Like Jesus, in this lenten season, how we being led by the Spirit into the desert to wrestle with our demons and to encounter God?

 

First Sunday of Lent  B  2021

We enter into another Lenten season.  We were marked with ashes this past Wednesday as Lent formally began. These ashes acknowledge that we all belong to the order of penitents.  We all confess that we are sinners, and we stand in need of the Lord’s healing forgiveness.  The light of Christ that is within us has been dimmed by the darkness of our sin.   We acknowledge this reality with these ashes.  We were given the mantra to:  Repent and believe in the Gospel.

The first reading today is from the Book of Genesis and recounts the establishment of the Covenant with Noah and his descendants. 

God said to Noah and to his sons with him:  “See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you.  I will establish my covenant with you.”

Lent is deepening our awareness that we are people who have a Covenant with the Living God.  We are not just people who believe in God.  We are a people sought out by God, a people formed by God and a people with a special love relationship with God.  Only when we are deeply aware of His love for us can we truly accept that the cross is going to be a part of our spiritual journey.

In today’s Gospel, the evangelist Mark says: “The Spirit drove Jesus out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan.  He was among the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.”

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.

Now this isn’t always true for ourselves.  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. 

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?  Are you aware that you are being led by the Spirit of God in the ways you experience your Lenten journey today?

 

As with our life being turned upside by this pandemic, 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?

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.

 Back to today’s Gospel:  “He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.”  The wild beasts tell us that life is fragile.  The wild beasts symbolize the violence we saw in the halls of Congress on January 6.  There is no escaping the fragileness of the wild beasts in society.  There are also demons within ourselves.  We have an animal side that focuses only on our own pleasure instead of service of others.

Yes, there are demons; there is sinfulness in our lives that we seek to turn away from.  Yes, we encounter Satan in the desert of our inner wilderness.  But that is not the end of our Lenten journey.  The real purpose of our Lenten spiritual disciplines is that we are to encounter God in the desert of Lent.  May we allow ourselves to believe in His love.

The Lenten desert is about wrestling with the demons of our life; but the Lenten season is also about conversion; it is our retreat in which we encounter God with blessed and grateful hearts.  We embrace the spiritual disciplines of lent – we embrace prayer, fasting, almsgiving – so that we are clearly place God as first in our lives.

As the angels ministered to Jesus in the desert, thanks be to God we also have angels that minister to us, that are looking after us – renewing us.  The angels are the graces of our lives – human and divine.  We thank you Lord for all the people of our lives who are God’s messengers, God’s angels to us.  We give thanks for all the people who love us and reveal the face of God to us.

May your Lenten journey be very much blessed.

Jesus stretches our capacity for compassion. He challenges our idea of what is true love.

 

Sixth Sunday in OT B 2021

“Unclean, unclean!”  From today’s first Scripture reading, the leper must cry out:  “Unclean, unclean.”  The leper not only lives with his disease, the leper must also live an isolated, separated life cut off from the community.

Mother Theresa said:  “The biggest disease is not leprosy or tuberculosis but rather the disease of being unwanted.”  Leprosy was the most dreaded of all diseases at that time because it separated people from their family and their community and thus constituted a “living death.”  The leper was exiled from “healthy” human society.

Even today the very word leprosy has a harsh and intimidating sound to it.

In contrast to living with this stigma and separation from society, the leper in the Gospel account came to Jesus, begging on his knees, saying, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus is the one who brings healing, who welcomes people into his embrace, and who proclaims a new way of living. Jesus responds, “I do wish.  Be made clean.”

Could there have been more perfect scriptures to prepare ourselves for our Lenten journey?  For each of us, if we honestly look at our inmost hearts and daily lives, must confess at least something, like the Gospel’s leper, that needs to be made clean.  And to each of us, may we hear the words of Jesus spoken to the Gospel leper, “I do will it.  Be made clean.”

Our leprosy is the sinfulness of our lives that separates us from God’s love.  In our Lenten journey, indeed may we turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel.

Today’s Gospel prepares us for our Lenten journey of 40 days.  We begin this Wednesday with ashes placed on the crown of our heads.  We are to   “Repent and believe the Gospel.”  With these ashes, we acknowledge that we belong to the order of penitents.  We stand in need of the Lord’s healing forgiveness.  In our Lenten journey, we embrace the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting, and alms giving.  In turning from sin, we seek the conversion experience of placing God first in our lives.

