Second Sunday in Ordinary Time — Behold the Lamb Who Gathers His People

We have entered what the Church calls Ordinary Time.

That name can be misleading.

“Ordinary” does not mean unimportant, dull, or routine.
It comes from ordo — order.

Ordinary Time is when the Church teaches us how life is meant to be lived
now that Christ has been revealed.

Christmas has shown us who He is.
Now Ordinary Time asks: what does it mean to belong to Him?

Today’s readings give us the answer.

The Church is not filling space in the calendar.

She is forming a people.

Ordinary Time is the long season of discipleship —
learning how to live under Christ’s lordship
in ordinary days, ordinary struggles, ordinary faithfulness.

And the Church begins that work in a very deliberate way.

Not with rules.
Not with moral effort.

But with a person pointed out to us.

“Behold the Lamb of God,
who takes away the sin of the world.”

That is where Christian life begins.

John the Baptist could have chosen many titles.

Messiah.
King.
Son of David.

But he chooses Lamb.

The lamb is sacrifice.
The lamb is blood offered.
The lamb is life given so that others may live.

Every Jew would have heard Passover —
the lamb whose blood saved Israel from death.

A lamb slain so that a people could live.

John is saying:
the true Passover has arrived.

The rescue of the world will not come through force,
but through sacrifice.

This is the heart of the Catholic faith.

Notice what John does not say.

He does not say:

who explains the world,

who inspires the world,

who improves the world.

He says:

“Who takes away the sin of the world.”

That tells us what the real problem is.

Not lack of meaning.
Not lack of unity.
Not lack of dialogue.

Sin.

And sin cannot be managed.
It must be removed.

The Lamb does not negotiate with sin.
He bears it.
He carries it.
He destroys it by offering Himself.

Any Christianity that avoids sin
will never understand Christ.

This is where Catholic faith becomes unmistakably concrete.

At every Mass, just before Communion, the priest says:

“Behold the Lamb of God.”

Those words are not symbolic.

They are literal.

The Lamb once offered on Calvary
is made present sacramentally on this altar.

The Mass is not a remembrance meal.
It is the one sacrifice of Christ made present to us.

This is why the altar matters.
This is why the Eucharist matters.
This is why Catholic worship cannot be reduced to gathering or encouragement.

We come to be placed before the Lamb who takes away sin.

The first reading from Isaiah widens the picture.

The servant of the Lord is chosen
not only for Israel,
but for the nations:

“I will make you a light to the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

How does that salvation reach the world?

Through the Lamb.

The Church does not bring herself to the nations.
She brings Christ crucified and risen,
made present in word and sacrament.

That is why Catholic mission is always sacrificial at heart.

This also explains what the Church means by unity.

Unity is not sameness.
But neither is it permanent division.

Christ spoke of one flock under one shepherd.

That unity is not created by us.
It flows from the Lamb.

One sacrifice.
One Body.
One faith.
One Shepherd.

True unity cannot be built by ignoring truth.
It cannot be built on compromise.
It can only be received as Christ gives it.

This is why unity is inseparable from the Eucharist.
Because the Eucharist is the Lamb who gathers His people into one Body.

This week the Church marks the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

It is fitting that it begins here.

Unity will never come from pretending differences do not matter.
Nor from softening the truth.

It comes when hearts are drawn more deeply
toward the Lamb who takes away sin
and toward the Church He established.

Unity is not negotiated.
It is received through conversion.

This Gospel does not leave us at a distance.

If the Lamb takes away sin,
have we allowed Him to take away ours?

Do we come to Confession —
or do we live with sin quietly?

Do we approach the Eucharist with faith —
or with habit?

Ordinary Time is where holiness is learned slowly, faithfully, imperfectly —
by living under Christ’s rule day by day.

John the Baptist does not hold our attention.

He points and says:

“Behold the Lamb of God.”

That is where Ordinary Time begins.
That is where unity begins.
That is where salvation is found.

As we step into this season of ordered Christian living,
may we keep our eyes fixed
not on ourselves,
not on the world,
but on the Lamb who was slain
and who now lives.

May He take away our sin,
gather us into one Body,
and teach us how to live faithfully
under His shepherding care.