Monthly Reflections

Thoughts at the Beginning of Another Year.

“Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. . .”

I borrow the lyrics of this song by Rodgers and Hammerstein to begin this essay because they are the words that popped into my head as I opened the lectionary for today. We find ourselves in the first month of the year, the beginning of 2010.

Every year, we read through all three of the synoptic Gospels and a healthy portion of the Gospel of St. John. Scripture scholars agree that St. Mark’s Gospel is the earliest attempt to record the life, ministry, passion, and death of Jesus. Consequently, we read it first every year. Even though it was written before the other Gospels, it was still written as many as twenty-five or thirty years after the events which it records. Before the Gospels were written, people simply told the story to one another verbally, recalling the sayings of Jesus, his words. Perhaps they began the conversation with, “Do you remember when Jesus said. . .”

So we start at the beginning once again. It is, indeed, a very good place to start. I am sure that the first words out of the mouth of Jesus in the Gospel of St. Mark won’t come as any surprise to you. “Repent.” Change your ways. Believe in the Gospel, the Good News. It serves as a good reminder that repentance is, after all, the very reason for which we read the Gospel in the first place.

“The Kingdom of God is at hand,” Jesus tells us. It is among us, within us, around us, above us, below us, next to us. Another word for “repentance” is “conversion.” Literally, the word “conversion” means “to turn with. . .” Let us turn with one another, turn toward God together; for it is then that we will find the Kingdom of God in our midst, together. However, when we locate the kingdom of God, let us remember that it is a very good place to start. In the words of St. Francis of Assisi as he lay dying, “Let us begin, for up to now we have done nothing.”

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator