The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)
Note: The following homily will be preached at the weekend Masses at Saint Louis Catholic Church in Caledonia, Wisconsin, and Saint Paul Catholic Church in Racine, Wisconsin, on January 20 and 21, 2024.
After John had been arrested,
Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God:
"This is the time of fulfillment.
The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent, and believe in the gospel."
—Mark 1:14-15
On January 9—the day after the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord—Roman Catholics entered upon the first span of that liturgical season called “Ordinary Time.” This “green” season is generally composed of five or six weeks between the end of the Christmas Season and the beginning of Lent and a span of twenty-five or twenty-six weeks, lasting from Pentecost through the Solemnity of Christ the King (celebrated on the 34th Sunday of Ordinary Time). The gift of Ordinary Time is that it offers us time and space during which when we can pause to catch our collective breath after the intense experiences of Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, giving us an opportunity to enter more deeply into the mysteries enshrined in those seasons.
In the past, I saw Ordinary Time as simply the time between the more interesting seasons that make up our liturgical year. As I have grown older, however, I have come to appreciate the stripped-down quality of Ordinary Time more and more. This is because, at the heart of this season is the realization that the mysteries we celebrate in these other seasons are so rich—so wonder-ful—that we need time to make sense of them. This means, then, that many of us might need to re-think the way we understand this season.
After all, when we hear “ordinary” don’t we feel a bit tempted to shrug off these weeks because “there’s nothing going on.”
After all, isn’t that what “ordinary” means?
Nothing special. Nothing to see here, folks.
The Gospel proclaimed this Sunday proves to us how wrong that attitude is.
Here, in the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel (which will be proclaimed on most Sundays this liturgical year), we hear about the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry. The Reading opens by telling us that John has been arrested and we notice that Jesus’ proclamation sounds remarkably similar to John’s clarion call to repentance: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." (cf. Matthew 3:2 and 4:17). The text almost gives us the sense that Jesus is picking up where John left off.
There is, however, one very significant difference between the proclamations of Jesus and John. Remember that John’s ministry was oriented toward the One who was to come. Now, in this passage, we hear Jesus proclaiming that what was promised has been fulfilled: “This is the time of fulfillment.”
The wait is over.
What John and the prophets hoped and longed for has been realized and Jesus himself is the fulfillment of that promise. As Scripture scholar Barbara Reid, OP, has observed in her commentary Abiding Word: Year B:
“We are urged to recognize that a new time presses upon us, requiring different responses from before. There is nothing ordinary about the invitation to follow Jesus more radically in this urgent time.”
“In St. Mark, the Good News, or gospel, is the person of Jesus himself, to whom women and men must cleave through faith. When a human being comes face to face with the gospel that is Jesus himself, two things are required of him: he must repent and he must follow Christ in an act of faith.”
—Adrian Nocent, OSB, The Liturgical Year (Volume 1)
This sense of urgency is demonstrated in the way in which Simon, Andrew, and the Sons of Zebedee leave their nets behind—no questions asked—to begin their journey with Jesus. Those abandoned nets represented an old way of life. And, as we will see in the coming weeks, these new disciples don’t leave their families behind (see the Gospel for the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time), but, as Reid also notes, “Jesus becomes part of their family, making Capernaum his home, and the disciples become Jesus’ new family, reorienting all relationships.” To this family of disciples, we will see how women and men from all walks of life will be added. And now, two thousands years later, that family has also come to include each of us—women and men who have offered our own “yes” in our own time and place. Like those first Apostles and disciples, we have been invited to lay aside our nets—our preferences, our agendas, our distractions—and to accept the Lord’s invitation to do and to be more.
As we think about all of this, we recognize that even in these “ordinary” days, there is a sense of urgency and a call for us to reorient our lives and relationships. (This is the work of conversion!) Because, if we take to heart the Christmas and Epiphany revelations that Christ is truly present among us, then we also have to recognize that “ordinariness” is no longer a possibility for us.
The time has been fulfilled.
This is Extra-ordinary Time!
Almighty ever-living God,
direct our actions according to your good pleasure,
that in the name of your beloved Son
we may abound in good works.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
-Collect for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time
