First Sunday in Ordinary Time – The Baptism of the Lord
Let’s put in order again each day our life
Bless the Lord, my soul! Lord, my God, you are great indeed! You are clothed with majesty and splendor, robed in light as with a cloak. You spread out the heavens like a tent; setting the beams of your chambers upon the waters. You make the clouds your chariot; traveling on the wings of the wind. You make the winds your messengers; flaming fire, your ministers. You fixed the earth on its foundation, so it can never be shaken. The deeps covered it like a garment; above the mountains stood the waters. At your rebuke they took flight; at the sound of your thunder they fled. They rushed up the mountains, down the valleys to the place you had fixed for them. You set a limit they cannot pass; never again will they cover the earth. You made springs flow in wadies that wind among the mountains. They give drink to every beast of the field; here wild asses quench their thirst. Beside them the birds of heaven nest; among the branches they sing….. You make the grass grow for the cattle and plants for people’s work to bring forth food from the earth, wine to gladden their hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread to sustain the human heart…..You made the moon to mark the seasons, the sun that knows the hour of its setting. You bring darkness and night falls, then all the animals of the forest wander about ….People go out to their work, to their labor till evening falls. Psa 103
“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” (Gn 1,1-3). These first verses of the Genesis, which open the Holy Scriptures, describe the beginning of the creation of the world. The today passage is the poetic and aesthetic recalling of that grand event which is lost in the night of the times. By the beginning it was chaos, darkness and abyss. All the things originated from the hand of God seem to be piled in the space in a “shapeless” mode, as I was used to do when I was going to built up a plant in a certain country of the world: the materials were piled on a side and, time by time, it was picked up to be erected in the place to which it was destined. Eventually, when the plant entered in service and the chimney started to smoke, each piece, from the most valuable to the simplest, had reached its location, its scope and its usefulness. We would have to read every morning when the sun raise this passage which evokes that first reordering of the created things. In every day which is born the Lord brings back the wonders of the creation, which have been hidden during the night by the darkness. It is renewed, then, the creative act in which the task of the man is included in a wonderful way: “Then the man goes out for his work, for his fatigue until the evening”. In this relocation at their place all the things, which every day the sun evokes and renews, as in a filigree the need of a complete reordering in the life of the man is perceived: in the thoughts, in the projects, in the sentiments, in the actions, in the words and in the international relationships. Give us, Lord, every morning of our life your spirit which flies upon our moved waters and our confused thoughts, to renew ourselves and the world which surrounds us.