Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Christmas

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Vigil Mass

    The Nativity of the Lord: Vigil Mass

    Today’s readings
    Mass for the children:

    Once upon a time, there was an old shepherd named Elias.  He had been a shepherd for his whole life long, just like his father, and his father’s father.  Being a shepherd was hard and lonely work.  He took care of a large group of sheep and did his best to protect them from wolves and keep them together.  He would lead them by day from pasture to pasture, allowing them to graze, and bring them safely to market where they would give their wool for people to use.

    Nights could be very lonely and sometimes scary.  There was no one else to talk to, and he did his best to keep the sheep safe.  Sometimes, if he listened hard enough, he could imagine the wind talking to him as it blew through the trees.  That made him feel like he wasn’t so alone.

    One night, as he was nearing the place where he and the sheep would spend the night, he saw a bright light up in the distance.  He couldn’t help but wonder what was going on so he moved toward it. When he got close enough, he got the sheep settled down for the night and he went to check out the light and make sure there was nothing to worry about.

    Other shepherds had done the same thing, and they all arrived to see the angel of the Lord, surrounded by the bright light of God’s glory.  It was frightening to see, and Elias and the others just stood there, awe-struck, not knowing what to think.

    Then the angel spoke to them.  He said, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

    Then the sky grew really bright as hundreds of angels joined in and began to sing: “Glory to God in the highest!  And on earth, peace to those on whom is favor rests!”

    When the angels left, Elias and the other shepherds decided to travel the short distance to Bethlehem, the city of David, and to search out the Savior that the angel talked about.  Bethlehem was a pretty small village, and so it didn’t take much looking to find the baby.

    He was in a manger – a feed-trough for animals.  His parents looked like ordinary people, but Elias knew that this baby was special, and that the family was holy.  The angel was right: there was joy and peace here, it was a special feeling that Elias knew could only come from God’s blessing.

    Elias never forgot that night.  He went about taking care of his sheep, but whenever he was in town, he would try to find out about the baby he saw that night.  He found out the boy’s name was Jesus, and he would often hear of wonderful things that Jesus said and did.  When he was very old, Elias heard that people had turned against Jesus and they nailed him to a cross.  But he also heard that three days later, he rose from the dead, and all of his friends were now starting to go out and tell the Good News about him.

    Elias knew that Jesus was special from that very first night he saw him.  He knew that Jesus had come to change everything.  And he was right.  Got changed everything then, and he continues to change everything now, if we let him.  Jesus didn’t just get born two thousand years ago; Jesus is born right here, right now for us, if we would just make a little space, a little manger for him in our hearts.  Just as Elias didn’t know exactly what God had in store for Jesus, we don’t know what God has in store for any of us in the year ahead.  But we do know this: God sent Jesus so that He could be here among us, and he is here among us now, leading us back to him, telling us that we are his special children, and loving us all with love beyond anything we can imagine.

    Things were hard for Elias and the other shepherds, and for Jesus and his family, and sometimes things will be hard for us too.  But all along the way, there are angels, guiding us to where God wants us, watching over us, shining the light, and helping us to find the Good News.  Today, God brings us here to worship, so that like those shepherds, we can find Jesus again, and we can see Jesus in those who love us, and in our own hearts.

  • The Baptism of the Lord

    The Baptism of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    Today is the last day of the Christmas Season. What a wonderful gift we have as Catholics to celebrate the birth of our Lord for an extended period of time! Yesterday was the Epiphany of the Lord, a time to celebrate Christ manifested in the flesh, the greatest gift of God to his creation. On the occasion of the Epiphany, we have three traditional readings. The first is the reading about the magi visiting the Christ Child. The second is the wedding feast at Cana, where Christ turned water into wine, the first of his miracles. And the third is the Gospel we have today, of Christ being baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan.

    As we heard yesterday, Epiphany means “manifestation.” In each of these Gospels, Christ is manifest in our world in a different way. The magi celebrated that this baby was truly the manifestation of God in our world, because no other birth would have been occasioned by such great astrological signs. The wedding feast at Cana celebrates that Jesus is no ordinary man, that he had come to change the world by the shedding of his blood, just as he changed the water into wine. And today his baptism celebrates that Christ is manifest in the weakness of human flesh to identify himself with sinners through baptism.

    So if Jesus Christ identified himself with us sinners through baptism, then we who have been baptized must also identify ourselves with him. We must manifest him in the world through living the Gospel and following in his ways. Today we hear in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles that Jesus, having been anointed with the Holy Spirit, “went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil.” That’s the model he set for all who would be baptized as he was. So we baptized ones must do the same.

