In our discipleship of the Lord Jesus, may we respond to the voice of God the Father: "Listen to Him."

Second Sunday of Lent  A 2020

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?  At our St. Josephs’ First Friday School Mass, I asked our students if they were good listeners.  They responded with considerable enthusiasm that they were good listeners.

It did make me wonder that we probably need to ask their parents, their siblings, and their teachers if they would with the same enthusiasm that these students are good listeners.

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.

Into what Lenten desert are we being led by the Spirit to be tested and tempted to validate our faith and trust in Jesus?

First Sunday of Lent  A  2020

  “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.

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.

Let us pray…, Lord God, it is risky to let ourselves be led by the Spirit.  We make an act of trust in you today, letting ourselves be guided by you, confident the devil will eventually leave us and angels will appear to look after us. Amen.

Lord, our faith community of Holy Spirit 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 need we 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.

John or the Cross: In the evening of life, you will be judged on love alone.

Seventh Sunday in  OT  A  2020

The fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of the Gospel of Matthew comprise the teachings of Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount.  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.

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 him.  I would suggest that Nelson 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. We 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.

In this holy season of Lent, 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 m enemy that needs to be loved?

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 (enemies) 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.

Is Jesus a law breaker or a law keeper?

Sixth Sunday in OT A 2020

To ask you a rather odd question:  Is Jesus a law breaker or a law keeper?

From the perspective of the critique of Jesus against the legalism of the Scribes and Pharisees, in Jesus extending the merciful love of God to sinners, you can say that Jesus dismisses the preoccupation of law- keeping and emphasizes the mercy and the love and the compassion of God.  From the perspective of the scribes and pharisees, Jesus seems to be a law breaker.  Jesus was eventually crucified because the leaders of religion and government considered Jesus to be a law breaker.

On the other hand, Jesus is clear in today’s Gospel in saying: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.  I have come not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place.”

The real message of Jesus in today’s Gospel is yes we need to live very ethically and have a deep respect for the rule of law.  The commandments are not just suggestions or guidelines.  We are to obey the commandments.  But Jesus is also saying very clearly that rule keeping is not the end of the story; we are called to be disciples in which we seek to encounter Jesus in prayer and in daily life.

Discipleship of Jesus is deeper than obedience to the law.  Jesus fulfills the law by demanding more in the way of love.  Discipleship demands conversion of heart.

It should not surprise us that Jesus goes beyond the requirements of the laws of the Old Testament, even while saying they need to be observed.  In this section of Matthew’s gospel Jesus fleshes out a deeper meaning and intent of the commandments.  For example, when he speaks of the sin of murder, the taking of another’s life, he speaks of it as including the diminishment of a person’s life by harsh words or actions.

We can keep all the rules but if our hearts are not filled with the joy of the Gospel in the words of Pope Francis, we haven’t experienced the conversion of our hearts.

For example, in living out the Sacrament of Marriage, it is not just a legal contract of an eye for an eye and not committing adultery.  Marriage is a lifelong covenant of love in which two people are called to love and honor each other in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health for all the days of their lives. 

Today’s Gospel calls us to the vision of discipleship that while detail and discipline can train us in keeping the rules, we can only discover how to love through forgiving those who have hurt us irrespective of whether they ask for forgiveness or not,  or are repentant or not.  We can only discover how to love by helping those in need, whether they deserve help or not.  We can only discover how to love by standing with those who are oppressed even if it is dangerous for us.  Yes, we live in complex times in which we wonder about the morality of issues of immigration, of homeland security and the like.  The Lord calls to welcome and to stand with people who are in need.  We can only discover how to love by asking the Holy Spirit to enlighten our minds with wisdom.

Discipleship of the Lord Jesus is not taking the easy road of lax morality; rather our discipleship leads us to follow the example of the one who laid down his life for our salvation and out of love for each and every one of us.

We are called to more than just keeping the rules.  We are called to love deeply.  May our prayerful question be not just about rule-keeping but how do I discern to say YES to the plan of God for my life. 