 We begin this Lenten season by acknowledging our own leprosy that separates us from a fuller experience of God’s love in our lives.  In this Lenten season, may we celebrate the Sacrament of Reconciliation in a grace-filled way.  I like to think of this beautiful sacrament as whispering into the ears of our merciful and compassionate God the story of our life including the spiritual leprosy of our sinfulness.  In the sacrament of reconciliation, we are not just listing our sins, we are sharing that part of the story of our life in which Jesus is not yet Lord. Then the words of Jesus are spoken to us:  “I do will it.  Be made clean.”  May the sacrament of reconciliation be a component of your Lenten spiritual journey.

As I pray over this Gospel, I can’t help but see the comparison between leprosy and Covid-19.  Similar to leprosy, this pandemic is keeping us isolated and preventing us from being connected to each other as much as we would like.  Those who have the virus need to be isolated, quaranteed from the community. 

But please God, covid-19 doesn’t keep up separated from our merciful, loving God.  God’s mercy and love is the final word in our spiritual journey.

Further, as we pray over this Gospel, we also need to reflect on our attitudes with the people in our lives whom we find undesirable – as lepers in the sense we don’t want anything to do with them.  We want to keep them separated from us.

We live in a world of suffering: suffering caused by diseases, suffering caused by the exclusion of people, suffering caused by greed and jealousy. But rather than just say that is ‘the lot of humanity’ we look towards Jesus who seeks to reconcile and to forgive and to heal. To belong to this parish community is to recognize the mystery of God’s forgiveness and healing made visible to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

We need first to do an inventory to see if there are folks who would feel unwelcome in our Church.  Who, if they walked in our door this minute, would feel the questioning stares of others?

 Jesus stretches our capacity for compassion.  He challenges our idea of what is true love.

Each of us has a great capacity for love, the pity is that it often goes unused.  We have in our power to reach out to those who are suffering the pain of rejection each day all around us.  We could enkindle new hope, we could bring back the zest for living in someone else, and if we do, we mirror dimly the infinite compassion of God.

We ask God humbly for the grace to follow in the footsteps of Jesus and to reach out to those whom society treats as lepers.

To the extent that we are judgmental and prejudge others, whether they are immigrants whom we consider undesirables, whether their sexuality is different than ours, whether their way of looking at religion is different than ours, we are in need of Christ’s healing touch.  We need to be able to see Christ in others, to have Christ’s compassion for the powerless, the poor, the hurting in mind, body, and spirit.  We need to get to the place where we are able to “kiss the leper” of our day.

May we see ourselves as a Church that is a hospital for sinners, rather than a hotel for saints.  We all need healing.  That is what the ashes on our foreheads this Ash Wednesday signify. 

Today we remind ourselves that Jesus entered into this suffering world bringing healing and peace, and that he has called us to carry on this work of reconciling people to one another and to the Father.   May the grace of  this upcoming Lenten season bring us the reconciliation that Jesus offers us, and may we, in the name of Jesus, bring healing and reconciliation into the lives of those most in need.

Have a blessed day.

You have within yourself the wellspring of eternal life.

 

Fifth Sunday in OT  B   2021

 

Last Sunday night, I wasn’t able to sleep very well.  I’m experiencing a bit of pain from carpal tunnel syndrome in my left wrist.  And so, I got and trying to make good use of my time, I looked at the Scripture readings for the coming Sunday.  As we heard today, that reading was from of Job.

Job says:  “I have been assigned months of misery and troubled nights have been allotted to me…I shall not see happiness again.”  Now we know from the book of Job.  His family, his possessions and even his own physical well-being are removed.  He lost everything.  Job’s faith was being tested “big time.”

There is a message for us in the test of faith that was given to Job.  Job who had once been the recipient of God’s many blessings in his family and in all of his possessions now sees life with different eyes.  Job now experiences misery and darkness. Job is called to trust in the words of the Psalmist: “Praise the Lord who heals the brokenhearted.”

 Have you found yourself feeling like Job?  Now mind you I am not comparing the bit of pain I was experiencing with the misery of Job.  In fact, God with a sense of humor was telling me to get over it.

In reflecting on the hardship of Job, we sometimes can identify with the suffering and hardship of Job.  We are dealing with Covid-19.  Our way has been turned upside down.  There is much economic uncertainty for many people.  We cannot connect with other people the way we would like.  Sporting events and the theatre are significantly restricted.  There is much to get stressed out about.

How do we deal with the stress?  In these pandemic days, there are many  circumstances that push us to the limit, that stress us out?

But before we feel sorry for ourselves again and totally stressed out, we need to look again at today’s Gospel.  It describes a typical day for Jesus in his public ministry.  The whole town was gathered at the door where Jesus was staying.   He cured many who were sick with various diseases, and he drove out many demons.  If we are talking about being very busy, nobody can compare with Jesus. 

Based on our experiences and standards, Jesus must be stressed out.  But was he?  Jesus found a way to experience inner peace.  The source of the inner of peace of Jesus is revealed in the Gospel today:  no matter how busy or exhausted, he would always find time to pray and to be with his Father.  “Rising very early in the morning, he left and went off to a deserted place to pray.” His communion with the Father gave his strength, inspiration and peace.

Prayer was Jesus’ spiritual medication that enabled Him in his public ministry to be so available.  Again, going back to the gospel, after Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, the Evangelist says:  “The whole town was gathered at the door.”  Talk about availability.  Then Mark tells us Jesus cured many who were sick with various diseases.

How did Jesus did with the stress of always being available?  Notice what Jesus did next:  “Rising very early before dawn, he left and went off to a deserted place, where he prayed.”

I recommend your commitment to quiet prayer, just being still in the presence of God.  This will be an inner compass that enables you to continued to be centered – centered in God’s presence – in the midst of the busyness and the stresses of your day.

This I promise – or better, the Lord promises you – will give you an inner compass that focuses us to live in the midst of God’s unending love for you.  As the Lord said to the Samaritan woman in the fourth chapter of John’s Gospel, “You have within yourself the wellspring of eternal life.”  And the power of prayer enables you to access this wellspring of eternal life.

One of the great mysteries of life is that we don’t always claim and value and trust the life of Christ that is within us. 

 Do you the distinction between curing and healing?  While cures aim at returning our bodies to what they were in the past, healing uses what is present to move us more deeply into spiritual wholeness and, in some cases, physical improvement.  A very telling event that spoke to me of the distinction between curing and healing.  This was on the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, I was at the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France.  On this major feast crowd in procession at this most sacred shrine.   There were a considerable number of people being carried on stretchers, people in wheelchairs, people with obvious physical illness.  While I don’t know if there any people physically cured on this day, I witnessed powerful spiritual healing seeing the glow, the joy, the faith of these very sick people who come to seek the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes and experience the healing that Jesus offers to each of them.

In fact, it often is in sickness that the healing begins.  I know a parishioner with a considerable cancer diagnosis who tells her spiritual journey has deepened in the course of her sickness in her desire to place God first in her life.  She is experiencing in abundance the inner healing of her soul even as remains physically sick.

In the Gospel healed those who came to him.  Jesus is ready to heal those in need of healing.  IN your prayer today, what is there within you that you wish to bring to the healing Lord?

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

 

 

The kingdom of God is Jesus. Not a territory. Jesus is the kingdom.

 

Third Sunday in OT  B  2021

In today’s Gospel, the evangelist Mark summarizes Jesus' entire message in three short statements: "This is the time of fulfillment. The reign of God is at hand. Repent and believe the good news."

"The reign of God is at hand." That was the essence of Jesus' message and activity. In his obedience and in what he offered humanity, Jesus inaugurated God's reign in history. Jesus was the fulfillment, the culmination of God's promises to the chosen people: the one sent to catch others up in the dynamic of his life.

"Repent" summarized the only appropriate response to getting caught up in Jesus' dynamic. Repentance, metanoia in Greek, is not merely a call to be sorry for sin.  Jesus preached metanoia as an invitation to believe that God was about something entirely new and wonderful — and everyone who so desired could participate in the good news.

 Metanoia is all about hope and a new vision of life. Metanoia springs from a vision of how God's future is breaking into the present. It is a faith-filled certainty that communion with God and all of creation is the ultimate storyline and meaning of history. Metanoia is the stuff of dreams that only God's spirit can inspire — and it is ongoing. Jesus' message is simply that. Each of Mark's three statements summarizes the newness, hope and promise that Jesus embodied

So, what is the meaning of “Repent and believe in the Good News”?  Repentance and belief are not two separate acts in our movement towards God, but one!  In fact, repentance could even be a consequence of our belief.

To understand what I am saying we need to ask a basic question: What is the Good News?  Is it the sum of all the dogmas declared by the church?  Is Good News the collection of the teachings of Jesus?  No, not at all.  Good News is the fact that God loves us in the person of Jesus. It is a person. Good News is JESUS Himself!  Yes, Jesus is the Good News.  The kingdom of God is here, in the person of Jesus.

So, belief in the Good News is our acceptance of the reality that we can experience God in the person of Jesus.  And when we do this, we repent.  We become our best selves.  We are motivated to love others not for any of our own motivations – that could become selfishness – but because we have experienced the love of God in Jesus. 

The kingdom of God is Jesus.  Not a territory.  Jesus is the kingdom.

As Mark continues to narrate in the gospel text of today, the apostles were able to leave their fishing nets, their family – things that they held dear.  This renunciation was their sign of repentance. And they were able to reach this decision because they encountered God in the person of Jesus.  They believed in the Good News!  Their belief was not just an intellectual assent, but a tangible experience of God in Jesus.

May we then surrender ourselves in front of this tremendous mystery – Jesus Christ, the Good News! Believe!   Recognize the Kingdom that is already here.  May this greater power enfold us and transform us.  May we become our best selves in the unconditional love of God!

Having announced that the kingdom is here and stated the conditions for belonging, Jesus begins the work of spreading the kingdom.  He begins to gather disciples.  In this liturgy, Jesus continues to call and gather his disciples -- you and I.  To follow Jesus is to not only listen and agree with his message, but to be willing to work with others he has called us to build up the kingdom.  Mark preached his gospel to help us know who we are as a people — those who have chosen to become one with Jesus in baptism; he did not imagine that he was writing down merely wise religious sayings.

For us as we respond to the call of God in our lives, our discipleship of the Lord Jesus involves responding to the call to be in community, to be Church.

As we celebrate Stewardship Commitment Sunday today, we invite you to consider how the first disciples responded to the call of God.   Their sense of stewardship is an example for us to making God first in our lives.  Stewardship is our response to the call of God in our lives – how we live as the disciples of Jesus.  We speak of a stewardship of time, of talent, and of treasure

Our stewardship of treasure is not the only way we are called to discipleship, but it is an important means of our willingness to turn ourselves over to the Lord.   If you are able to increase your giving, join me in making our commitment for our parish ministries to continue to grow.  If your commitment stays at the same level, thank you for that as well.  In all cases, we are grateful for your generosity.

I invite to watch this video to see how the ministries of our parish life are enlivened by your generous commitment to a stewardship of treasure in our parish life.

 

Jesus invites us: COME AND SEE what our life will be like if we live as a disciple of Jesus.

 The Scriptures invite us to reflect on the call of God in our lives.  Our response to the call from God is our vocation to live as a disciple of Jesus.  We sometimes think of a vocation as only applied to a vocation to the priesthood or to the religious life.  The call to be a priest is indeed a vocation to live according to God’s plan for one’s life. We indeed need to pray that vocations emerge from our parish community. But I also would emphasize at this moment is that all of us have a vocation in life -- our response to God’s call.  Those of you who are married and have children have a most sacred vocation as a spouse and as a parent.

 More than that, all of us who are baptized have a vocation to witness to the love of God in all we say and do.

 I suggest that today’s Scripture readings alert us to the ways we can recognize the call of God in our lives.  The first Scripture reading describes the call of God in the life of Samuel.  Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the Lord where the ark of God was.  The Lord called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.”  Samuel ran to Eli and said: “Here I am. You called me.”  “I did not call you,” Eli said.  “Go back to sleep.”  This happened three times. Then Eli understood the Lord was calling the young Samuel.  He then told Samuel to go to sleep and the next time he was to reply: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.”

 

We too need people to help us recognize the call of God in our lives.  Who for you is the prophet Eli who helps you to recognize the call of God in your life?  I would love for us to have a dialogue on identifying the soul friends in our lives who have raised our awareness of the presence of God in our lives.  Who has been your soul friend that has helped you discover and to encounter the Lord?

 Make no mistake about it.  We need others to help us recognize God’s call.  We belong to each other. We are better together.  As we know from the first pages of the Bible:  It is not good for man to be alone.  Our discipleship of the Lord Jesus calls us to be soul friends to each other.

