Homily 478 – 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year B
Christmas and Easter are the biggest days of the year for Christians. But Christmas is over and Easter is months away. So what do we do now? We’re in that kind of “down time” between two “big things.” But it would be a mistake to live our lives simply from one big thing to the next. Most of our life is spent “in between,” so we certainly can’t waste it waiting for some other day to come.
It’s not particularly helpful that the name of the current liturgical season comes to us in English translation as “Ordinary Time.” This might be better stated as “Ordered Time” as each Sunday is named in sequence, the 2nd Sunday, the 3rd Sunday, etc. (those are “ordinal” numbers). The Latin is actually much better. This time is called Tempus per annum, “Time through the year.” Nothing ordinary there. In fact, in the traditional calendar these days are known as the “Days After Epiphany.” There’s another stretch of Tempus per annum that comes after Pentecost. In the traditional calendar these days are called, you guessed it, “Days After Pentecost.” Definitely nothing ordinary there.
After the Magi encountered Jesus at the Epiphany, they went home changed, literally going home “by a different road.” Samuel in the first reading today gets the extraordinary gift of hearing God call him, but then he too acts. He responds to God’s call. Andrew and Peter in the Gospel respond to the call of Jesus and change their lives to follow him. We’ve just lived through the beautiful season of Christmas. What will we do now? Rather than see this as “down time” waiting for Lent and the next big thing at Easter, we need to respond immediately today to the grace God gives us each day.
Consider St. Joseph after the angel appears in a dream and tells him to flee with Mary and Jesus into Egypt. He goes immediately, but then he just has to wait. When will God speak next? He doesn’t know. It could be years. Joseph couldn’t just sit and do nothing. He probably set up his carpenter shop to provide for his family. When God does call again, he’s ready, but he had no idea how long he would have to wait. In the same way, we can’t simply wait for the next big thing. We’ve encountered Jesus. Now we have to live it out each day in whatever way the day presents. These are the days after Epiphany… and it’s actually kind of exciting.