of Baptism, we enter into this same threefold office held by Jesus Christ: priest, prophet, and king (see Catechism, paragraph 1268). We perhaps most often have the opportunity to give witness to our prophetic mission by proclaiming Jesus's word and by the "testimony of life" (Catechism, paragraph 905). Christians try to guard against duplicity and hypocrisy. As prophets, Christians give witness to the truth in their world. Christians are most effective as prophets when their actions are consistent with the Gospel message, thus giving witness to the truth of Jesus's word.

Wisdom Connection
As we read this passage, the quick change in the Nazareth crowd's attitude surprises us. The crowd even questions Jesus's identity. Luke conveys the sense that the message in Isaiah that Jesus read is universal and is meant to reach the poor and marginalized people of the world, not only of Israel. In first-century Israel the leadership had taken extreme measures to separate Jews from foreigners because they considered foreigners unworthy of God's promise of salvation. The leadership's scrupulous adherence to a narrow interpretation of the Law would become a point of contention between Jesus, who emphasized love of neighbor, and the leaders, who emphasized compliance with the letter of the Law. The strictest Jews, in their ideology, considered it inconceivable that God would show care and kindness to anyone other than religious Jews. Any challenge to this mindset infuriated them, so they reacted to Jesus with rage.

The leaders were trying to live faithful lives. This is important to understand. Partially motivated by the fear that living less-than-perfect lives could jeopardize the future of Israel and partly by the community memory of the Babylonian exile, Jewish leaders wanted to get it right. When they returned to Jerusalem from Babylon, they were overjoyed at getting the Law back. But the memory of being without the Law fueled the fervor with which they now kept the Law--by observing every detail. But as we can see in our own culture, focusing on the fine detail of the law often keeps us from seeing why the law exists in the first place. By reading the passage from Isaiah, Jesus was trying to get the leaders to see the big picture behind the Law. What is the motivation for observing the Law? Is it about perfect adherence to the details of the law, or is it about responding to God's call to live in love of God and neighbor?

Acknowledgments
The scriptural quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, Catholic Edition. Copyright © 1993 and 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

The Lord's Prayer is from the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church for use in the United States of America. Copyright © 1994 by the United States Catholic Conference, Inc.--Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Used with permission.

Saint Marianne Cope (1838–1918) was a Franciscan Sister from Syracuse, New York.

Having been a teacher and hospital administrator, and as the superior of her community, she accepted an invitation to set up a system of hospitals for leprosy patients in the Hawaiian Islands. In Hawaii, she accepted the call to serve those suffering from leprosy (or Hansen’s disease) on the island of Molokai. She ministered to Father Damien (now Saint Damien) of Molokai until his death and continued to serve in Molokai until her own death in 1918. She was buried on Molokai until her remains were returned to St. Anthony Motherhouse in Syracuse in 2005.

She was canonized in 2012, and her feast day is the same day as her birthday: January 23. Learn more about Saint

Marianne Cope at http://blessedmariannecope.org/index.html. This Web site is sponsored by the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities.