24 January 2021
Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday of the Word of God
Today’s readings from scripture carry with them a motif of timeliness and urgency. In the first reading from Jonah (3:1-5, 10), the prophet announces, “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed,” prompting the people’s conversion. In the second reading from 1 Corinthians (7:29-31), Saint Paul tells his audience that “the time is running out . . . [f]or the world in its present form is passing away.” And finally, in the Gospel (Mark 1:14-20) Jesus himself proclaims, “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
The emphasis on timeliness in these readings may seem odd for a humdrum Sunday in Ordinary Time, and more appropriate for Lent or Advent. Yet it is a helpful reminder to shake us out of any sense of complacency. The Lord calls us to love and follow him every day, and the present moment is truly the “time of fulfillment” in which God’s grace is offered to us in a concrete and specific way. Today, we can pray for the grace to hear the Lord’s call to us in the present moment and to respond in the spirit of promptness and urgency which today’s scriptures highlight. And, in our Examen at the close of the day, we can ask the Lord to show us the quality of our response and beg his grace to do better in the future.