4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Cycle C) – January 31, 2010

Scripture Readings
First Jeremiah 1:4-5, 17-19
Second 1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13
Gospel Luke 4:21-30

Prepared by: Fr. Peter John Cameron, O.P.

1. Subject Matter
· What it means to be a prophet
· The “still more excellent way” of love
· The Word of God that is fulfilled in our hearing

2. Exegetical Notes
· “The Word of the Lord came to me, saying: ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,… a
prophet to the nations I appointed you….I am with you to deliver you:” “‘I knew you:’ the verb
yada does not refer exclusively to an intellectual knowledge; it involves as well an action of
the will and sensibility.” (NJBC)
· “The greatest of these is love:” “Unlike the highest form of human love, whereby man seeks
self-perfection in what is noble and spiritual, agape comes from God to us in Jesus Christ. It
is unmotivated and creative, seeks nothing and is unattracted by goodness. God loved us as
sinners in Jesus. We must open ourselves to that love and allow God’s love to be active in us
in the unmotivated love of others.” (JBC)
· “‘Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.’… All…were amazed at the
gracious words that came from his mouth:” “Jesus says the fulfillment is present today
(semeron). The emphasis falls on fulfillment’s current availability. Semeron is a key term in
Luke’s theology and stresses that the opportunity for salvation is this very moment…. The
era of fulfillment is very much tied to Jesus’ person. He brings a special time…. Luke
stresses the nature of the time in the nearness of the person.” (Darrell L. Bock)

3. References to the Catechism of the Catholic Church

· 64 Through the prophets, God forms his people in the hope of salvation, in the
expectation of a new and everlasting Covenant intended for all, to be written on their
 hearts. The prophets proclaim a radical redemption of the People of God, purification
from all their infidelities, a salvation which will include all the nations. Above all, the
poor and humble of the Lord will bear this hope.
· 2595 The prophets summoned the people to conversion of heart and, while zealously
seeking the face of God, like Elijah, they interceded for the people.
· 1766 "To love is to will the good of another." All other affections have their source in
this first movement of the human heart toward the good. Only the good can be loved.
Passions "are evil if love is evil and good if it is good."
· 735 He, then, gives us the "pledge" or "first fruits" of our inheritance: the very life of
the Holy Trinity, which is to love as "God [has] loved us." This love (the "charity" of 1
Cor 13) is the source of the new life in Christ, made possible because we have
received "power" from the Holy Spirit.
· 124 "The Word of God, which is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has
faith, is set forth and displays its power in a most wonderful way in the writings of the
New Testament" which hand on the ultimate truth of God's Revelation. Their central
object is Jesus Christ, God's incarnate Son: his acts, teachings, Passion and
glorification, and his Church's beginnings under the Spirit's guidance.
· 134 All sacred Scripture is but one book, and this one book is Christ, "because all
divine Scripture speaks of Christ, and all divine Scripture is fulfilled in Christ" (Hugh of
St. Victor, De arca Noe 2, 8: PL 176, 642: cf. ibid. 2, 9: PL 176, 642-643).

