“Today this Scripture has been Fulfilled in Your Hearing!”
THE REFLECTION OF A LASALLIAN
Brother Jeffrey L. Calligan, FSC

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke44: 18-19)

Gracious Lord, you have called me to be a teacher. Not just any kind of teacher, a Lasallian Teacher.

As I read the story of your entry into the synagogue in your hometown, I am impressed with the security of your self-knowledge and conviction. You knew who you were and what you were about. It was very clear. Your hometown neighbors were both impressed with your manner and shocked with your words. To many of them it sounded boastful and to others it sounded like a lie. I suspect that even in your security, there was a tinge of shakiness as you actually faced the men in the synagogue room.

Yes, you were the “carpenter’s son”. Your mother was Mary. Your brothers and sisters lived in the town. Your rabbi remembered that when you were conceived, the question of who your father was loomed up and was handled quietly. Joseph stood by your mother. You became his son then.

But somehow as you stood at the reader’s stand in the synagogue room that homecoming day, you knew that Isaiah had spoken of you. And finally, you had to say it for all to hear and accept or reject.

No presumption, Lord, but I know, too—and I have to say it. The Spirit is upon ME. All my life I have known that you were not an option. Your Spirit has led me step by step in my life. Even when I make a wrong turn, you round the corner for me and bring me back in the direction I need to go. “One commitment to another”! You have anointed me with the unction of your Spirit! And you appoint me each year to my classroom, my school, my students, my colleagues, my confreres, my world.

Like the wounded healer messiah, I, a poor man, am here to be brother to those who are also poor. In being brother I announce the good news of purpose, love, identity, and life, especially for those who seem to have least. In being brother, I can be with them as a peer – I can walk with them in the Spirit for you anoint and call them, too. I can be hope even as I continue in faith to search for hope.

And for those that are captive, I can sing the authenticsong of a captive who is daily liberated by your love and guidance. I can assure them that no captivity can endure in the light of your searing love.

Gracious Lord, I am blind. So often I just do not see. There, too, I am brother to my brothers and sisters who long to see everything but who can see only one step at a time. My prayer for us is Newman’s “Lead, kindly Light!” You are the gentle glow that calls us forward. You are the breaking dawn that slowly or all of a sudden lights up the vista and shows where we are – for the moment, and where we might go if we allow our hearts to be caressed and drawn by the Light.

Help me to invite all those I encounter on this “Kindly Light” path to step with boldness.

De La Salle called this Divine Providence and the Spirit of Faith. May I, too, see life through the double lense of those glasses and boldly, confidently take the next step in burning zeal to wherever you lead me. In truth, let me invite those around me to walk together to you, with you, our Light.

In freedom and peace make us confident that the sunshine in front of us will cover all darkness and lead us on because it is of you.
Finally, gracious Lord may this indeed be the Year of the Lord and be filled with your operative presence in my life and the lives of each of every man, woman, and child. In this new Pentecost time, may you be ALIVE in us.
Amen.

Source: http://www.cbconf.org/reflections/reflectionjune07.html