Jesus offers a much more challenging ethic than legalism because we are not able to say we’ve met our obligation as long as anyone goes hungry or suffers oppression or is abandoned and alone.  This ethic requires endless charity. 

Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount presents Jesus as the new Moses, not as a lawgiver but as a guide who shows us a life full of blessing, of joy, and service to people in need.

For me as a priest confessor in the beautiful sacrament of reconciliation, the priest is not meant just to  be a spiritual attorney general determining whether the law has been broken or not, or whether a particular action is a sin or not; rather, the primary ministry of the priest is to communicate the healing, forgiving, merciful love of Jesus.  Yes, the priest can provide needed counsel, but more importantly the priest is to share the merciful love of Jesus with the penitent.

As we celebrate the Eucharist, may we be mindful of today’s Gospel:  “If you bring your gift to the altar, and there recall that your brother has anything against you, leave your gift there at the altar, go and first be reconciled with your brother, and then come and offer your gift.”

The lesson for us clear.  This is how seriously God views our human relationships.  We cannot hate our neighbor – no matter who he or she is, no matter whether they deserve it or not – and then say we love God.  For whatever we do to the least of our brothers and sisters, we do to Christ himself.

To give a preview to next Sunday’s Gospel, we are to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.

In the words of Pope Francis, “my hope is that we will be moved by the fear of remaining shut up within structures which give us a false sense of security, within rules which make us harsh judges, within habits which make us feel safe, while at our door people are starving.   Jesus does not tire of saying to us:  Give them something to eat.”

In the Gospel, we hear no ordinary rabbi interpreting the Torah but One whom we already know to be God’s beloved Son not “going light” on the law and the prophets but going deeper and challenging us to reach beyond the letter of the law to the fulfillment realized only in self-sacrificing live.

May all of us have a blessed day as disciples of the Lord Jesus.

My our commitment to a life of stewardship not be a burden, but rather an opportunity to serve and make a difference our parish life.

Sister Jodie Kearney was telling the story of her giving spiritual direction to a woman who had had a rough childhood – considerable family issues and some abuse.  This person happened to be a student of St Joseph’s school in her elementary years.  When Sister Jodie asked how she made it through her difficult childhood, she said that each morning on the way to school, when she turned the corner, she saw her classroom light on.  Then she knew all would be well.  She experienced at St Joseph’s school the strength, the faith, and the love that helped her become the woman she is today.

To me this such a telling story of the value of St. Joseph’s School.

The education of our children involves more than reading, writing, and arithmetic.  The education of our youth involves touching into the spiritual hunger and thirst for faith, hope, and love that enables then to value the spiritual dimension of life and a source of their inner self-esteem.

In the first Scripture reading today from the prophet Isaiah as well as from today’s Gospel, we read:  “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”  The light referred to is not just the light from an electric light bulb; rather the light we seek is the light of our faith, the light of the person of Jesus.

We are grateful for the light of Christ that illumines all that we do.  This is true at St Joseph’s School, and it is equally in all the ministries of our parish life.

In today’s Gospel, we reflect on the call of the first disciples – Peter and Andrew, James and John.  “Come after me.”  Jesus speaks these words to Peter, Andrew, James and John.  He speaks that same invitation to you and me.  The first disciples left behind their fishing nets and followed Jesus.  As we reflect on the call of the first disciples and how they left everything with no strings attached, we are invited to reflect on the call of God in our lives.  The disciples embraced the mission of teaching others what they have learned from Jesus.  The disciples are being called to become conscious of a deeper dimension of life, the spiritual sea in which all people swim.

In considering the call of the first followers of Jesus, we find the opportunity for rethinking and reclaiming the varied calls that have made us who we are.

Jesus’ inaugural address to the apostles was rather brief:  “Follow me.”

