How well do we listen to the call of God in our lives?

 

Second Sunday of Lent  A 2023

In this homily, I would like you to focus on three simple words spoken by God the Father in the Gospel account:  Listen to him.

As the apostles experienced the transfigured glory of Jesus, Peter says: “Lord, it is good that we are here.”  While he was still speaking. Behold, then from a cloud came a voice that said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him.”

To this point, the apostles have been unable to understand Jesus’ predictions about his upcoming suffering, death and resurrection. They have not listened.  In fact, there was no need to listen because they already knew what they wanted the Savior to be like – a successful, prestigious, powerful Messiah.  Now the voice of God commands them to listen.

How about ourselves:  Are we good listeners?   How well do we listen to the call of God in our lives?  Do we do more speaking than listening in our prayer life?  We certainly want God to listen to us in our prayers of petition.  Are we sometimes like the first apostles who had no need to listen because it was already clear to them what God should do?

Are we good listeners?  Do others know us as good listeners?  Are we able to listen to the voice of God when things aren’t going as we planned?

Do we hear the cry of God’s poor?  Are we responsive to the needs of people locally and around the world?

From the first Scripture reading in the Book of Genesis: “The Lord said to Abram: ‘Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land I will show you.  I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you.’”

What was asked of Abram sets the stage for us to reflect on our own cost of discipleship.  The detachment that was asked of Abram is this:  Abram is commanded to leave his country, his kinfolk, and finally his father’s house, that is, what we would call his entire support system, material and psychological, the whole deal, and depend on God alone.

Does this not challenge us to reflect on our cost of discipleship during this Lenten season?   Lent’s call to stark honesty compels us to ask if our discipleship of Jesus is too comfortable.  Our Lenten conversion process requires some measure of detachment from self-centeredness and attachment to values and priorities and preferences that may be countercultural.

The call of Abram who was later named Abraham was to leave home and settle in a foreign land.  God asked and so Abram went.  He had trust and hope.  How do we respond when God asks us to move beyond our comfort zone and to more fully trust in the plan of God for us?  We are all used to what we are used to.  There is the tendency in all of us to say my way or the highway.  But if our call to discipleship is any way similar to God’s call of Abram, we will need to revisit that old wisdom.  In some way, the Lord asks of you and the Lord asks of me to let go of some of my comfort zone and to trust more fully in God’s plan for us.

Jesus message is that his disciples must be willing to join Him in His passion and death.  The disciples had difficulty hearing this reality.  We too have difficulty listening to Jesus when our discipleship involves dealing with the crosses of life – the cross of sickness, the cross of the death of a loved one, the cross of coping with a relationship that has gone wrong.

It’s easier to listen to the Lord on the mountaintop when the blessings of life are very apparent.  It is more difficult to listen when we come down from the mountain and are in the midst of the valley of loneliness, of fear and of anxiety.

The apostles were given the vision of the transfigured Lord to overcome their resistance to listening to Jesus in moments of suffering.  What the apostles experienced in this beautiful Transfiguration experience was like the end of the story appearing in the middle.  Why?  The apostles needed their faith to be strengthened to have a faith and hope in accepting their Savior as one who was going to be crucified in his journey to resurrection and new life. The apostles had balked at the future Jesus was insisting upon.  The privilege of witnessing Jesus’ Transfiguration was for the purpose of confirming Jesus as someone to whom they must listen to.  They have, as of yet, not understood the mission of Jesus.  They must open themselves up to what Jesus is saying about his suffering, death, and resurrection.

The real action of discipleship is not just on the mountaintop but in the upcoming events of death and resurrection in Jerusalem.  As we pray over this Transfiguration Gospel, know that the message for us is not just the identity of Jesus in his transfigured glory but it is a story for us to reflect on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.  In the words of the Father:  Listen to him.   As with the first disciples, we need to let go of old notions of discipleship that get in the way of listening to the message of Jesus.  We need to accept the cross in our own lives and to trust more fully in God’s plan for our lives.

Please God we all can identify with Transfiguration events that put us in touch with the glory of the Lord.  For me the glory is revealed in the sacredness of the ocean as well as on the mountaintop.  The glory of the Lord is revealed in the friendships of my life that are so life giving and I so deeply treasure and need.  The glory of the Lord is revealed in sacred moments of ministry.  Recently I vividly recall being in the hospital room at Strong and praying with patient who was about to go home to the Lord.  I was praying with his wife and son as well.  It was apparent to all that God was with us and all will be well.

