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Two-Minute Homily by Fr Rafal Rucinski for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023.
“Every day we must strive again to be faithful. This is true repentance and we are invited to live that way.”

• Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Two-Minute Homily Transcript

  Author: Archdiocese of Brisbane

  As we listen to the readings from this Sunday, we can become deeply aware that Jesus had some kind of charisma about him. We don’t know if he had met any of these people before. If they are all from the same area, it is likely that he had met them. Nevertheless, to ask people to follow you and have them immediately drop what they were doing and go after you says so much about the force or charisma of Jesus’ personality. Another point that comes to us clearly is that Jesus is fulfilling the prophecies of the Jewish Scriptures and the authors of the Christian Scriptures take the effort seriously to pointing out these connections.

  It is important that we ourselves see and understand Jesus as the fulfilment of the prophets. We are the people who walk in the darkness of this world, yet who look for the light of Jesus Christ. We are those who have seen light rise out of darkness and who know that what God promised through our ancestors in the faith is fulfilled in Jesus and in our own time.

  Jesus invites us to repent. Repenting is very different from feeling badly about ourselves. Repenting is about changing the direction of our lives. That does not mean that we can change directions once and for all and without any problems. Change for a lot of us is the work of a lifetime. We must get up every morning and strive to live God’s will in our lives. It is not always easy. Yet, every day we must strive again to be faithful. This is the true repentance and we are invited to live that way.

  Jesus invites us not only to repent but to follow Him. We can see that changing our lives must mean, ultimately, following Him. There is no other way. There is no other truth. And there is no other life worth living.