In choosing Peter and Andrew and James and John, Jesus wasn’t choosing the best and the brightest, but Jesus was developing a team, a team that he would collaborate with.  The first apostles trusted completely in the Lord and were willing to leave everything to follow Jesus.

As we reflect on the call of the first apostles, this leads us to pray over the call each of us receives to be a disciple of Jesus.  In asking ourselves what our level of commitment to follow Jesus is, I share Pope Francis' dream. I dream that we will give Jesus first place in our lives. That we will hear him say, "Follow me." And that we will do our part in gathering God’s people together as the faith community of St. Joseph’s: including those who have become discouraged, those who have drifted from the faith, and families with small children, high school students and young adults.

Today we celebrate in our parish Stewardship Commitment Sunday.  Our spirituality of stewardship calls us to a deeper awareness of how we respond to the call of God in our lives.  Our commitment to stewardship is holistic and all-embracing.  This includes a stewardship of time, a stewardship of talent, and a stewardship of treasure.

Our stewardship of time is our prayer life.   Our prayer is our conversation with God in which we speak to God from our hearts and, even more, we listen to God’s call and God’s plan for our life.  In our stewardship of time, we live life with an attitude of gratitude thanking God for the blessings of life.  We also confess that we are sinners who stand in need of the healing forgiveness of God.

Our stewardship of talents calls to use our God-given talents in the service of others and for the building up of our faith community.  More than volunteers who help out with our parish ministries, we are stewards who are missioned by Christ to serve, to help, and to love others.

Our stewardship of treasure calls to share from our financial resources for the building of our parish life.  It’s not heresy to say that our check book is part of our spirituality.  My prayer is that sharing is not a burden but an opportunity to serve and make a difference in our parish.  I intend to increase my tithing this year as I very much believe in the mission of St Joseph’s School and in the mission and the ministry of our parish.

On a practical note, we invite you to place your commitment card that you received in the mail in the collection today.  There is only one collection; so place the commitment card and your offering in the collection.  If you have forgotten to bring your commitment card with you; not to worry, there are extras in the pew and we will give you a couple of minutes after the homily to fill out the stewardship commitment card.

Be assured that your stewardship commitment is not a legal contract.   If your financial circumstances change, you are welcome to alter your level of giving.  Your commitment is your response to the call of God in your life. 

I bring you back to the woman who was receiving spiritual direction from Sister Jodie and was describing her rough childhood.  She as a child was a student at St. Joseph’s School.   When Sister Jodie asked how she made it through her difficult childhood, she said that each morning on the way to school, when she turned the corner, she saw her classroom light on.  Then she knew all would be well.

When we experience the love and compassion of others, when we experience and are in touch with the spiritual dimension of our lives, when we embrace the light of Christ and allow ourselves to be loved by our God, we will always know that all will be well, very, very well.

Have a blessed day and we will pause for a couple of minutes to fill out the commitments if you wish.

Like John the Baptist, how do we help others recognize the presence of Christ in their lives?

SECOND SUNDAY OF OT A 2020

As I look out on you today, I’m aware we know each other on various levels.  You who are with family members obviously know each other very well.  You who sit in the same pew each week often know the parishioners immediately around you.  I know the names of many of you as we have shared ministries and life experiences and friendship with each other.  I must confess I recognize almost all of you but unfortunately I don’t know everyone’s name.

The more time I am privileged to serve as your pastor gives me the opportunity for greater recognition.  The greater recognition comes from more experiences we share in common.  I always value the opportunity of getting to know you better.

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.

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?

As important as these two questions are, we need to be immersed in the prior issue that God has 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.”

The Gospel recounts the Baptism of Jesus in the Gospel of John.  The Baptism of the Lord invites us to reflect on the meaning of our Baptism.  In baptism, God has first recognized us.  God has graced us.  We are a people loved by our God even before we recognize Christ in our lives.  God has first loved us.

As we are steeped in the awareness of God’s love for us, we ask ourselves how do we recognize Christ in our lives?

How do we help each other to recognize the presence of Christ Jesus in our lives?  We are to be John the Baptist for each other – to point the way to recognize the presence of Jesus.

As it happens, I have presided at four funeral liturgies  parishioners this past week – Don Maggio, Joan Montgomery, Marjorie Edmeston, and Bob Burns.  I was inspired by their family members that even in their immense grief, they trusted that their love ones were with God and experiencing the fullness of God’s eternal life.  They helped me believe in the profound truth that in dying we are born to eternal life.

I am inspired by you as you live out a spirituality of stewardship in living out your discipleship of Christ Jesus.—a stewardship of time, talent and treasure.  Our stewardship of time leads us to a life of prayerfulness in which we live life with an attitude of gratitude, aware that the blessings of our lives are a gift of God.  Our prayer is our conversation with God as we listen and are open to God’s plan for our lives. May we even value silence in the way we pray and still ourselves in God’s presence.  In the words of the psalmist:  “Be still and know that I am God.”

A stewardship of talent affirms our commitment to use our God given talents in the service and love of one another. We are at our best as a parish community when we are proactive in our service and sharing with one another.

Our stewardship of treasure in which we share from our financial resources for the building of our parish ministries. Yes, our check book is part of our spirituality.  What we do what we have speaks volumes our discipleship of Jesus. For example, we are at 99% of our CMA goal of $230,000 to serve the needs of our diocese.  That is a testament to our generosity. 

Next weekend is our Stewardship Commitment Sunday in which we ask you to place in the second collection the stewardship commitment card you received in the mail this week.  May our giving not be a burden but an opportunity to serve and make a difference in our parish life.   As we have been the recipients of the generosity of parishioners who have preceded us, may we do our part in witnessing to the love of God in all the ways we share ourselves with each other.

The nation is about to celebrate the birthday of a national hero – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  On Monday, we celebrate the liberation of our whole nation from our enslavement to injustice, prejudice, and hate.  We must confess that King’s dream “we are free at last” has not been fully realized but Monday’s observance will help us keep hope alive.  In the words of Dr. King’s constant message:  “There is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.”

We need to recommit ourselves to God’s original plan in creation.  We have a solidarity with all people.  In the deepest sense, there are no foreigners and immigrants among us.  We are all God’s people.  We are brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus.

As we prayer over the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist, as we celebrate the grace of our baptism – that grace which is lifelong and forever, as we anticipate our participation in Stewardship Commitment Sunday next weekend, may the memorable words of Dr. King inspire our faith journey:  “There is still hope for a brighter tomorrow.”  In fact knowing that the spirit of Jesus is still very much our spiritual center, that the baptismal grace of God’s love still enlivens our spirit, the hope of a brighter tomorrow is God’s promise to us.

Have a Blessed Day.

When the song of the angels is stilled, when the shepherds have returned to their flock, when the Christmas decorations are put away, the work of Christmas begins: to bring peace among people and to make music in the heart.

BAPTISM OF THE LORD  A  2020

When the song of the angels at Bethlehem is stilled, when the star in the sky that guided the magi is gone, when the magi have returned to the East, when the shepherds are back with their flocks, the work of Christmas begins:  to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to release the prisoner, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among people and to make music in the heart.

The feast of the Baptism of the Lord which we celebrate today concludes the Christmas season.  The Baptism of the Lord and our own baptism as well reminds that the gift of the Christmas season remains with us every day of our lives.  Jesus, the beloved Son of God, came to earth to save all people from sin and to show us the way to the Father.

Today’s feast celebrates the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River by John the Baptist.   As Jesus was baptized, the Spirit, like a dove, descended upon Him.  And a voice came from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”  His baptismal identity was that He was the Father’s beloved Son.  His baptismal mission was to teach, to heal, to forgive, to love, to save us from our sins, and to give us share in His Risen Life.  In the Lord’s baptism his identity and mission were given.  The meaning of the Christmas season began at the Bethlehem crib but the grace and meaning of the Lord’s Christmas gift to us is lifelong and forever.

