Dear Friends,

This weekend, we are entering into the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time. During the weeks of Ordinary Time, we hear reading of the Gospels from the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee immediately following his baptism by John, and then through Judea, ending just before he enters in triumph into Jerusalem to accomplish the wonder of our salvation through his death and resurrection. In these weeks of Ordinary Time, we are invited to walk along with Jesus, to see what he does, and to hear what he says by way of teaching. It is an ongoing invitation to discipleship, which essentially is an invitation to get to know Jesus better and better, to model our lives on his own example and teaching, and in turn to become better signs of his presence and activity in the world of our day. As we work our way through these weeks of Ordinary Time, a salutary spiritual discipline we can all undertake is to read the Gospel passage of each day and to spend some time in quiet prayer and reflection, inviting the Lord to come into our hearts through his word and to help us conform ourselves to him by putting his word into practice concretely in our own ordinary daily lives. All we have to do is to take the time, open the door, and let the Lord in, and then watch what can happen. You can be sure that if we do that, our experiences during these weeks may well be anything but ordinary.

The gospel this weekend tells us that Jesus is our Savior. Jesus says that he has been anointed to “proclaim liberty to captives and to let the oppressed go free.” In the Bible, anointing meant that you were chosen and given a special power by God.

So Jesus is very serious when he says this. He is a savior who comes to set us free. He comes to bring us back to God. Let’s be honest: we can’t save ourselves.

Sometimes we find ourselves wondering why we seem to commit the same sins over and over again. Sometimes we all say with St Paul: “I don’t do the good I want to do, I do the evil I don’t want to do.”

Have a Blessed week everyone,

Fr. Augustine Nguyen