We all need those treasured moments of faith to strengthen us for the times we will be vulnerable and fragile and wonder why God is asking to embrace this cross in our life.  The crosses in life we will experience as individuals, as families, as the faith community of St. Joseph’s, and as a nation.  There will be no dimension of our lives in which we get a free pass from the cross.

May our journey of faith have those beautiful Transfiguration in which we say with the apostle: “Lord, it is good we are here.” And may we be able to listen to the call of God in our journey of faith when we need to lead go of our familiar comfort zones and embrace the cross and Gethsemane in our lives.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

As with Jesus, may we be led by the Spirit of God's love to trust more fully in God's plan for our lives.

 

First Sunday of Lent  A  2023

 

A young boy was wondering about one of the great mysteries of life:  Where do babies come from.  And so, he asked his dad:  Where do babies come from?  Dad, a bit of a scientist, was looking at this question over the long haul, the process of evolution:  From humans to monkeys to gorillas.  He told his son:  “Babies come from  gorillas.”

The boy a bit mystified, than asked his mom:  Where do babies come from?  She immediately responded:  Babies come from God.  The boy then said to his mom:  Daddy says babies come from gorillas and you tell me babies come from God.  His mom explained:  We are both right.  Daddy’s side of the family comes from gorillas, and mommy’s side of the family comes from God.

  “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil.”  Jesus finding himself in the desert being tempted by the devil was not the result of bad luck or being at the wrong place at the wrong time.  Rather, this was by divine design.  Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert.

What about ourselves?  In the temptations of our lives, do we see our ourselves being led by the Spirit into the desert?  Or sometimes we can find ourselves in the desert of disappointment or failure, not led by the Spirit of God’s love but rather they are the result of bad choices we have made.  Our desire for pleasure, power, or greed can sometimes get the best of us and lead us into the wilderness. 

But with Jesus, he is being led by the Spirit of God’s love into the desert to be tempted by the devil to use his power in ways that are not in God’s plan.  The devil was tempting Jesus to become the Messiah without the cross.  The devil was tempting Jesus to take the short cut to achieve his power as the Messiah.

Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be humbled, to be tested and tempted, to struggle with the forces of evil and thereby fully trust in God’s plan for His life.  The Lenten journey of Jesus was for 40 days and 40 nights in the desert wrestling with the forces of darkness.

My question for you and for me is what desert are we now being let into by the Spirit of God’s love to be humbled, to be tested and tempted to validate our faith and trust in Jesus as the Lord and Savior of our lives?

As you have grieved the loss of someone you dearly love, as you have dealt with illness in your life and the in the life of a dear family member, as you have been hurt and your confidence has been betrayed, as you struggle with the temptation of pornography, as you have had to deal with more than your fair share of challenges, can you see these experiences as being led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil?  Can these life wrenching experiences be example of how you are being led by the Spirit into the desert?

This I know:  God’s loves you with an everlasting love.  You are precious and glorious in the sight of God.  Yet, as with Jesus himself, the cross and the desert are a part of your life and mine.

A fundamental temptation for us is forgetting the Lord and the ways He has blessed us.  All of us wrestle with the Lord a bit on our spiritual journey.  In one moment, we turn our lives over to the Lord.  In the next moment, we are tempted by food or power or recognition.  We can too easily lose our spiritual footing.

The way the tempter dealt with Jesus is how the tempter deals with us – offering us discipleship of the Lord Jesus minus the cross in our life.  The cross is part of who Jesus is, and it is an enduring sign of His unconditional love for us.  The Lenten season invites us to recognize the cross in our spiritual journey.

The Stations of the Cross describe the stages of the suffering and death of Jesus.  As we experience the stations of the cross of illness, of death, of brokenness in our own stories, may we too get the help of Simon of Cyrene and be strengthened by the love of Mary our mother.  As for Jesus, our own stations of the cross are our way of discipleship of the Lord Jesus Christ,

Lord, our faith community of St. Joseph’s also is led into the desert to be tempted by the devil.  We would like see more people in the pews each and every Sunday; we would like to have more priests to serve the needs of our diocesan parishes; we would like our youth to be more involved in our faith formation initiatives, and so forth and so forth. 

