Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. Monsignor Fisher is a Catholic priest, a member of the Diocese of Dallas, and founder of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to to enriching your spiritual journey. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com. We celebrate the third Sunday in Ordinary Time.

The Opening Prayer Almighty Ever Living God, direct our actions according to your good pleasure that in the name of your Beloved Son we might abound in good works through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of Holy Spirit God forever and ever. Amen. A reading from the Old Testament the book of Isaiah, 8th chapter, 23rd verse through the 9th chapter, 3rd verse 1st the Lord degraded the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the end he has glorified the seaward road, the land west of the Jordan, the district of the Gentiles. Anguish has taken wing. Dispelled is darkness, for there is no gloom where but now there was distress. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light upon those who dwell in the land of gloom a light has shone.

You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing, as they rejoice before you as at the harvest, as people make merry when dividing spoils for the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, the rod of their taskmaster. You you have smashed as on the day of Midian, the word of the Lord. The Lord is my light and my salvation. The Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom should I fear? The Lord is my life’s refuge.

Of whom should I be afraid? The Lord is my light and my salvation. One thing I ask of the Lord this I to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, that I may gaze on the loveliness of the Lord and contemplate his temple. The Lord is my light and my salvation. I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord with courage.

Be stout hearted and wait for the Lord. The Lord is my light and my salvation. A reading from the New Testament St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians first verse 10, 13th verse and the 17th verse I urge you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers and sisters, by Cleo’s people, that there are rivalries among you. I mean, each of you is saying, I belong to Paul, I belong to Apollos, I belong to Cephas, I belong to Christ.

Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or are you baptized in the name of Paul? For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the Gospel, and not with the wisdom of human eloquence, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning. The Word of the Lord. Alleluia Verse Jesus proclaimed the gospel of the kingdom and cured every disease among the people.

Alleluia the gospel for this third Sunday in Ordinary Time is taken from St. Matthew 4:23 when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and went to live in Capernaum by the sea, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali, that what had been said through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled. Land of Zebulun Land of Naphtali the way to the sea beyond the Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles. The people who sit in darkness have seen a great light on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death. Light has arisen.

From that time on, Jesus began to preach and say, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. As he was walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and his brother Andrew, casting their nets into the sea. They were fishermen. He said to them, come after me, and I will make you fishers of men. At once they left their nets and followed him. He walked along from there and saw two other brothers, James, the son of Zebedee and the and his brother John.

They were in a boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets. He called them immediately. They left their boat and their father and followed him. He went around all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogue, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and curing every disease and illness among the people. The Gospel of the Lord. Now we can just as we listen to the music of Brian Hardner, I ask you to do an exercise, if you would like, and that is to breathe in deeply for four seconds, hold it for two seconds, and breathe out for four seconds.

And it does something to awaken in us. The breath of God, the wisdom of God pouring into us and bringing life. And I pray it will bring insight into the words that you have just listened to with me. Satan, sam, Ram. Every time we begin this ordinary time, we go through the life of Jesus, the transition from the Old Testament to the New Testament. And there’s a wonderful way of trying to pay attention to the radical difference between the old and the new.

It is so important that that be the focus of the beginning of your awareness of who Jesus really is. To recognize that so much of what we normally grow up believing in, in terms of authority, in seeking wisdom, we grow up naturally leaning upon other people to tell us what we should do, that’s our parents or anybody in authority. So for the first years of our existence, until, let’s say we get into our, I don’t know, teenage years now, 18, 17, 16, you start believing in the fact that you have a right to make your own decisions and there’s a tension in you from obedience, authority over you, to an inner authority. And so as we’re looking at this wonderful set of readings, you’re going to be invited with me to journey into this transition place from old to new. And one of the ways it’s described in this set of readings is from darkness to light. And the darkness that’s in the first reading is really an interesting one because it’s talking about a kind of something that we’re dealing with that causes anguish and gloom and darkness.

And yet when we see even in the Old Testament those things overcoming the Jewish people, I mean, they were stiff necked, they weren’t very easy to, to deal with. And God found himself at times very angry and even at one time wanted to destroy them all because they didn’t obey him. They kept going back to their own ways. But here in Isaiah, he’s foretelling something that is going to come. It’s going to be something like a light. And so the darkness that you’re in is going to seem not so dark, it’s going to have light in it.

And the light will bring about abundant joy as people rejoice when everything is working for them, when their crops have been beautifully grown during the time that they have no control over how it grows because of the weather. And they’re just filled with delight that something has worked. And so there is this image of something being broken, taken away from the people in the New Testament. And I love the way this passage ends where it says the yoke that burdened them, the pole of their shoulder, the rod of their Taskmaster, you’ve smashed, how’s that for a word to change? Smashed the way it was. And all of those three images, the yoke, the pole, the rod, they’re all about being burdened by something created for you by an authority over you.

And that’s really basically what the Old Testament’s about. And unfortunately it’s a lot about the way people think about religion even today. Why do I need this burden on me? Why don’t I be free? Why can’t I be free? Why can’t I do what I want to do?

And it’s so interesting that that sounds so selfish and self centered. But the truth is that’s exactly what God has placed in you and me. A desire not to be controlled by an outer authority, but to come to a place. The inner authority is what does the work, our choices, what we think, what we do. So here’s Paul in the second reading talking very clearly about the fact that, look, I see something that’s happening that isn’t the intention of God. You all seem to be going in different directions.