 Then in the Gospel, I invite you to listen again to the dialogue of Jesus with the first disciples.  Jesus, sensing that two people were following him, asked: “What are you looking for?”  They responded: “Rabbi, where do you live?”  Jesus simply responds: “Come and See.”

 

 The conversation Jesus had with the first disciples is the conversation Jesus wishes to have with you today. Can you imagine the Lord asking you: “What are you looking for?”  I would invite you in a prayerful way to look into your own heart and hear the Lord asking you:  What are you looking for?

 Would we too respond: “Master, where do you live?”  What are you all about?  Then we receive the invitation to COME AND SEE.  Jesus is saying if you want to know me, you need to live with me.  To know is to love me.

 Where is Jesus to be found?  Up in the sky?  The mystery of the Incarnation is that God has become enfleshed in our human nature.  Jesus is to be found among the poor, among the suffering, among those who have no hope.  Jesus is inviting us to Come and See where the Lord lives -- in the hearts of people in need.

 When the disciples asked Jesus: “Where do you live?”  They were not so much looking for a street address in which they could put into their GPS system.  The disciples were asking a spiritual question.  What gives meaning and purpose to your life?

 I would like to ask you rhetorically this question for your prayerful reflection: “Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus?  Do you know the Lord Jesus as your personal Savior?”  This, typically, is a question evangelicals ask of each other.  Catholics, on the other hand, are called to live a life of morality, of responsibility, of a Gospel way of living.  To do the right thing.  For us older Catholics, it’s almost a foreign language to ask us if we have a personal relationship with Jesus.  That wasn’t one of the questions found in the Baltimore Catechism.

 What does a personal relationship with Jesus look like for us old timers used to the Baltimore catechism?

 The invitation given to the first disciples is to COME AND SEE.  Come and See what life will be like when lived in relationship with Jesus and in relationship with the all the disciples of Jesus.  Come and See if the Gospel stories connect with your spirit and your way of looking at life. 

 

Come and See if your relationships in the Church – the disciples of Jesus – allow you to love and be loved in life-giving ways. Come and See if in the faith community of the Church of the Holy Spirit gratitude, discipleship and hospitality come alive in our parish life.  We seek to witness to the love of Jesus Christ in the world.

 

Having a personal relationship with Jesus effects the way we pray.  Yes, our traditional memorized prayers are a sacred part of our prayer life.  Our ritual sacramental prayer is a privileged way of communicating with the Lord Jesus.  Can you imagine your prayer with Jesus to be similar to a phone conversation with a best friend describing the ups and downs of your day?  Jesus wishes to be present to you in the joys and the challenges of each and every day.  When we speak to Jesus from our heart, this too is a most sacred prayer, and it is indicative of our personal relationship with Jesus.

 

Although God calls, not everyone is listening all the time.  So many voices call for our attention; so many activities distract us.  We need to make a serious effort if we are to become sensitive to the divine presence in our lives.

 

We may learn from what Eli spoke to the young Samuel.  A significant part of our prayer life is listening.  May we speak the words of Samuel: “Speak, Lord your servant is listening.”

 May we also learn embrace the conversation that Jesus had with the first disciples and know it is the same conversation Jesus wishes to have with you.  Jesus asks us:  What are you looking for?  As we respond:  Master, where do you live?  Jesus invites us:  “Come and See,”  Come and See and live with a relationship with Jesus in which we can allow Jesus into the inn of our hearts and that we can trust Jesus goes with us in the challenges of our life.

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

The grace of baptism is lifelong. We are always and forever missioned to give witness of the love of Jesus in our lives.

 

BAPTISM OF THE LORD 2021

 

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.” 

 

The Baptism of the Lord marks the end of his hidden ministry in the town of Nazareth with his parents and the beginning of his public ministry proclaiming the kingdom of God is at hand.  The Lord’s Baptism is his coming party, so to speak, that will ultimately to his suffering, death and resurrection for our salvation and our sharing in His Risen life.

 

With the voice from his heavenly Father, his baptismal identity is being staked out.  “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”  God the Father is declaring that Jesus is more than a prophet.  He comes from God; he is the Son of God. With the presence of the Spirit and the voice of God the Father, the mystery of the Trinity is being revealed.

