Homily for the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 29, 2023, Year A
Fr. Charles Irvin Diocese of Lansing ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) A critic once challenged me by declaring that my homilies were preaching a message of failure to a bunch of losers. He was suggesting that the Good News of Jesus Christ is directed at losers, not at winners. Today’s Gospel account in which we find Jesus giving us the Beatitudes provides us with a good background to take a look at winners and losers. As in so many things, a lot depends upon your viewpoint, the angle from which you are looking at things. St. Paul puts that issue into sharp perspective in today’s second reading which was taken from his letter written to very cosmopolitan and sophisticated Greeks living in Corinth: Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters,” writes St. Paul, “Not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise, and God chose the weak of the world to shame t