We would like simple solutions to each of these challenges – perhaps just a simple resolution of the parish council -- preferably without the cross and the accompanying struggle.  May we always remember that we are led by the Spirit into the desert.  This is true of us as individuals and as a parish community.  However, there is a method to the divine madness.  As with Jesus, we need to trust in God’s plan even when we lose a bit of control in the outcome.

You may ask why in the world do we need to choose spiritual disciplines in the Lenten season as our life circumstances provide us with enough desert experiences that are not of our choosing. 

The Lenten journey of our choosing is a quiet, humble, simple journey that was begun with ashes being placed on our foreheads. 

These Lenten disciplines help us to encounter Christ and to live our lives trusting in God’s plan for us.  Discipline and discipleship go together as surely night follows day.  May we value each of the Lenten disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. 

As disciples of Jesus, our prayer is placing ourselves in the presence of our God.  It is the gratitude we express for the blessings of life we enjoy.  May your Lenten prayer include a desert solitude – simply slowing down, being quiet, being still in God’s presence, and prayer without words.  May our Lenten prayer include the Sacrament of Reconciliation in which we return to the Lord our God.

May we embrace the discipline of fasting to simplify our lives in some way – through fasting from food or fasting from some activity – in order to more fully rely on Jesus being the nourishment that we seek and the moral compass of our lives.

May we embrace the discipline of almsgiving to share what we have been given with those in need.   Our discipleship of Jesus can never be divorced from the needs of God’s poor.

For the desert experience that we choose and for the desert experience that have been chosen for us, may we be led by the Spirit of God’s love to trust more fully in God’s plan for our lives.

Have a blessed day.

 

 

Who is my enemy that I need to love?

 

Seventh Sunday in  OT  A  2023

The fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of the Gospel of Matthew comprise the teachings of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount – the earliest teaching of Jesus.  Today’s Gospel passage is the rhetorical highpoint of Jesus’s teaching from this sermon.  Listen again to the words of Jesus:

“Offer no resistance to one who is evil…Turn the other cheek…Hand over your cloak as well…love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

Yes, to love your enemies is the greatest test of love.  These are kind and beautiful words when they are spoken in Church, but the thing is these words are hardly ever spoken outside of Church.  They are not spoken out on the street or in the relationships of our lives when we have been hurt or betrayed or lied to.

As we anticipate the holy season of Lent this coming Wednesday, may our reflection on the ministry of Jesus lead us to deepen our holy longing for God in our lives.  May we respond to the Church’s call to conversion as we put on Christ and as we express our solidarity with people in need.

Questions to ask ourselves:

How can I work toward reconciliation instead of retaliation?

Who do I need to love?

Who do I need to pray for?

Who is my enemy that needs to be loved?

 

The first Scripture reading from the Book of Leviticus tees up today’s Gospel message. “The Lord said to Moses:  “Speak to the whole Israelite community and tell them. ‘You shall not bear hatred for your brother or sister in your heart.’”

 I think of the saintly Nelson Mandela who was wrongly imprisoned and abused for 27 years.  When he was elected the President of South Africa following his imprisonment, what did he do?  He invited those who imprisoned and tortured him to first row seats for his presidential inauguration.  He declared that I would be the loser if I could not forgive those who imprisoned me.  I would suggest that Nelson Mandela could only have experienced healing and forgiveness in his heart by the grace of God.

By telling his followers to turn the other cheek, Jesus calls on them to resist tendencies toward punishment.  Implicitly, Jesus introduces the idea of reconciliation rather than retaliation.  Jesus does not want his followers to be abused and taken advantage of, as the passage might suggest.  When Jesus says, “Offer no resistance to one who is evil,”  He does not mean to do nothing in the face of injustice.  Jesus insists that his community reject and work against retaliation by focusing on love.

Jesus advocates love over hate.  Loving our enemies is the greatest test of love.  For some of us, this requires spiritual heart surgery.  The truth of our lives is we are sinners.  We profess during the penitential rite of each Eucharist that we stand in need of God’s healing grace.  There are areas in our life in which Jesus is not yet Lord.  Of course, we sin.  But thanks be to God that our God is patient.  God is loving.  God is forgiving.

But as St Paul reminds us – we are temples of God because God’s spirit dwells in us. Though our Baptism we have been made holy and are on the way to perfection.  How can this be?  God’s spirit and God’s life is within us.  We are God’s beloved.  The holiness of God and the perfection of God is within us.  We need to surrender to the love of God that is within us.

As we are about to come again to Ash Wednesday, the entry point for another 40 Day journey toward Easter.  We are signed with the ashes of repentance, of our awareness of our limitations, of our need for conversion.  We willingly embrace Lenten spiritual disciplines so that we can prepare ourselves for the grace of conversion, for the joy of Easter.

The Season of Lent isn’t just about doing without or giving up something; the real meaning of Lent is the Church’s annual call to conversion.  It involves a change of mind-set.  We seek to put on Christ and to live by the values of the Gospel.  It is to move the focus away from self-centeredness and to become God-centered in our life perspective.

As we engage in the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and self-denial, we seek to develop some spiritual will power.  But to delve into the deeper meaning of our Lenten spiritual disciplines, may we pray again over the Lord’s Sermon of the Mount in today’s Gospel. 

The first requirement of discipleship of Jesus is to love  -- even to love our enemies, to strive for reconciliation rather than retaliation.

For us to love our enemies, to offer no resistance, to turn the other cheek and to share our cloak with someone in need, we seek the grace of the Word of God that is spoken as ashes on placed on our foreheads this Ash Wednesday:  “Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.”

The message is we are all one family under God.

Consider this, whenever we sin we are disconnected from God and become His “enemies” (James 4:4), but His love for us does not go extinct (Romans 5:7-10). He keeps looking out for us with his love as the father of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-31). On the cross, our Lord Jesus Christ showed love to his executioners  when he tearfully prayed for them: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing?” Don’t you think that those enemies of yours do not know what they are doing and need your love?

Today’s message of love is a very tough one; it is at the same time the only way. To bring the message closer to us, we are encouraged to love without limits. Your enemy deserves more love and compassion from you than anyone else. To love is not a choice; it is rather a grave instruction. In the Gospel of John (13:34-35), our Lord Jesus presents a new framework for love as he says:

I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

From the passage above, we learn that love is a normative prescription for our Christian life. Furthermore, it gives those who embrace it an identity “by this everyone will know that you are my disciples.”

In the words of the great mystic, St. John of the Cross:  “In the evening of life, we will be judged by love alone.”

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Education without God is an incomplete education. Religion without our relationship with Jesus is an empty set of rules and regulations.

 

FOURTH SUNDAY IN OT  A  2023

 

Today’s Gospel are taken from the beginning of the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount – the oldest teaching of Jesus.  The Gospel Beatitudes are to shape our lives as the disciples of Jesus.  Further, they are to shape our life as a parish community.

 

The Gospel Beatitudes are to be the rule of our life. 

Jesus himself is the prime example of the Beatitudes in practice.  The blessings of the Beatitudes is how Jesus  lived His life.

The Beatitudes constitute a whole. They are eight aspects of Christian discipleship, the Jesus way of being human. There is a movement between the eight so that the full picture of the ideal human being unfolds gradually, one beatitude leading spontaneously to another, until we grasp the entire teaching in its complex harmony.

 

The first Beatitude:  Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.  As we poor in spirit, our lives are not exclusively focused on the dying and the rising of the Dow Jones.  Our lives are to be focused on the dying and the rising of Jesus.  There are many who build bigger barns for their surpluses, ignoring the Christian advice of St. Ambrose, who in the fifth century said that the place to store our surplus is in the mouths of the poor.

 

Jesus says we are to be poor in spirit.  That is, we are to acknowledge our radical dependence on God and place our trust in him. 

 

There is a story of a woman of AIDS.  She asked to be anointed by a priest.

 

“I am lost,” she told the priest.  There is no hope for me.  Even God has given up on me.”

 

The priest saw a framed picture of a pretty girl on the dresser. 

 

“Who is this?” he asked.  The woman brightened: “She is my daughter, the one beautiful thing in my life.” 

 

“And would you help her if she was in trouble, or made a mistake?  Would you forgive her?  Would you still love her?” 

 

“Of course, I would!”  cried the woman, “I would do anything for her!”

 

“Why do you ask such a question?  Because I want you to know,” said the priest, “that God has a picture of you on His dresser.”    He has that same love for you and more so than you have for your daughter.

 

Conversion happens when this woman experiences God’s love in her life. 

 

This too is the story of our conversion when we are in touch with God’s unconditional love for us.  The Beatitudes are to be read by people who have experienced conversion in their lives.

 

This week we celebrate Catholic Schools Week in our parish and in our diocese.  To ask the question, what is the value of Catholic education? I strongly suggest that education without God is a radically incomplete education.  Further, religion without a relationship is just an empty set of rules and regulations. The Catholic identity of the education offered at St Joseph’s

School is for us to know God’s unconditional and unending love for us. In terms of the above story, of the woman dealing with AIDS, God has a picture of each of our students on His dresser.  There is a profound truth to this statement.

 

But as a people of faith, we need to experience the love of Jesus in our hearts.  We need to encounter the Lord. The purpose of faith formation at St Joseph’s School is to deepen our relationship with Jesus.

 

Each and every school day begins with prayer.  How important is this spiritual dimension of the educational process for your son or daughter?  How important is the gift of faith to our daily living.  Without question, we need to value the spiritual dimension of life.  We need to live lives filled with the blessings of the Beatitudes.

 

Let me also be clear that I highly value all our parish’s faith formation initiatives in which we form parishioners of all ages in the meaning of Christian discipleship.

 

 Today’s gospel is described by Pope Francis:  The Beatitudes are the new law of Christian discipleship. They highlight attitudes of the heart rather than just a set of rules to be followed.

We do not stay just with the words of Jesus. His life and teaching were a commentary on this sermon. Jesus invites us to watch how the sermon is lived out in his life. All the qualities – being poor in the spirit, able to mourn our losses and work for peace – are qualities of the human person. This is how we know our need for God, our need for each other. Even in his risen life he was the humble one who could listen to the doubts of his disciples and guide them to further faith, each in his or her own way.

The church is called to live these qualities, which lead us to the compassion of Jesus and to bring compassion in our lives.  Compassion and understanding come from listening deeply to others, especially their joys and sorrows.

Compassion also grows in prayer – by asking for it, and by watching the compassion of Jesus in his life.

Someone once said that ‘an ounce of compassion is worth a ton of exhortation.’ Marriage, friendship and family life are all enriched by the quality of compassionate listening.

 

 

 

 

Again, the value of St Joseph’s School is not just knowing about the words of Jesus.  It is the living out the actions of Jesus.  That each student is loved, is listened, and is call to grow after the mind and heart of Jesus.

At St Joseph’s School, more that learning strategies of how to deal with bullying in school, rather our students learn the Gospel way of living in which we love and respect each and every student.

 

 

The first Beatitude:  Blessed are the Poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.  As we poor in spirit, our lives are not exclusively focused on the dying and the rising of the Dow Jones.  Our lives are to be focused on the dying and the rising of Jesus.  There are many who build bigger barns for their surpluses, ignoring the Christian advice of St. Ambrose, who in the fifth century said that the place to store our surplus is in the mouths of the poor.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the day of our Baptism, we receive the life of Christ Jesus.

 

 

Second Sunday of OT  A  2023

 

With this Sunday, we begin the Ordinary Time of the Church Year.  In the Liturgical cycle of year A, we focus on the Gospel of Matthew.  But you will notice today’s Gospel is from the Gospel of John.  The second Sunday of the Church Year is always from John’s Gospel.  At the beginning of the Ordinary Time, the Church in beginning with John’s Gospel wants to orient us with a brief vision of the broader mission of Jesus.  The ultimate mission of Jesus is his passion and resurrection which is symbolized in Jesus as the Lamb of God.  We are also given a moment for us to reflect on the meaning of our own baptism and what it means to be baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus.

 

As I mentioned, the Church begins with John’s Gospel to orient us to the broader mission of Jesus, the ultimate destiny of his passion-resurrection and also to challenge us to live out in daily discipleship the meaning of being baptized into Jesus’ death and resurrection.

 

We need to remember our baptism.  Remember your baptism.    It was such an important moment in your journey of faith.

