Hebrews 1:1-6 / Mark 1:14-20
We are already 12 days into the new year, school has already started last week, our work and our lives are getting back to routine and into the groove, and it would sound odd if we are still wishing each other "Happy New Year".
Whatever new beginnings that we are looking forward to at the start of the year may have become a bit jaded by now as things begin to plateau off into monotony.
But as we begin the first day in the first week of Ordinary Time, the 1st reading begins with this line - At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, He has spoken to us through His Son.
It sounds rather odd that on the first day of the first week of Ordinary Time, the 1st reading would talk about the last days.
Yet, it is precisely in these "last days" that we are made aware that God has spoken in a very personal way through His Son, Jesus Christ the Word made flesh.
In the gospel, we heard how Jesus proclaimed the Good News and how He called the first disciples Peter and Andrew, James and John.
And that sets the direction in the days to come, be it the early days of the year of the last days of the year. Or for that matter of fact, all the days of our lives.
Jesus is proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom of God to us. God wants to pour out His goodness into our lives so that we can be lifted from the monotony and the routine of our worldly lives and to live in the love and joy that Jesus came to bring.
And Jesus is also calling us to follow Him and to be proclaimers of the Good News so that God can continue to speak to the world through us. Let us answer that call, just as the first disciples left everything and answered that call.