All of us have our favorites: favorite stories, favorite songs, favorite musicians, favorite movies, favorite actors, favorite books, favorite quotes, etc.

 It is part of human nature that certain things appeal more to us than other things do.  We understand and can relate to certain things more readily, because of our own thoughts and feelings, our own background and experiences, our own understanding of who we are.

 So those favorite stories, songs, movies, books, quotations, etc. say something about us.  If we make them known to another person, that person learns something about us – and sometimes that something the other person learns can be quite a profound revelation about ourselves.

 Jesus also has a human nature – a perfected, sinless one to be sure, but a human nature nonetheless.  That means that Jesus also has favorites, although perhaps not as we understand them.  He even had a favorite disciple – the Beloved Disciple, St. John, to whom he commended his mother as he hung upon the Cross.

 Perhaps he even had a favorite passage of Scripture.  Jesus would have known his Scriptures backwards and forwards.  Of course, those Scriptures were what we call now the Old Testament – there was no New Testament at the time – but Jesus would have known them well and loved them very much.

 First, he knew them well because he was a good Jewish boy who was trained, like all Jewish boys, in the Scriptures.

Second, he knew them well because it was his Holy Spirit who inspired their writing in the first place.

Third, he knew them well because, after all, they were all about Him and His Father.

 In our gospel reading today, we heard how Jesus went into the Synagogue in Nazareth on the Sabbath.  It was his custom, St. Luke tells us.  In other words, Jesus was very familiar with that Synagogue in Nazareth, because it was the one where he had grown up.

 He is handed a scroll of the Prophet Isaiah to read aloud.  Some scholars say that what Jesus did next tells what his favorite passage of Scripture was:

 “He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.’  Rolling up the scroll, he handed back to the attendant and sat down….”

 That quotation is from chapter 61 of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.

It says something – it communicates something – about Jesus.  It sums up why he has come and what his ministry is about.  That is why this passage may well have been his favorite.

 In our second reading today, as he continues his discussion with the Corinthians about the gifts of the Spirit, St. Paul reminds them, and us, that we are all members of Christ’s body.  Through our baptism, we become one with Him.  We share in his ministry.  We hope to be found worthy of the eternal life he has gained for us.

The gifts of the Spirit are given to the members of the Body – the Church – in order that we may share in and continue the work of Jesus.

 Have you ever stopped to think what a tremendous dignity that is?  God is asking each one of us to do what He does.

 So that passage from Isaiah should also say something about each one of us.  We have to take those words and make them our own.  We have to judge ourselves, as to how well we are living up to them.  Because those words refer to us, just as much as to Jesus.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me….”  Do you feel that?  Do you believe that?

“He has anointed me….”  He has, you know.  The Chrism at baptism and confirmation is your anointing to be one with Christ as priest, prophet, and king.

And He has anointed us for a specific purpose: to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

 In other words, we have been anointed to announce the Gospel – the Good News.

 In the final words of today’s gospel Jesus says, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

 All of us should be able to say that same thing with honesty.  So the question for our consciences is, “can I?”