One Minute Reflection – 19 January – ‘He is in that church, to be in us.’

One Minute Reflection – 19 January – Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A – Readings: Isaiah 49:3, 5-6, Psalm 40:2, 4, 7-10, 1 Corinthians 1:1-3, John 1:29-34

“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” … John 1:29

REFLECTION – “To better understand these events, the Liturgy of today makes us examine them in the light of the divinity of Jesus, whose incarnation makes life a sanctuary of the divinity.   Not only His life is divine but also, with the salvation He brought to us in taking away sins, our daily lives, our work, our joys and tenderness become the environment of the divine holiness.
In Jesus, Lamb of God, holiness is revealed as formidable promotion of life and of man.  It is a man that, having been forgiven, is transfigured and made child of God.
On the day of his Ordination, the Priest receives the Consecration of the hands.   It is indeed a magnificent event.   But in Christ, all hands are holy, all hands are consecrated, all hands can become hands of light.
In Christ all the bodies are called to become the Temple of the Holy Spirit and the Limbs of Jesus Christ.   The Temple that we are, is much more beautiful than any church made of stone.   God is in us, more than in a church, because He is in that church, to be in us.
In the Gospel, all faces are called to radiate the Face of Christ.   The vocation that He gives us when presented as the Lamb of God, is not a call to enter a prohibited area.   To gather us in unity, He invites us to the table, where “very simply” we eat the bread and drink the wine made the Body and the Blood of the Lamb of God, by the Sacrament, so that we become the One we eat.” … Pope Benedict XVI – 17 January 2014

PRAYER – Almighty God, Your Son’s manhood, born of the Virgin, was a new creation, untainted by our sinful condition.   Renew us then, in Christ and cleanse us from our sins.   May the Holy Name of Jesus, be our light, our safeguard and our shield.   Through Christ our Lord, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for all time and forever, amen.