Sharing the news

This week, thousands of young people from all corners of the world are gathered in Panama to celebrate the 34th World Youth Day.  As I heard the news of this gathering, I was immediately drawn back in time to the times when I myself was able to attend other World Youth Day gatherings.  Each of them was a celebration of faith and an opportunity to encounter the joy of youth, and a privileged moment for all those who were there to experience an encounter with Jesus.  Each time I came back home, there was exciting news to share about new friends I had made or about an experience that had helped me to grow in faith.  I wonder what stories the young people who are gathered in Panama will bring home with them, and I wonder how those stories they have to share will be received.

Today’s gospel account speaks of a time when Jesus himself came home with stories to tell.  Even before he arrived, he was already gaining a reputation throughout Galilee.  People in his hometown must have been excited to hear the stories that he would have to share.  Is it any wonder then that after he had read those words from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him (Lk 4:20)?  I have often wondered about the thoughts that might have been going through the minds of all those people at that precise moment: Did some in the crowd still remember him as a child?  Were they truly excited to hear all about his adventures?  Did they think that he was home to stay?

And what about us?  Have we ever had the experience of someone in our family going away, perhaps even moving away for a time and then coming back home to visit?  Were we excited to sit around a table and to hear about all the adventures that had been encountered?  This is the fervor that I imagine might have been present in the crowd as they listened to the priest Ezra reading the Law of God before the assembly (cf Neh 8:2-3).  They too would have been excited to hear the good news that Ezra had to share.

In fact, every time we gather to celebrate the Eucharist, we have another opportunity to hear a portion of the gospel – the good news – that Jesus wants to share with us.  Sometimes the news he has to share brings us consolation, at other times it excites us and fills us with great joy; sometimes it encourages us, and at other times it compels us to ask ourselves some serious and difficult questions.  Each time we hear it, the gospel invites us to grow in our relationship with our God and in our relationships with others.

We see a prime example of this in the second reading that we have heard today. Saint Paul writes to the Christian community at Corinth – and across the centuries, to us as well – comparing our role within the Church to the different parts of a body.  Just as the body is one and has many members ... so it is with Christ ... in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body (1 Cor 12:12).  Therefore even though we may all have come from different ethnic backgrounds, even though we each have our own story to tell, we are all united in faith; we are travelling the same road, hand in hand with one another.  This alone is exciting news worth sharing.