{"id":1810,"date":"2015-01-17T11:57:53","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T11:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/?p=1810"},"modified":"2015-01-17T11:57:53","modified_gmt":"2015-01-17T11:57:53","slug":"commentary-2nd-sunday-year-b-18th-jan-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/commentary-2nd-sunday-year-b-18th-jan-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Commentary on 2nd Sunday of the year (B) 18th Jan 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s commentary is given by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP (http:\/\/goodnews.ie<\/a>).<\/p>\n

This reading is like rush-hour.\u00a0 It is full of names, there are lots of people passing by, happening to bump into one another, overhearing a few words by chance.\u00a0 The snippets of conversation are brief in the extreme, and practical: ‘What are you looking for?’ ‘Where are you staying?’ –\u00a0 like the conversation on a crowded street.\u00a0 And just like people in rush-hour they were conscious of the time: “it was about 4 o’clock.”Then suddenly, silence.\u00a0 “They remained with him that day.”\u00a0 There is no crowd, no consciousness of time, no account of what they talked about, no description of the place where they sat together.\u00a0 But whatever happened that afternoon changed the lives of Andrew and his companion forever, and started a development that is still in process twenty centuries later all over the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“They remained with him that day.”\u00a0 In fact they remained with him for the rest of their lives.\u00a0 Their relationship to him would become their new identity, as it would become the new identity of Andrew’s brother Peter, and of their circle of friends.\u00a0 We know that, but of course they didn\u2019t know it at the time.\u00a0 Nor could they know that countless others through the ages would cling to this new identity and disclaim all others.\u00a0 The historian Eusebius of Caesarea described the martyrdom of a Christian in Gaul under Verus in the 2nd century.\u00a0 “He endured in an extraordinary fashion all the outrages inflicted on him.\u00a0 While the torturers hoped to wring something from him which he ought not to say, he girded himself against them with such firmness that he would not even tell his name, or the nation or city to which he belonged, or whether he was a slave or a freeman, but answered in the Roman tongue to all their questions, ‘I am a Christian’, Christianus sum<\/em>.\u00a0\u00a0 He professed this instead of name and city and race and everything besides, and the people heard from him no other word.”\u00a0 This new identity was the only one he claimed, and it was indestructible.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is a fundamental question for every person in every age: which of the many identities that I claim, and of the many that are thrust on me, is indestructible?\u00a0 The consumerist society identifies me as a consumer, politicians as a voter, lawyers as a client, shopkeepers as a customer, television companies as a viewer, and even football clubs as a fan\u2026.\u00a0 All of these, singly, are temporary; but together they can be a great distraction from the real question: to what or to whom do I give my life?\u00a0 They are the new ‘crowd’, the rush-hour that never ceases.\u00a0 Like Andrew and his companion I need a quiet hour, a quiet evening, in which the Lord can ask me, “What are you looking for?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s commentary is given by Fr Donagh O\u2019Shea OP (http:\/\/goodnews.ie). This reading is like rush-hour.\u00a0 It is full of names, there are lots of people passing by, happening to bump into one another, overhearing a few words by chance.\u00a0 The snippets of conversation are brief in the extreme, and practical: ‘What are you looking for?’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1812,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1813,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions\/1813"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stmarys-tallaght.ie\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}