 

Along with his identity, Jesus inaugurates his baptismal mission to teach, to heal, to forgive, to love, to save us from our sins, and to give us share in His Risen Life.  Jesus is our Lord and Savior.  He has come to save us from our sinfulness and to give a share in his risen life.

This feast invites us to see the connection between the Baptism of Jesus and our own baptism.

I call your attention to the front entrance of our Church.  As you come in the front entrance of the Church, you bump into the baptismal font.  This is not a design fault that the baptismal font is in your way as you come into Church.  It is placed at the front entrance as a clear reminder that our life in Christ, our spiritual journey begins at Baptism. 

 

When we get behind our Covid regimen and our baptism font is again brimming with water, we bless ourselves with the water from our baptismal font to remind us of the day of our Baptism when we received the life of Christ Jesus and when we first became of member of the Church – the Body of Christ.

 

You will notice that the baptismal font is positioned on a direct line to the altar of God.  This is symbolic that our spiritual journey goes from the baptismal font to the altar of God where we give thanks to the Lord our God and are fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord.

In our Baptism, we claim our baptismal identity.  We become God’s beloved son and God’s beloved daughter in whom the Father is well pleased.  We claim who we are and whose we are.    We are sons and daughters of a loving Father; we are brothers and sisters to each other; we are welcomed into the Church, the Body of Christ.  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? 

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?

 

Baptismal mission

We are to embrace our baptismal identity and our baptismal mission.

Sacrament of Baptism -- not just a Church ceremony.  It is your life as a disciple of Jesus.  Baptism is your lifelong call that commissions us to service in the name of Jesus.

We are co-creators with God in building up the kingdom of heaven on earth.

When we are baptized into Christ Jesus, there is no part of our life that does not belong to God.  There is no part of our life that God is not present.

We are drawn into the very life of God.  We no longer live for ourselves in an individualistic fashion.  We are connected with each other.  We are connected with all baptized people across the centuries.  We are the community of the baptized.

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.  

Our mission is to bring the peace and love of Jesus into our world.  The violence we saw in Washington this past Wednesday in our halls of Congress is not a Gospel way of living.  Our mission is to bring healing and love and dialogue into our political process.

In the baptismal identity of each one of us, we are given a charism or charisms for the building of the Body of Christ.  Your charism is your particular giftedness given to you by our loving God for the building of the Body of Christ, for making a difference in our world.  Our charisms are not to be buried into the ground, but they are to see the light of day and to be used in the service of others.

As we celebrate this feast day of the Lord, I invite you to name the charism, the giftedness that is given to you and ask if we have used our God given giftedness to bring the love and the healing and the compassion of Christ into our parish and into our world.

 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. 

We are the community of the baptized.  We are God’s beloved sons and daughters.  We are missioned t be brothers and sisters to each other; we are missioned to wash the feet of God’s poor; and our first requirement as a baptized disciple of Jesus is to love one another.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

 

In celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany, may the story of the magi be our story as well.

  

EPIPHANY 2021

“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 magi 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.

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.

As a parish community, that star may be in the ways the Lord is calling to collaborate with St Joseph’s so that each parish community can help each other discover the Lord more fully in our lives.

We are also left wondering why we as a Church have failed to be the star that brings more people into our pews.  We all know many former Catholics even family members who no longer belong to the Church.

 

And so, we ask for the grace of seeing the star that the Lord places in our lives that will lead us to a deeper relationship with Him.  Again, this star may not be found in the sky but in the people or the circumstances that are part of your life in the here and the now.

Please note the sharp contrast between the Magi and King Herod in the Epiphany Gospel.   Herod sees the promised child as a threat. He's 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've 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 2 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 one perspective we are the magi seeking to discover the Lord.  From another perspective we ask who the magi are we are meant to encounter.  Who are the magi?  They may the strangers whom we meet this coming year who have followed a star in search of the Christ child that is within each of us.  May we welcome that strangers with the hospitality that the magi received at the Bethlehem crib.

In celebrating the Feast of the epiphany, we celebrate the Good News of the birth of Jesus breaking out beyond the boundaries of Israel and being made known to all the peoples of the world – to every tribe, and tongue and people and nation.  So, we celebrate the Savior who comes to the Gentiles.  This is symbolized by the three wise men, who came from the East to welcome and worship Him.

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.

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?

The magi presented gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the Christ child.  What gifts do we offer the Christ child?  In our spirit of stewardship, we offer our gifts of time, talent, and treasure.

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.