 

For me, my mom and dad, presumably with my older brother and sister brought me to Our Lady of Good Counsel on April 12, 1942. along with my godparents.  I was less than three weeks old.  Father Nolan who was the associate priest at Our Lady of Good Counsel at the time baptized me in a simple ceremony on Sunday afternoon.  As it happens, my mom and dad, the priest who baptized me, my god parents, and my older brother and sister are all deceased. But the grace and the meaning of my baptism is what still enlivens my spirit to this day.

 

In the waters of baptism, I received the life of Christ Jesus.  The words spoken to Jesus from his heavenly Father on the day of his baptism were also spoken to me by God the Father:  “You are my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.  In baptism, I became God’s beloved; I was welcomed into the Church; I became a member of the Community of the Baptized; and I was given a sharing in the mission of Jesus to witness to the love of Jesus to one and all.

 

My first encounter with Jesus was at God’s initiative.  I was the recipient of the unconditional love of Jesus long before reaching the age of reason.  I was created by God, for God.  Understanding the grace and the truth of my baptism and realizing its meaning takes a long time, even a lifetime.  80 years later, I am still seeking to experience more fully the love of God that has continuously been given to me since the moment of my baptism.

 

Today’s first Scripture reading emphasizes that God has first recognized us.  From the first Scripture reading from the prophet Isaiah:  “I, the Lord, have called you.  I have grasped you by the hand; I formed you as a covenant of the people; a light for the nations.”

 

God has first loved us.

 

On the day of my First Communion, the day of Confirmation, the day I was ordained a priest 54 years ago, each time I celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation, each time I celebrate the Eucharist, I deepen the life of Christ Jesus that I first received on April 12, 1942. on the day of my baptism.

 

It was my parents who made the decision for me to be baptized but with each sacrament I celebrate it is I who confirm the commitment to my discipleship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Who am I?  I am a child of God.  I am God’s beloved son.  I am a member of the community of the baptized as a Catholic.  I am missioned to proclaim and witness God’s love in the community in which I live.

 

I am also an ordained priest that further identifies the mission that I was given at baptism, but I would be quick to say we share much in common as respond to the question WHO AM I?

 

The identity we all share in baptism is huge.  We are God’s beloved; we are brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus; and we all given the mission to witness to the mission of Jesus, to witness to the love of God in the world.

 

As we remember the Baptism of Jesus, may we also remember our own baptism.  Even more important, as a community of the baptized, may we missioned to witness to the love of Jesus in all that we say and do.

 

 

 Today’s Gospel speaks of recognition, faith-filled recognition -- recognizing the presence of Jesus in our midst.  John the Baptist affirms his recognition of Jesus:  “I have seen and testified that he is the Son of God.”  At what level do you recognize Jesus in our lives?  Do we call Jesus by name?  In what situations do we recognize Jesus?  My hunch is that in some situations we recognize Jesus and in other situations we do not recognize His presence.

 

Do we recognize the presence of Jesus in the mystery of the Eucharist we are now celebrating?   Will we recognize the presence of Jesus at our family dinner table today?  Do we recognize the presence of Jesus in whatever I am stressed out about today?  Do I recognize the presence of Jesus in the poor and the immigrants who need my help?

 

As we pray over today’s Gospel, we prayerfully ask how we recognize Jesus who is always present to us, and how do we, like John the Baptist, enable others to recognize Christ?

 

Indeed we are missioned to be John the Baptist in pointing out the presence of Christ to others.  Parents, it is your profound responsibility to help your children recognize the presence of Christ in good times and in bad.  As parishioners, we are missioned to reveal the presence of Christ to each other and to our community and in our world.  We ask for the grace to be John the Baptist for others.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

My hunch is that the Lord is placing a star in our life on this Epiphany day.

 

EPIPHANY 2023

“When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold magi from the East arrived in Jerusalem, saying, ‘Where is the newborn king of the Jews saying, ‘we saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.’”

In celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany, may the story of the Epiphany be our story as well.  We are today’s magi who come to discover and encounter the Christ child.

The magi symbolize what is restless in the human spirt seeking for a greater depth of meaning and purpose in life.  They left behind what was comfortable and safe and took considerable risk in traveling to another country in search of the Lord.  The magi speak to our restless human spirit seeking to discover the spiritual meaning and longing for that which ultimately satisfies us.