    It is easy to see how we can go about doing good. There are thousands of opportunities to do that in our lives. Every day there is an opportunity to do good in ordinary and extraordinary ways. All we have to do is decide to live our baptismal call and do it.  Healing those oppressed by the devil might seem harder to do. But there are lots of ways to cast out demons. Teaching something to another person is a way to cast out the demons of ignorance. Reaching out to an elderly neighbor is a way to cast out the demons of loneliness. Educating ourselves on the evils of racism is a way to cast out the demons of hatred. We have opportunities to heal those oppressed by the devil all the time. All we have to do is decide to do it.

    On this Epiphany Day, on this Christmas day, Christ, born among us, enters the waters of baptism to sanctify them through his body. Our own baptism is a share in this great baptism and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We who have been baptized then are literally INSPIRED – given the Holy Spirit – in order to continue to make Christ manifest in our world. All we have to do is decide to do it.

  • The Epiphany of the Lord

    The Epiphany of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?”  This was the question those magi asked after their long and harrowing journey.  They had observed the star at its rising and were proceeding to pay tribute to the newborn king.  They brought with them gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.  We know the story well enough; we’ve heard it so many times.  But maybe this time, we can make a resolution not to lose sight of this wonderful event in the year to come.

    We celebrate Epiphany today, and Epiphany is a revelation, a manifestation of God here among us earthly creatures.  Epiphany is God doing a God-thing so that we will sit up and take notice.  But it takes some awareness to perceive such an Epiphany, such a wonderful event.  We, like the magi, have to ask the question, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?”

    The journey of the magi was undoubtedly long and arduous.  T.S. Eliot hints at this in his poem, “Journey of the Magi:”

    A cold coming we had of it,
    Just the worst time of the year
    For a journey, and such a long journey:
    The ways deep and the weather sharp,
    The very dead of winter.

    It is well for us to pay heed to this poem.  Because we too make a journey to the Epiphany of the Lord.  We too are seeking the newborn king.  It is the goal of our lives to be seekers, to find Christ in our world: to meet him in the poor and marginalized, to feed him in the hungry, to minister to his needs as we give of ourselves to others.  Some days, the journey might be joy-filled and glorious, other days it may be long and difficult.

    For all of us, as we pursue the question of where is Christ in our lives, and as we make the journey with him, we are called also to discern our vocation.  Everyone has a vocation: some as parents, some as single people, some as ordained priests or consecrated religious.  God has a plan for all of our lives, and it is up to us on this Epiphany day, as well as every other day, to continue to seek clarity of that plan and to be certain we are following it as best we can.

    Where is the newborn king for us?  Are we ready to make the journey?

  • Mary, the Mother of God

    Mary, the Mother of God

    Today’s readings

    Today, on the Octave day of Christmas, we have an opportunity on this Christmas Day to pause and celebrate Mary, the mother of God. This solemnity is a special one for us as Catholics because people for a long time argued over whether Mary, a human being, could possibly be the mother of God. Eventually, the Holy Spirit led the Church to realize that downplaying Mary’s role in all of this really downplays Jesus’ divinity, so denying that Mary was the Mother of God was a substantial part of the heresy of Nestorianism. To say that Mary is not the Mother of God is, in some way, to say that Jesus is not God, and that of course, is not what we believe. So, for centuries the Church has taught that “Mary is the Mother of God the Word according to his human nature.”

    Sister Sarah made me memorize that line in my second year of seminary, and I’ll never forget it. Basically, there are two parts. Mary is the Mother of God the Word: Mary, chosen from all eternity to be a virgin inviolate and a fit Mother for God, is blessed by conceiving the only Son of God by the power of the Holy Spirit. Calling Jesus “God the Word” in this definition takes us to the opening verses of the Gospel of John which tells us that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The Word is traditionally believed to be the second person of the Holy Trinity, the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

    The second part of the definition asserts that Mary is his mother according to his human nature. We know that Jesus was both human and divine, and both natures coexisted in Jesus Christ without any diminishment of either nature at the expense of the other. We also know that only God himself could beget God the Word, but it would have to take a human woman, a very special human woman, to be the mother of his human nature. Jesus is consubstantial, of the same substance, with the Father, as we pray in the Creed, but in a very real sense, he is also consubstantial with us through Mary, in his human nature.