This feast invites us to see the connection between the Baptism of Jesus and our own baptism.  In our Baptism, we too become God’s beloved son and God’s beloved daughter in whom the Father is well pleased.  Such an incredible grace we receive in Baptism, and the grace of Baptism is lifelong.  In the spiritual journey of each of us, we need to ask ourselves the question:  Do we claim our own baptismal identity as a beloved child of God?   When I am stressed out, when I am fearful and a bit anxious, am I claiming my baptismal identity as God’s beloved?   The words spoken to Jesus are words that are spoken to us as part of our baptismal identity.

May you hear this day and every day these words spoken to you by our loving God: “This is my beloved son, this is my beloved daughter in whom I am well pleased.”  These are spoken not because of our worthiness; rather these words are spoken because of God’s unconditional love for us.  May you always be able to recognize this voice of God in your life.

Now it is true that throughout all our lives, a cacophony of voices will attempt to drown our attentiveness to the voice of God.  There’s the voice of Wall Street calling us to find our security in stocks, bonds and mutual funds.  There’s the voice of Madison Avenue alerting us to unnecessary needs and undue desires.  There’s the voice of Rodeo Drive warning us not to be out of style, and the voice of Broadway luring us to the superficial aspects of contemporary entertainment.

Amid the clamor of all these voices, it may be difficult to hear the voice of God and grasp the hand of God.  Nevertheless, that voice and that hand are ever near, and God’s grace is ever at the ready to keep our hearing acute and our understanding full and clear.  The question for our prayerful reflection this day is: Whose voice will you listen to?  Whose is the hand you will grasp?

In today’s Gospel, after the baptism of Jesus, a voice came from the heavens, “You are my beloved Son: with you I am well pleased.”    As we pray over these words, may we ask ourselves:  What actions of ours this past week is our heavenly Father well pleased with?

The grace of baptism is lifelong.  We are always and forever the community of the baptized.  We are always and forever missioned to give witness to the love of Jesus in our lives.  A sobering, accountability question to be asked of each of us is:  Would we be convicted in a court of law for being Christian?  Is it obvious by the way we live our lives that we are the disciples of Jesus?  Is it obvious by how we live that we believe that love is the first requirement of being a Christian?

 May we pay attention to both our baptismal identity and to our baptismal mission.  What is our baptismal mission?  Your baptismal mission is to serve the needs of one another.   It is in our love for one another that we become more aware that God remains in us.  This baptismal mission very much embraces a life and spirituality of stewardship.

In a spirituality of stewardship, we are to share of our time, of our talent, and or out treasure in carrying the mission of the Church – in our love for one another, in our service of people, and in leading all people to encounter Christ more deeply in their lives.

Next weekend is our stewardship commitment Sunday relative to the stewardship of treasure.  You will receive in the mail this week a brochure and a stewardship commitment card.  We ask that you pray over your tithing commitment to the parish in 2020.  Then there will a special collection next weekend in which we ask you to return your commitment card.  I intend to use this opportunity to increase my tithing to the parish.  If you are able to increase your tithing, your generosity will be greatly blessed.  Equally, if you are not able to increase your tithing, you will still be very much blessed as God’s beloved.  No matter at what level you are able to give, we ask that you return the commitment card as we seek 100% commitment from our parish.

At his baptism, Jesus experienced divine love with new intensity; he responded to that gift with such fierce passion that his subsequent life and death transformed the world.  At our Baptism, perhaps many moons ago, we too experienced divine love – a grace that goes with us to this day and always.  May we too embrace our baptismal mission and a spirituality of stewardship that transforms the vibrancy of our parish life.

Our baptismal mission is to keep alive the gift of Christmas always and forever.

When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the magi have returned to the East, when the shepherds are back their flocks, when the Christmas decorations are put away, the work of Christmas begins:  to find the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to rebuild the nations, to bring peace among people, and to make music in the heart.

Have a Blessed Day.