May each of us be in touch with our restless human spirit that is looking for something more in our spiritual journey.  How is the Lord calling us to move beyond our comfort zone and follow a star that will lead us to that deeper relationship with Jesus that we seek?  The grace of Epiphany invites to come to know Jesus in a deeper relationship.

The magi come to the Lord bearing gifts.  In our epiphany story, what gifts do we bring to the Lord?  Much more that gold, frankincense, and myrrh, do we bring and give and share the best instincts of the human spirit:  do we give our love to the Lord, our joy, our compassion?  Do we give our very lives over the Lord?  Is it more important for us to give, rather than to take in our day to day living?

My hunch is that the Lord is placing a star in our life on this Epiphany Day that we are to follow.  That star may not be in the sky but possibly be the star that is in the heart of someone you are called to love and to help and to serve.  That star may be in the hearts of the poor who we are called to reach out to.

The star in our life, strange as it may seem, may be a struggle, a loss, a disappointment we have experienced.  The grace of this experience may make us realize that we are not fully in control of our lives; this star event may lead us to trust more fully in the hand of God for our lives.

 

 

 

Please note the sharp contrast between the Magi and King Herod in the Epiphany Gospel.   Herod sees the promised child as a threat. He is afraid the coming baby will crimp his style, will challenge his power and lower his status.

The Magi see the promised child as wonderful gift. They have humbled themselves to travel a great distance to a strange culture that speaks a different language, in order to embrace this baby who fulfills God's love.

Herod’s selfishness fueled by his fears leads to his downfall. The Magi's worship of the Christ child leads to the salvation of all the nations. Today more than two billion people call themselves Christians, in some way the result of the humility and the seeking spirit of the Magi.

We see the hostility of King Herod to the notion that he would have a rival to his kingship.  Moved by jealousy, he hatched a murderous plot that was foiled by the non-cooperation of the magi.

Before we simply reject the treachery of Herod, we need to acknowledge that there is a Herod within each of us that keeps from following Christ more fully.  What are the demons within us that make more self-centered than Christ-centered?  How radically do I share with those in need?  What keeps me from listening more fully to another’s point of view?  Do I make time for God in the way that I live?

Yes, we all need to confess that we are sinners, and there is a bit of King Herod in all of us.  But thanks be to God, the Bethlehem infant has come to be our Savior and Lord.  We seek the grace of allowing ourselves to be loved by the Christ child.

In our discipleship of the Lord Jesus, we are the magi – seeking to encounter the Lord Jesus more fully in our lives.  In seeking to encounter the Christ child, we come to a universal truth that brings great promise to us all.

 

 

 

 

 

It’s revealed that there no outsiders at the Bethlehem crib.  There was no racism.  All were welcome.  Jesus welcomed everyone – the ox and the ass, the shepherds and magi, poor and rich, the Jews and Gentiles.  He came for us all.  He would reject no one, as he would accept the unique gifts of each.  As we pray over this epiphany account, we too are to affirm that are no outsiders in our Church and in our world.  All are welcome.  We are to love our neighbor, no exceptions.

The magi did not come to the Bethlehem empty handed.  The Gospel tells us:  they opened their treasures.  Like the magi, each of us has a treasure to offer the Christ.  The prayerful question we should ask ourselves this Sunday is:  What is it?  What do we have to give?

Notice well, the magi were warned in a dream not to return to Herod, and they departed for their country by another way.  Of course, they would return by another route.  Their lives have been changed by their encounter with Jesus.  May we too with God’s grace have our lives changed by our encounter with Jesus.  We cannot go back to our old way of living -- with our fears, our anxieties, our addictions, our grudges, our pettiness.  We are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

A final thought: in the Christmas mystery it is not just the magi who are seekers.  God is a seeker.  We are sought by a God who has become one of us and who hunts us down with His love.  In the Epiphany mystery, we need to allow ourselves to be found by the love of the Christ child.

Have a Blessed Epiphany Day.

 

 

 

 

The life of Jesus begins with Mary at the Bethlehem crib. Therefore, it is most appropriate that we begin this New Year with the Feast of Mary.

