Fifth Sunday of Lent

Sundays in Ordinary Time

Introduction:

During the Year C cycle of Sunday readings which started with Advent in December 2000, many of the Gospel readings are taken from the evangelist Luke. Most scholars accept the authorship attributed to Luke, the physician, companion of the Apostle Paul and date the writing of the gospel to about 70 - 80 AD.

Luke writes with a fluent Greek which also demonstrates a careful literary style. Luke sets out to write an orderly account, drawing on the evidence from eyewitnesses, and the ministers of the word. All this so that the readers will know how well-founded the teaching is that they have received.

Luke, the evangelist, has a particular concern to show that the Good News of Jesus Christ is for all nations, all peoples. Luke expresses the gospel as having particular meaning for the poor, the outcast, the prisoner, the sick, the stranger and women. So often in religious texts women are unheard, but not in Luke’s accounts of the life and death of Jesus.

The Sundays of Ordinary Time run throughout the Liturgical Year which began with Advent and Christmas. The sequence of Sunday readings will be interrupted by important seasons, Lent, Eastertide, and the great feasts like Pentecost.

These ‘reflections’ upon the readings are offered in the hope that they will offer the reader a deeper insight and understanding of the text, and hopefully lead to liturgical participation in the community of faith.

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
† Sunday 14th January 2001

Theme: Called in love to be one with God.

The Prophet Isaiah 62 : 1 - 5
Jerusalem and its people have been unfaithful to the Lord God. The relationship between God and the People, with their infidelities, is described in terms of the ideal, stable, ever faithful, union of marriage, where forgiveness, joy and love bring a deep lasting oneness.The Prophet sees the time, still to come, when, “the nations will see your integrity, and all the kings your glory.” In that time, the city and its people will no longer be abandoned and desolate, instead the Lord God will call you,“My Delight!” Continuing with the theme of the adulterous Israel being restored to the joyful age of former innocence, the prophet speaks of the People of Israel, as the bride of the always faithful Lord God. “As the bridegroom rejoices in his bride so will your God rejoice in you.”

First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians 12 : 4 - 11
Paul addresses his letter to the people of Corinth, a city state which had the reputation as “Sin City”, but here Paul, possibly responding to a question raised by the Christians of that city, speaks of there being, “a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit.” With all the different kinds of service to be done, the Spirit is given to each person for some good purpose. One may have, the gift of wisdom, another the gift of healing, the gift of prophecy, or the gift of discerning spirits, but “all these,” he concludes, “are the work of one and the same Spirit, who distributes different gifts to different people just as he chooses.”

Gospel according to John 2 : 1 - 12
To appreciate this passage you may look at it in many ways. Put simply, the disciples and others present at the marriage in Cana witness the sign Jesus enacts and come to recognise the power of Jesus. At another level, the evangelist may be announcing the good news with a deeper, even more spiritual meaning. The jars used for Jewish rites of purification are standing full of water. This water is replaced with the new wine of the messianic wedding feast. This itself is a sign of the restoration of God’s favour and marks the beginning of the new era, the New Covenant of Salvation replacing the old dispensation. John, the evangelist appears to drive home the point, and inviting our own response of faith, he says, “this was the first of the signs given by Jesus: it was given at Cana in Galilee. He let his glory be seen, and the disciples believed in him.”