3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time -  January 25th, 2009 - Being a good Catholic has never been popular. It has always been hard. Catholicism asks us to work very hard on ourselves and to give our best. Being a good Catholic means, for example, what this morning the Gospel proposes for us to do: “Repent”.

What does repent mean? Repent of what? Maybe we have to repent of not being a good father, a good wife or a good worker. Repentance asks us to pay attention to our thoughts, words, feelings and actions. We have to determine if they are correct or not. If they are not, we need to be able to repent and to say, “I’m sorry”.

Today our Lord Jesus invites us to be more conscious; more aware of our lives. And all of this because we have a special dignity. Jesus says, “Repent, and believe in the Gospel”. We cannot forget what this Gospel is about. We celebrated it some weeks ago. During Christmas we celebrated that the eternal and all powerful God became a man like you and me. Our God is a very close God; He came to live among us and wanted to remain present through His Word and Body and Blood. Two weeks ago we celebrated the Baptism of the Lord Jesus. That day we said that by the baptism we are God’s children. For that reason, I repeat: We cannot forget what we are, what the Gospel is about.

If we are God’s children, how should we live? How should our thoughts, feelings and actions be? This can be the intention for this Mass: ‘Lord, make live what I am: Your child’. Sometimes we forget that we are very valuable and have a great dignity. And every time we forget this and we do not live according to it, we have a new opportunity to repent and start again.

Furthermore, in every Mass we pray this: “Have mercy on us all; make us worthy to share eternal life with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles, and with all the saints who have done your will throughout the ages. May we praise you in union with them, and give you glory through your Son, Jesus Christ.”

In every Mass we say to the Lord that we do not want to live only 80 or 90 years, but an eternity. This is something else we cannot forget like God’s children we are.

Once more, let us pray and meditate thanking God for this our dignity: being His children.