 

New Year’s Day  2023

Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God

The life of Jesus begins with Mary at the Bethlehem crib.  Therefore, it is most appropriate we begin the New Year with a Feast of Mary – Mary the Mother of God.

 

As a people of faith, we gather on this New Year’s Day to honor Mary, the great woman of faith.  We are told, once again, how she used time -- to treasure and reflect in her heart all that God had done for her and how God was giving direction to her life.  Her example should speak to us, for we also need to take the time to treasure and reflect within our own hearts what God is doing and what God is calling us to do.

We listen best when we make the effort to go to that quiet place to hear God speaking to us.  We take the side of God in the battle between hope and fear, between light and darkness.

 

There is no better model for us than Mary in opening ourselves to God’s plan for our lives.  We know at the Annunciation when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to be the mother of our Savior and Lord, Mary worked through her fear and confusion and said YES to God’s plan for her.  With such an inspiring faith, Mary spoke these powerful words:  “I am the handmaid of the Lord.  Be it done to me according to thy Word.”

Can we with Mary speak these words at the beginning of 2023:  “I am the servant of the Lord.  Be it done to me according to your word.”

In contrast to the usual frenzy of our celebrations on New Years’ Eve, Mary pondered in silence and stillness in the Bethlehem crib.  “Mary kept all these things, pondering on them in her heart.”  Her heart becomes the place of discovering Jesus, and who He truly is.

May we too ponder in our hearts who that child now born to us really is. To ponder means more than thinking, organizing, worrying, doing, procrastinating, scurrying, etc.  To ponder means that we pray with a faith-filled heart over the joys and the struggles and challenges of the day.  It means to meditate, quiet down and know we are surrounded by God’s unending love.  We give thanks for the blessings of the day.  May we commit ourselves again to imitating her openness to God’s will and her love for Christ and His Church.

 As Mary spent her life pondering the visible Word of God that was and is her Son, we too must ponder that Word in scripture, that Word in each other, that Word in the created world around us.  We too are asked to incarnate Jesus in our lives.

As we begin 2023, we ask for the grace to use the gift of time that is given in this New Year.  As we name our resolutions for the New Year, we get sense of how we wish to use the gift and what are our priorities for the year.

 

For myself, I hope to part with a few more pounds this year, to spend more time with family and friends, to live more fully with an attitude of gratitude, and to spend more time with the Lord in quiet prayer.

These are noble goals, are they not. 

Our resolutions are filled with our dreams and hopes and goals for the coming year.  But the question that the Scriptures today invite us to reflect on is:  What is God’s plan for us this year?  Instead of focusing on our resolutions for the New Year, may we be open to God’s resolutions for us this year.

This is such a fundamental spiritual conversion the Scriptures call us to.  How do we become more aware of God’s plan for us in 2023?  Instead of naming my resolutions for the coming year, I seek to listen to God’s resolutions for me this coming year.

Reflecting on the Christmas mystery, imagine yourself as the inn keeper who decides if there is room in the inn of your heart for Jesus?  I invite you to ponder this resolution question again and again in 2023?  Does the way I live my life reflect there is room for Jesus within me.

Do I make time for daily prayer?  Is there is room in the inn of my heart for Jesus if I am too busy to pray even for a few minutes each day?

Do I have time to be present to my family, to friends, to neighbors?  Is there room in the inn of my heart for Jesus if I am too busy to be present and really listen to people?

Do I use and share the God-given talents and resources that I have to serve and minister in the lives of others?  Is there in the inn of my heart to serve Jesus as HE is discovered in the lives of those around us?

How do I make a difference in the lives of the poor and people in need both in our community and in our world?  Is there room in the inn of my heart for Jesus if I do not reach out in service to people in need?

There is no better model for us than Mary in opening ourselves to God’s plan for our lives.  We know at the Annunciation when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was to be the mother of our Savior and Lord, Mary worked through her fear and confusion and said YES to God’s plan for her.  With such an inspiring faith, Mary spoke these powerful words:  “I am the handmaid of the Lord.  Be it done to me according to thy Word.”

May the blessing that the Lord said to Moses be the blessing the Lord speaks to each of us:

 

The Lord bless and keep you.

The Lord let his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.

The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace.

 

Have a blessed day and a blessed New Year.