Third Sunday of the Year - January 22, 2012

Jonah 3: 1-5, 10 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31 Mark 1: 14-20

Just about two months ago we began to use the English translation of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal, the official book of prayers we use when we gather together for our worship of God in the Eucharist. The overriding principle that guided the choice of the language we use at Mass was to give a faithful translation of the original language - in this case, Latin - which is the basic text for the Mass. In general, this transition has been going well. We are getting used to different, perhaps more formal, terminology in our celebration of the Mass. For example, we have been doing pretty well with what I call the “And with your Spirit” test. We are a little more shaky with “It is right and just” response at the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer.

In the reading from the Gospel of Saint Mark which I just did, I realized that this principle, whether it applied to the text of the Mass or to the Scripture translation, was not always followed strictly. In the text that was read, Jesus was quoted as saying: “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” In the introduction of this reading, I stated that it was “A reading from the holy Gospel according to Mark.” In the translation, the choice was to stay with the very familiar and old English term, “Gospel.” The more literal translation of the Latin, or even of the Greek which is its source, is: a “good story” or a “good announcement” or “good news.” The root of the word “gospel” is “good spiel,” - that is, a “good story.”

In a way, this was an unfortunate but comfortable choice. It would certainly have been challenging to us, if not disturbing, to have to accept the more literal and more contemporary translation of “good news.” But, in reality, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was telling his listeners, “Be sorry for the way you have been living, and believe the good news I am about to tell you.” What Jesus wants to tell his listeners and to tell us, at the beginning of his ministry as reported by St. Mark, is “Good News.” It is Good News about God. It is Good News about our world. It is Good News about ourselves.

The good news about God is that God is a loving Father, one who can be called “abba.” The intimacy, the closeness that God wants to have with us is so important that God came into our world in the person of Jesus Christ. This is what the ministry and mission that Jesus is about to embark upon will seek to demonstrate.

The good news about our world is that world was not only created by God but it is loved by God. It is God’s kingdom, it is the place where God can be experienced, and known, and loved and appreciated. God is not distant from the world, God has become part of our world. God’s presence, God’s reign, is to be evident everywhere in our world.

The good news about ourselves is that in our world, our loving Father reaches out to us to lift us up, to heal us, to reconcile with us so that we can recognize and value our importance to God. Each one of us and every one of us has this importance to God, our Creator and our Father. All of us need to recognize and to respect this importance in one another because all of us together are to reflect and make known our loving and creative God in our lives and in the life of the world.

This is truly a “good spiel, a “gospel,” a good announcement that is being made to us. All of what we know and believe in our Christian, Catholic faith, can be understood in the context of this “good news.” It is “good news” that we need to hear. It is “good news” that must affect each one of us; and through us, it must affect the world in which we live.

It is unfortunate that often in our Christian and Catholic faith we are described as being either negative or “anti.” Yet we, like the followers encouraged by Jesus are to capture the minds and hearts of others like fish are captured in a net. We are to do this with the “good news” we hear, with the “good news” we announce, with the “good news” we live.

We are to hear, to announce and to live the importance of all of us and of all life, from its beginning until its end to the source of life, our loving God.

We are to hear, to announce and to live the importance all of us have to one another in the dignity and the respect we recognize in ourselves, in one another and in the world in which we live.

We are to hear, to announce and to live the importance to everyone of us of living with one another and carrying on the work of healing and reconciling those choices and ways of living that hurt and harm us in respect to ourselves, in respect to our relationships with one another, and in respect to our relationship with God.

What we hear, what we are to announce, and what we are to live is to be so significant to us in our lives, as St. Paul suggests to us today, that it is to lead to choices that are more important than any others.

Jesus announces “good news” that can turn around our lives, that can turn around our world, if it is heard, if it is lived, if it is truly reflected in us as the image and visible announcement of the presence and effect in our lives of our good and gracious God.