Christ with the Four Evangelists,
Fra Bartolomeo 1516

Readings:
Nehemiah 8:2-6,10
Psalms 19:8-10,15
1 Corinthians 12:12-30
Luke 1:1-4, 4:14-21

Chants

The meaning of today’s Liturgy is subtle and many-layered. We need background to understand what’s happening in today’s First Reading.

Babylon having been defeated, King Cyrus of Persia decreed that the exiled Jews could return home to Jerusalem. They rebuilt their ruined temple (see Ezra 6:15-17) and under Nehemiah finished rebuilding the city walls (see Nehemiah 6:15).

The stage was set for the renewal of the covenant and the re-establishment of the Law of Moses as the people’s rule of life. That’s what’s going on in today’s First Reading, as Ezra reads and interprets (see Nehemiah 8:8) the Law and the people respond with a great “Amen!”

Israel, as we sing in today’s Psalm, is rededicating itself to God and His Law. The scene seems like the Isaiah prophecy that Jesus reads from in today’s Gospel.

Read all of Isaiah 61. The “glad tidings” Isaiah brings include these promises: the liberation of prisoners (61:1); the rebuilding of Jerusalem, or Zion (61:3-4; see also Isaiah 60:10); the restoration of Israel as a kingdom of priests (61:6; Exodus 19:6) and the forging of an everlasting covenant (61:8; Isaiah 55:3).

It sounds a lot like the First Reading. Jesus, in turn, declares that Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in Him. The Gospel scene, too, recalls the First Reading. Like Ezra, Jesus stands before the people, is handed a scroll, unrolls it, then reads and interprets it (compare Luke 4:16-17,21 and Nehemiah 8:2-6,8-10).

We witness in today’s Liturgy the creation of a new people of God. Ezra started reading at dawn of the first day of the Jewish new year (see Leviticus 23:24).

Jesus too proclaims a “sabbath,” a great year of Jubilee, a deliverance from slavery to sin, a release from the debts we owe to God (see Leviticus 25:10).

The people greeted Ezra “as one man.” And, as today’s Epistle teaches, in the Spirit the new people of God—the Church—is made “one body” with Him.

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Hugh of Saint Victor
From Treatise on the Sacraments of Christian Faith, II, 1-2 (PL 176, 415)

Holy Church is the body of Christ: one Spirit quickens her, gives her unity in faith and sanctifies her. For members this body has believers, who together form one body because of the one Spirit and one faith...

And so what belongs to each is not possessed for self alone, for he, who so generously bestows his possessions on us and shares them out so wisely, desires that each thing should belong to all and all to each. If someone has the happiness, then, of receiving a gift of God's grace, he should know that what he has does not belong only to him, even if he is the only one to have it.

It is by analogy with the human body that Holy Church, namely the body of believers, is called the body of Christ. Because she has also received Christ's Spirit, whose presence within the individual is indicated by the name "christian" that Christ gives. Indeed, this name designates Christ's members, those who share the Spirit of Christ, who receive the anointing of the anointed one.

For the name christian comes from Christ, and "Christ" means «anointed»: anointed with the same oil of joy that he received in all its fullness above all his fellows (Ps 45[44],8), so that he might share it out among all his friends as the head does to each of the body's members.

"It is as when the precious ointment upon the head runs down over the beard... till it runs down upon the collar of the robe" (Ps 133[132],2) to spill over everything and bring all to life. So when you become a Christian, you become a member of Christ, a member of Christ's body, sharing in the Spirit of Christ.