4. Patristic Commentary and Other Authorities

· Origen: “When we fail to remember the One who formed a person in the womb, and formed
all people’s hearts individually and understands all their works, we do not perceive that God
is a helper of those who are lowly and inferior, a protector of the weak, a provider of shelter
of those who have been given up in despair and Savior of those who have been given us as
hopeless.”
· John Cassian: “A saint is different from a sinner, not because he or she is not tempted in the
same way, but because he or she is not defeated even by a great assault, while the other is
overcome even by a slight temptation. The strength of any good person would not be worthy
of praise if the victory was gained without being tempted. Most certainly there is not room for
victory where there is not struggle and conflict.”
· St. Augustine: “The greater the love of God that the saints possess, the more they endure all
things for him.”
· St. Cyril: “As if He says, You wish me to work many miracles among you, in whose country I
have been brought up, but I am aware of a very common failing in the minds of many. To a
certain extent it always happens, that even the very best things are despised when they fall
to a man's lot, not scantily, but ever at his will. So it happens also with respect to men. For a
friend who is ever at hand, does not meet with the respect due to him.”
· St. Ambrose: “But this is given for an example, that in vain can you expect the aid of Divine
mercy, if you grudge to others the fruits of their virtue. The Lord despises the envious, and
 withdraws the miracles of His power from them that are jealous of His divine blessings in
others. For our Lord's Incarnation is an evidence of His divinity, and His invisible things are
proved to us by those which are visible. See then what evils envy produces. For envy a
country is deemed unworthy of the works of its citizen, which was worthy of the conception of
the Son of God.”
· St. Basil: “Every widowed soul, bereft of virtue and divine knowledge, as soon as she
receives the divine word, knowing her own failings, learns to nourish it with the bread of
virtue, and to water the teaching of virtue from the fountain of life.”
· St. John Chrysostom: “Herein He shows both His human nature and His divine. To stand in
the midst of those who were plotting against Him, and not be seized, betokened the loftiness
of His divinity; but His departure declared the mystery of the dispensation, i.e. His
incarnation.”
· St. Ambrose: “At the same time we must understand that this bodily endurance was not
necessary, but voluntary. When He wills, He is taken, when He wills, He escapes. For how
could He be held by a few who was not held by a whole people? But He would have the
impiety to be the deed of the many, in order that by a few indeed He might be afflicted, but
might die for the whole world. Moreover, He had still rather heal the Jews than destroy them,
that by the fruitless issue of their rage they might be dissuaded from wishing what they could
not accomplish.”
· St. Thomas Aquinas: “A man is a prophet only when he announces things beyond the ken of
men whose situation he shares.”
· Fr. Ceslaus Spicq, O.P.: “Agape is patient…. Only great love and great humility can give
such a victory…. This alliance of strength with gentleness clearly proclaims the sovereign
mastery in which the Christian lives. Because his patience makes him merciful to those who
offend him and courageous in adversity, he lives in interior peace…. In giving triumphant
patience as agape’s first characteristic, St. Paul intended to stress the fundamental
greatness of soul which its second characteristic would complete and establish as a
specifically Christian virtue…. Agape is kind…. If the word ‘charity’ is replaced in this strophe
by the name of Jesus, the hymn becomes an exact description of the Savior’s life…. Agape
is not envious…--the bitter zeal that turn into fanaticism and arouses persecution and
treachery…. Agape takes no note of injury…. It is more than the absence of rancor and more
even than pardon. It is absolute forgetfulness, as if the marks of the stylus vanished from the
wax tablet. When it deals with evil of any kind, injuries, or other people’s mistakes, charity
has no memory. Its reactions are always fresh and inspired by a sincere and open
benevolence which sees only the other person’ good. It is always ready to return to a
trusting, generous, and even intimate relationship with him. God behaves this way toward
pardoned sinners and Jesus toward his executioners…. By its silence and discretion, charity
hides a neighbor’s failing from others. Far from telling anyone else about them, it tries to
forget them, as a mother jealously tries to hide her child’s faults and failings—sometimes
even from his father! If a charitable person is ever hurt be a neighbor’s fault, he neither feels
sorry for himself nor complains to anyone about his neighbor’s unkindness…. Even if the evil
in a neighbor is evident and undeniable, agape still does not despair of the future. It is always
magnanimous and optimistic, counting on the final triumph of good…. Chrity stands fast and
does not go down under the burden. If anything at all has a chance of disarming fierce
opposition and violent bias, it must be love’s untiring patience.”
· Bl. John Henry Newman: “The Presence of Christ is still among us, in spite of our many sins
and the sins of our people. The notes of his day are among us. What is the token of his
coming but a backsliding age? What are the notes of that Man of God but dimness and
confusion, the threatenings of evil, the scatterings of the faithful, and the defection fo the
powerful? With faith we can do everything; without faith we can do nothing. If we have a
secret misgiving about the Church, all is lost; we lose our nerve, our powers, our position, our
hope. A cold despondency and sickness of mind, a niggardness and peevishness of spirit, a
cowardice and sluggishness envelope us, penetrate us, stifle us. Let it not be so with us; let
us be of good heart; let us accept her as God’s gift and our portion; let us imitate Him.”
· Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa: “The traditional prophets helped their contemporaries look
beyond the wall of time and see into the future, but [the Christian prophet] helps the people to
look past the wall of contrary appearances to make them see the Messiah hidden behind the
semblance of a man like others. In this way [the prophet] inaugurated the new Christian form
of prophecy, which does not consist in proclaiming a future salvation ("in the last times"), but
to reveal the hidden presence of Christ in the world.”
· Msgr. Luigi Giussani: “A prophet is one who announces the significance of the world and the
value of life…. The power of prophecy is the power to know what is real…. Being a prophet
means to cry out before everyone that Christ is everything.”