    St. Paul tells us today that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons and daughters.” Today we rejoice in Mary’s faith that God’s promises to the human race would be fulfilled through her. It is because of her faithfulness that God was born into our world in the person of Jesus Christ and became one of us, walking our walk, living our life, dying our death, and leading us to new life that lasts forever. If not for Mary’s fiat – her “yes” to God’s will for her – salvation history might have gone rather poorly. Thankfully, because of her great faith, we have adoption as sons and daughters of God.

    Did Mary understand all of this when she said yes to God’s will when Gabriel came to announce the birth of Christ in her? I don’t know; maybe, maybe not. But she, as our Gospel tells us today, “kept all these things and reflected on them in her heart.” She was able to study the Gospel before it had ever been written, by reflecting on all the events surrounding the birth and life and death of her Son. And because of Mary, we can reflect on it all too, and rejoice that we are sons and daughters of God.

    Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night and Mass of Christmas Day

    The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night and Mass of Christmas Day

    Readings: Mass During the Night | Mass of Christmas Day

    A few years ago, I saw a musical called “Children of Eden.”  It was composed by Steven Schwartz, who is probably more famous for composing “Godspell” and “Wicked.”  The premise of the musical is interesting: it’s the story taken from the first nineteen chapters of the book of Genesis, which basically takes us from the creation of everything up to the story of Noah and the great flood.  From a musical standpoint, it was beautiful, but from a theological standpoint, it was fraught with problems.

    The first problem, I think, is that the story only captures the first nineteen books of Genesis.  That brings me to page twenty in my Bible, and my Bible is fifteen hundred pages long!  As the saying goes, we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet: God has not yet promised anything to Abraham, we don’t yet know about Moses and the Law, we’ve yet to hear from any of the prophets.  David has yet to sing the Psalms, and we certainly haven’t heard the miraculous story that brings us here tonight (today).

    And with that very limited subset of the story of salvation, Steven Schwartz portrays an image of God that is, as anyone might expect, rather stunted.  The story ends with a frustrated God seeing that even the great flood can’t scare humanity back into obedience.  And in his frustration, Schwartz’s God throws up his hands and essentially says, “I’m done.”  God backs out of the picture, and the remnants of humanity realize that, alone now, if anything good is going to happen, it’s up to them.

    And if Schwartz were right, we wouldn’t be here tonight (today).  Happily, we don’t believe in Schwartz’s God.  Because the God he casts in his musical is a God who is impotent and disinterested and completely uninvolved in his creation.  Kind of like a child who has made something out of Legos, and then become bored with them.  He has set the world in motion and then backed off, leaving his creatures to their own devices.  That’s not our God.

    Our God can’t be wrapped up in nineteen chapters and just twenty pages.  Our God takes fifteen hundred more pages to describe and even that just scratches the surface.  Our God is committed and loving and completely good and holy and transcendent and immanent.  Our God is higher than the heavens, holier than the holiest we can imagine, goodness itself, love itself.  But our God is also here among us, Emmanuel, closer to us than we are to ourselves.  Far from backing off and leaving us to our own devices, our God walks with us and shares our joys and sorrows; he sees us through pain and celebrates our healing.  Our God is beyond everything we can imagine and more wonderful than anything we can hope for.

    Our God is so invested in his creation that he made many interventions in human history to provide for our salvation.  Those interventions turned humanity’s hearts back to the Lord in moments of darkness.  Then, when the time was right, God brought salvation to the culmination of perfection.  One day in time, God sent his only Begotten Son to be our Savior.  He was born of the Virgin Mary, born a man like us in all things but sin.  The Second Person of the Holy Trinity, God the Word, put on flesh and became one of us, perfectly human and perfectly divine.  That’s what we celebrate tonight (today).

    As a man, he lived life as we do.  He grew and learned and made friends and became what he was meant to be.  He lived our life and died our death – literally dying the death we deserved for our many sins.  But his death was not the end; his death was shattered by his Resurrection and Ascension into heaven.  Because of his saving sacrifice, because of his Incarnation and Paschal Mystery, the Holy One redeemed our brokenness and made eternal life possible for all those who believe in him and live the Gospel.  That’s our God.

