4th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2026
Feast of Saint Brigid of Kildare
Zephaniah 2:3, 3:12-13 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 Matthew 5:1-12
The Scripture Readings for the Mass of the 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time are very suitable for the Feast of St Brigid and present us with many lessons for our way of living the Christian life in the context of our world and our times.
In the first Reading, the prophet Zephaniah addresses the people of Israel after the Babylonian exile. This was a people who had believed that material wealth was the reward for those who were faithful and that those who did not prosper must have been blameworthy. After the exile Zephaniah prophesied that ‘the humble and lowly of the land’ will receive divine blessing and will ‘have no one to disturb them’. If you obey the law and are faithful ‘in your midst I will leave a humble and lowly people’.
Many centuries later we would see how those who obeyed the Law faithfully, like Elizabeth and Zechariah, Mary and Joseph and Simeon and Anna would not die ‘until their eyes had seen your salvation’ Today’s Gospel Reading, the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes, is the Lord’s own way of putting the same message to us. By living according to his charter we will be blessed if we are peacemakers, poor in spirit, merciful, gentle and pure in heart.
It is providential that we have these Scripture Readings today when we commemorate the secondary patron saint of our Land. Zephaniah sets the tone for our liturgy by prophesying a new beginning – a Spring-time perhaps! We too are called to seek the Lord, not by means of worldly power or favour but rather by integrity and humility. These virtues are not inbuilt but come from God alone.
I like to think of the Lord delivering this sermon on a mount overlooking the lake with spring fresh beauty of nature around. It is an uplifting message assuring blessedness and joy to all who live by the light of his call. In spring-time it is easier to be positive, enthusiastic, gentle and peaceful. We leave behind the darkness of winter and enter the warmth of a new beginning.
Saint Brigid’s day for us is Spring-time! Brigid is given to us as a model of Christian living and virtue. Her life was defined by hospitality and ‘reckless generosity’ and she is often associated with an image of the ‘weaver’, bringing together disparate threads to create something beautiful. As we look to the needs of our own community –the lonely, the marginalised and the broken, we are called to be weavers of peace.
We take Brigid as our model of:
a) hospitality: She welcomed guests as if they were Christ himself;
b) Hope: She is our reminder of the light and life that Spring will bring;
c) Service: she dedicated her life to caring for others.
Surely as the leader of those early monastic communities Brigid was familiar with and prayed the Psalm 145 our Responsorial Psalm today. Let us pray it with her. It is the Lord who keeps faith forever, who is just to the oppressed. It is he who gives bread to the hungry, sets prisoners free. Who gives sight to the blind and raises those who are bowed down. Protects the stranger and upholds the widow and orphan. The Lord loves the just, thwarts the wicked.
Our Lord will reign for ever, our God from age to age.