(For the audio version of this blog, please visit: https://brothersinchristcmf.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Mass-Blog-for-the-2rd-Sunday-in-Ordinary-Time-2026.mp3)
Oversized clothing was once a wise investment for parents of large families. Each child could grow into these clothes then “hand them down” to the next child. This wisdom is like that of the scriptures. God’s oversized wisdom is introduced to us as children so we can grow into it, then share it with our brothers and sisters.
This is a lifetime process because we humans always think too small where God is concerned. This Sunday’s readings demonstrate that.
In the first from Isaiah (Isaiah 49:3, 5-6), God tells this prophet he’s thinking too small where he and Israel are concerned:
“It is too little,” the LORD says, “for you to be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and restore the survivors of Israel; I will make you a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
Fast-forward a few hundred years to the site of our gospel reading where John the Baptist sees the fulfillment of Isaiah’s oversized prophecy coming his way:
“Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29-34)
That world is still growing into the oversized idea that Christ died to save us from our sins. But God’s wisdom is ours to wear and share so we may help each other grow into its holiness. If a one-time persecutor of Christians like Paul could do it, so can you, he tells the Corinthians and us this Sunday:
“YOU who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy, with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” (1 Corinthians 1:1-3)
So, we grow into holiness like a small child grows into his hand-me-downs. But we’re also called to dream of one day wearing this garment and looking as good as our Biblical ancestors did in it. We may look foolish swimming in all this material while achieving that goal, but there’s dignity beyond measure in our growing pains. We just need to remember, as Paul reminds the Corinthians,
… the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Until we’re fully grown, let’s keep reaching for the foolishness and weakness God hands down for us to try on for size.
–Tom Andel
I would not be surprised if many of us find hand-me-downs undesirable, and that aversion reveals something true about the spiritual life. We prefer faith that fits immediately and feels uniquely ours, rather than wisdom that is received, shared, and larger than we are. Yet Catholic faith is, by nature, handed down—through Scripture, tradition, and the witness of the saints. God’s wisdom often feels awkward or oversized at first because it comes to us already formed—not by our preferences. But holiness grows when we accept that wisdom and allow it, over time, to shape how we think, act, and live.
Yes, George, we sometimes have to experience our own Pentecost. That’s when, after years of hearing and listening to different teachings about faith, we finally get that AHA! moment when the teachings of all these authorities in our lives triggers something inside us by which “we hear them speaking in our own tongues of the mighty acts of God.” (Acts 2:11)