5. Examples from the Saints and Other Exemplars

· St. John Bosco (feast day normally January 31): An example of a Christian who exemplifies
the charity that Paul describes in 1 Cor. 13 who used that gift of love to be a witness of Christ
and a prophet, especially to young people. Fr. Antonin Sertillanges, O.P., wrote, “The
function of an apostle is not, strictly speaking, to explain the truth but to cause souls to
confront the truth by doing so himself. The man who talks about religion without having a
religious heart is like one who might describe from hearsay, without ever having seen them,
the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. The modern man is not satisfied with hearing only; he
wants to see. What can we show him? An apologist waxes very important and very eloquent
over what the Church has accomplished in the world. But I look for the spirit of Don Bosco in
him, of the Christians described for us by the Acts of the Apostles. O my brother apologists,
the true apologetics is there! Religious truth will always appear more or less in the measure
of him who announces it; that is why, in the humble, human sense of the terms, a preacher of
Christ should strive to be another Christ.”

6. Quotations from Pope Benedict XVI

· “We can indeed recognize something of God’s plan. This knowledge goes beyond that of my
personal fate and my individual path. By its light we can look back on history as a whole and
see that this is not a random process but a road that leads to a particular goal. We can come
to know an inner logic, the logic of God, within apparently chance happenings. Even if this
does not enable us to predict what is going to happen at this or that point, nonetheless we
may develop a certain sensitivity for the dangers contained in certain things—and for the
hopes that are in others. A sense of the future develops, in that I see what destroys the
future—because it is contrary to the inner logic of the road—and what, on the other hand,
leads onward—because it opens the positive doors and corresponds to the inner design of
 the whole. To that extent the ability to diagnose the future can develop. It’s the same with the
prophets. They are not to be understood as seers, but as voices who understand time from
God’s point of view and can therefore warn us against what is destructive—and, on the other
hand, show us the right road forward.”
· “The capacity to love is the capacity to wait in patience for what is not under one’s own
control and to let oneself receive this as a gift.”
· “Love is not merely a sentiment…. God does not demand of us a feeling which we ourselves
are incapable of producing. He loves us, he makes us see and experience his love, and
since he has ‘loved us first,’ love can also blossom as a response within us.”
· “Love of neighbor is a path that leads to the encounter with God…. Only my readiness to
encounter my neighbor and to show him love makes me sensitive to God as well. Only if I
serve my neighbor can my eyes be opened to what God does for me and how much he loves
me.”
· “World history is a struggle between two kinds of love: self-love to the point of hatred for God,
and love of God to the point of self-renunciation. This second love brings the redemption of
the world and the self.”
· “The whole Gospel of John, as well as the Synoptic Gospels and the entirety of the New
Testament writings, justify faith in Jesus by showing that all the currents of Scripture come
together in him, that he is the focal point in terms of which the overall coherence of Scripture
comes to light—everything is waiting for him, everything is moving toward him.”

7. Other Considerations
· In introducing the great hymn to love, notice what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:31. He
doesn’t say: I will show you a still more excellent concept, or theory, or program, or idea, or—
God forbid—rule. He says I will show you a still more excellent way. The word for “way” in
Greek is hodos, which means an actual, physical path or trail or thoroughfare or road (it’s the
root of the word “method”). The more excellent way that Saint Paul shows us is the road to
Damascus where Love revealed himself to Saul in the flesh and radically transformed his life.
Perhaps that was why Saint Thomas Aquinas was so attentive to the fact that Saint Paul, in
introducing his great Hymn, calls charity a “road:” “For here we are called wayfarers because
we are journeying towards God. On this road progress is made by charity” (Summa
Theologiae II-II, 24, 4). It is mind-boggling that the man who was the world’s foremost
proponent of hate (Paul was determined systematically to exterminate an entire category of
human beings—does he remind you of anyone?) has become the unsurpassed definitive
authority on love. Have you ever been to a wedding where 1 Cor. 13 was not one of the
readings (to omit it seemingly would constitute a new sin against the natural law). How is it
possible for St. Paul to be so “expert” when it comes to love? Because everything he claims
in his great hymn to charity happened to him on the way and continued happening to him
every day of his life. The more perfect way that he shows us is the one that he fell prostrate
before each morning…the Way who is Jesus Christ himself.

Recommended Resources
Benedict XVI, Pope. Benedictus. Yonkers: Magnificat, 2006.

Biblia Clerus: http://www.clerus.org/bibliaclerus/index_eng.html

Cameron, Peter John. To Praise, To Bless, To Preach—Cycle C. Huntington: Our Sunday

Visitor, 2000.

Hahn, Scott:
http://www.salvationhistory.com/library/scripture/churchandbible/homilyhelps/homilyhelps.cfm.

Martin, Francis: http://www.hasnehmedia.com/homilies.shtml

http://sc.fhview.com/sc_customplayer/seriesitems/1/119117