Having entered into sonship and daughterhood by our Baptism we have become God our Father’s beloved children. And the gift of faith that unites all is to be found in our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Therefore we are one Body In Christ. How then can we not love our brother or sister? How can we say I want nothing to do with him or her? Unforgiveness leads to our own separation from Christ Jesus. Therefore we should always turn to Jesus who was fully man as He was fully God, and so we turn to Him with our weakness and shortcomings. He will give us the strength and grace we need to love and forgive. For our Saviour came to take away the sins of the world, so that we can live free in Him love. Christ has died, Christ is risen and Christ will come again.
‘This Gospel text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’ because Jesus our Lord is very much present to us in 2021 as He was in yesteryears! The victory won! We have life to the full in Him… This is our Faith! Amen
First reading
1 John 4:19-5:4
Anyone who loves God must also love his brother
We are to love,
because God loved us first.
Anyone who says, ‘I love God’, and hates his brother, is a liar, since a man who does not love the brother that he can see cannot love God, whom he has never seen.
So this is the commandment that he has given us, that anyone who loves God must also love his brother.
Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ
has been begotten by God; and whoever loves the Father that begot him loves the child whom he begets.
We can be sure that we love God’s children
if we love God himself and do what he has commanded us;
this is what loving God is –
keeping his commandments; and his commandments are not difficult, because anyone who has been begotten by God
has already overcome the world; this is the victory over the world – our faith.
Gospel
Luke 4:14-22
‘This text is being fulfilled today, even as you listen’
Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in him, returned to Galilee; and his reputation spread throughout the countryside. He taught in their synagogues and everyone praised him.
He came to Nazara, where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day as he usually did. He stood up to read and they handed him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll he found the place where it is written:
The spirit of the Lord has been given to me,
for he has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.
He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to speak to them, ‘This text is being fulfilled today even as you listen.’ And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by the gracious words that came from his lips.
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