Nehemiah 8:2-6, 8-10 / 1 Cor 12:12-30 / Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21
There are some words which have more than one meaning, and they are called homonyms. Some examples are:
- Point: The pencil has a sharp point. / It is not polite to point at people.
- Right: You were right. / Make a right turn
And then there are some words which may have a clear meaning but we respond and react to it differently.
For example, the word “tomorrow”. It may give us a kind of hope and something to look forward to, eg. Tomorrow we can try again / Tomorrow the parcel will arrive / Tomorrow it will be completed.
So the word “tomorrow” gives a sense of continuation, as well as, a sense of progress and growth and expectation.
But tomorrow can also generate an attitude of complacency and a lack of urgency.
We may put off to tomorrow what we can or must do today. Since we think there is a tomorrow, then we will think that we still have plenty of time. We daydream about tomorrow and we forget about reality of today.
So we begin to procrastinate and we push to tomorrow what we can really do today. So we procrastinate and we get lazy, and we become careless, and things begin to pile up from yesterday and the day before, and it gets more and more.
Even when it comes to paying a debt, some people can say “Tomorrow I’ll pay”. But for them, there is always another tomorrow. Meanwhile today we see in their Facebook, photos of them having fine dining or having a holiday in some exotic place.
So for some people, tomorrow is another word for procrastination. Tomorrow is another word for wait. Tomorrow is just another word for “no time”, “no hurry”, “no urgency”.
But for St. Luke, the author of today’s gospel passage, that was not his attitude. As much as many others have undertaken to draw up the accounts of Jesus, he decided to write an ordered account for Theophilus.
But he didn’t wait for that perfect time, that perfect environment, that perfect setting to do it. He listened to the promptings of the Spirit and then he got down to doing it.
As it is said: When you pray, God listens. When you listen, God speaks. When you act, God works.
St. Luke acted on the promptings of the Spirit and with power of the Spirit, we have the gospel according to St. Luke, to give us an understanding of the life and mission of Jesus.
But St. Luke got his inspiration from none other than Jesus. He wrote that Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in Him, began preaching and teaching and His reputation grew.
He then came to Nazara, His hometown, and at the synagogue, He read that passage from the prophet Isaiah, that the Spirit had anointed Him to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, and to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.
And then finally Jesus stated the purpose of His mission and the urgency when He said this text is being fulfilled today even as they listened.
So it is clear that for Jesus, the healing and the salvation of souls is not for tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. It is for today and here and now.
And even as we listen to what Jesus is saying the Spirit is already anointing us and prompting us.
Because we know of someone who is in need of Jesus and yet are we procrastinating, are we dilly-dallying, are we dreaming about it and not acting on it? But today is the day and the time is now!
Or for that matter, maybe it is we ourselves who need Jesus. We may be saying: Tomorrow then I start praying / Tomorrow then I stop watching porn / Next month then I go for Confession.
The bigger the spiritual problem, the longer we wait, the longer we procrastinate, the longer we delay, then the deeper and bigger the problem will be.
We always assume that there will be a tomorrow but we forget that God did not promise us tomorrow.
What we have is today and the Spirit is prompting us to bring Jesus to those in need of Him.
• To our aged parents who are waiting for a visit from us.
• To our children who are waiting for us to teach them how to pray.
• To that lapsed Catholic who is waiting for someone to bring him/her back to Church.
• To that person who is having an immoral life and waiting to be shown the way of truth with love.
So there are these people who are waiting to hear the good news and waiting to experience peace and joy in their lives.
For ourselves, and for them, tomorrow might be too late. Salvation is urgent and there cannot be any procrastination.
The Spirit is prompting, so let us listen and let us get going – not tomorrow, not the day after, but today.