Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – “A” – January 19, 2014

Just as Jesus begins His public life in the presence of the Holy Spirit, so He will end it in an outpouring of that same Holy Spirit on His disciples. The challenge for us is how we too receive that gift with open hearts and what we do with it in our lives. We have first of all to be aware of what the gift of the Holy Spirit entails. When we are confirmed we receive the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord (wonder and awe). When we make mistakes, when we misunderstand, when we make wild accusations or unfounded criticism, we can begin again by using the gifts of the Spirit to expose our errors, heal the wrongs we may cause and set us off again on a truer path.