And when you go in different directions, it’s not just that everybody agrees, it’s okay, you go in that one, you go in this one. But they’re rivalries. You should be with me, you should be doing this, you should have this. And it’s so interesting that all of that is a very interesting way of imagining again, the way religion turns into something that’s my way or the highway. I mean, if you were Jewish, that’s what you should be. If you were Christian, you should be Christian.

If you’re Muslim, you should be Muslim, you’re Islam. It’s really a divided kind of world. And yet even in the Vatican Council, the beauty of that council was that every religion that teaches the truth is a means of salvation. So it’s not about everybody having to be one religion. It’s everybody has to be on the same page when it comes to who God is and what he does for you and for me. And the work that we are engaged in together.

And that work that every religion should draw us into, is the participation in this extraordinary work of the evolution of consciousness. To be able to see the truth so clearly, so beautifully, that the darkness that sin creates, the darkness that is created by addiction to things that control us. And all of that is to be destroyed by this beautiful coming of God into the world. And his coming into the world, as you well know, is more than his coming into a human form at one time in history. But that action of God Becoming human is something so powerful about what it is that religion promises. All religions promise our union, a communion with God.

What’s different about some of the religions is they might have a different emphasis on who God is. And I often think it’s so interesting that it’s also about a religion that makes a clear distinction between the Old Testament and New Testament. Not that the Old Testament is wrong. It is a beautiful, beautiful religion and a beautiful message. But Jesus had in store for us a radically different message. And it’s not that the Jewish religion doesn’t lead one to this same closeness to God, which is what Christianity calls and every religion calls us to.

But it’s this wonderful thing about Jesus being the model. And the model could be just also the maturity of the Jewish faith. It’s becoming so connected to God that you are in his way of living, in his plan for you. And that plan is just marvelous. And in the Gospel, we listen to it as Jesus is revealed to us and he’s revealed as light. And isn’t it interesting when you look at creation, the first thing that God created was light, day and night.

And it’s true, in the Old Testament and New Testament, there is still going to be always light and darkness, truth and error, reality and illusion. And yet in the Old Testament, it seemed that it was taught in a way that frightened people into complete submission to rules and regulations because the darkness had great power to overtake them, and they had to have something that kept them out of it. But now we’re told that the darkness has been destroyed. There still is problems, there still will be darkness, but it’s never going to overtake you. And when you realize that, you realize that then if it’s never going to win, then every battle with it is going to be some kind of achievement, some kind of growth. And that’s exactly what Jesus means when he says repent.

Repent is a change of heart. It’s regret. It’s looking back on those things you did years ago and say, what was I thinking? That was crazy. I was so full of myself, or I was so doubting myself, or I was so angry at other people for what they had. I don’t know, whatever it would be.

You grow out of those things. That’s called repentance. And the thing that’s interesting about the way Jesus says it in the Gospel versus the way that John the Baptist would say it is John the Baptist called for repentance. But Jesus says repent. The kingdom is at hand, the thing that you want, the thing that you long for the peace that comes from an inner authority living within you, guiding you and directing you. Not because you have to, not because you’re made to, not because you’re going to be punished if you don’t.

But it simply makes sense, and you want to do it. And you see the fruits of doing it. That’s called the kingdom, and it’s supposed to be now. So then we end this set of readings with something happening. And that’s Jesus calling his disciples. And he’s saying, just come after me.

Notice he doesn’t say, do what I say. He doesn’t say, come and I’ll tell you what to do. No, come after me, dwell with me, come see where I live is another thing he said to some disciples that he invited to follow him. And so what it is is that Jesus is not anything like the temple and the law and the demands and the inflicting of punishment if one does not do what they’re told. It’s another world from that. And the image of that change is again mentioned in this particular gospel by the fact that when he called someone, they immediately left their work and their Father.

And I don’t know if this is really in any way shape the intention of the gospel, but it just struck to me, it struck me that their work, or I’d say the work of the Old Testament, was following the law. The work of the New Testament is experiencing God inside of you, guiding you, enabling you to make the decisions that bring the most life and love to you and the people that you care about. And then leaving their Father is, in a way, leaving what everything the Father had taught them? I don’t mean it. That’s not what it means literally. But I’m just playing with it, saying, could that be leaving the work of the Old Testament, leaving the image of God the Father and opening it to the fullness of who God the Father is.

And follow that and enter into a wonderful place, a kingdom that is marked by the work of. Of those who believe in what the kingdom is. They imitate the one who describes the kingdom by his life. And you and I are in a world where we can cure every disease and illness among the people. And that doesn’t mean that there will not be disease and illness. It means that we are in the business of conquering those things that would destroy us, make us uncomfortable, take away our ability to be up and around and working.

So we have a new kingdom that is being proclaimed and so important for all of us. And I long for it to be within your heart that you’re no longer feeling. Religion is a binding burden, but an invitation to a new life infused with spirit, infused with light, infused with wisdom, infused with insight. And the more you grow and participate in that work of healing, you bring that same healing to everyone around you. God bless you, Sam. Sa.

Satan Father, help us to leave what we have been taught and told that isn’t fully the truth that God wants us to live by. Help us to be awakened and see what the kingdom is really like. Help us to experience it, to know it, so we can truly be like the disciples who became after learning, became apostles which was teachers not by words so much but by who they are. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen. The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher, a listener’s supported program is archived and available on Our website website pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com and available anytime, anywhere and for free on our podcast Finding God in Our Hearts.

You can search and subscribe to Finding God in Our Hearts anywhere you download your podcasts. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website pastoralreflectionsinsinsinsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a NonProfit in Dallas, Texas dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios.

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