    All of this is made possible because of the gift we receive on this most holy night (day).  That gift we call the Incarnation of the Lord: the glorious mystery of God taking on human flesh to save his people.  This gift of the Incarnation is the best Christmas present we will receive – it is the best gift of any kind that we will ever receive, because in the Incarnation we have what’s necessary for us to be saved.   This is so important a mystery and so great a gift, that at the words of the Incarnation in the Creed today, we are instructed to kneel, not just bow, as we usually do.  So we will kneel when we say the words, “and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”  And we kneel because we remember with great gratitude that if the Word didn’t become flesh, if he wasn’t born of the Virgin Mary, if he didn’t become one like us, if he didn’t pay the price for our sins, we would never have salvation, or hope of life with God.

    God didn’t take on our form so that he could become less, he took on our form so that we could become more.  Tonight (Today), God becomes one of us and takes on all of our infirmities and weaknesses.  But in doing that, we ourselves become more than we could ever be on our own.  Our lowliness is filled with grace, our sadness is filled with rejoicing.

    So as we gaze upon and adore our Lord in the manger, maybe we can take some of the items in that beautiful snapshot and see what will come for him as he grows older.  We see the shepherds, lowly men despised often by society, the marginalized ones who are the first to receive the message.  We see the wise men, those who in the wisdom they have received from God, are ready to give everything to follow Christ.  We see the angels, the messengers who urge us to take a second look at an innocent child who might not otherwise attract our attention.  We see his father Joseph, who will teach him the law, as a good father would, and help him to grow in the ways of humanity, which he so completely assumed.  We see his mother, who nurtured him in childhood and followed him in adulthood, becoming the first of his disciples.  We see the wood of the manger, a foreshadowing of the wood of the Cross, which will be the means of our salvation.  And we see and adore Christ himself, the Way, the wonder-counselor, our father forever, and prince of peace.

    When we look at that manger scene with eyes of faith, we become different, knowing that Jesus paid an incredible price to bring us back to him, not just on the Cross, but even at his birth.  Human eyes can look at that manger and see with cynicism that he’s just like us, nothing special.  But eyes of faith look at the same event and see our God, wholly worthy of adoration.

    And so, as we gaze on the manger, we know that Steven Schwartz was wrong about our God, and not only that, he is wrong about us.  We are not, as one of his songs says “lost in the wilderness;” instead our lives are bound up in the very life of our God, and his in ours, and we are precious to him as he is everything to us.  The grace of our God made visible will glory with us in our joys and sustain us in our sorrows.  The Lord who is born among us today gives us peace in our most gut-wrenching moments.  May our hearts be open to accepting the grace of his Incarnation, the grace of his most wonderful presence among us.

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Vigil Mass (Joseph’s Story)

    The Nativity of the Lord: Vigil Mass (Joseph’s Story)

    Today’s readings

    Once, a very long time ago, there was a man named Joseph.  He was a well-respected and hard-working man, from the family of the great king David.  But since Israel hadn’t been a great nation in a long time, he wasn’t respected for being a great king himself.  Instead, people respected him for his carpentry work and for the fact that he was faithful and just.

    He was to be married to a young woman named Mary – their marriage was probably arranged by their families.  They would come together to be man and wife when the time was right.  One day, she came to him with an unbelievable story about being pregnant, with a child given to her by the Holy Spirit.  Joseph didn’t know what to think.  He clearly knew he was not the father of the baby, and so he decided not to marry the young woman, but instead to let her go quietly, so she would not be embarrassed.

    The night he decided to do this, Joseph had a dream.  In the dream, an angel appeared to him and told him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, and that God wanted him to do just that.  The angel told him that the baby was very special, that he would come to save all God’s people from their sins and would be called Emmanuel – a name that means that God is here among us.

    So Joseph did what the angel told him.  He took Mary as his wife.  And about that time, a proclamation came from the government that said that everyone had to go and be registered as a citizen.  They had to go to the city where they were from to do that.  So Joseph made plans to travel with Mary from Galilee where they were living, to Nazareth, which was where Joseph was from.  The way was long and dangerous and, along the way, the time came for Mary to have her baby.

    They looked desperately for some inn or any house to take them in, but every place was full because so many people were traveling.  Eventually, they at least found a shelter: a rickety little shack for farm animals, and they went in there.  That’s when Mary had her baby.  She was scared, and Joseph had never delivered a baby before.  But the child was beautiful, and Joseph held him while Mary slept, exhausted from travelling and giving birth.  They placed the baby in the manger, a feed-trough for the animals, and they named him Jesus.

    Later, they had visits from shepherds and from astrologers from the east, who came to worship the child, because they had seen visions too.  Mary and Joseph were amazed at all that was happening, and the wonderful visits they were receiving.

    One night, Joseph had another visit from an angel in his dreams.  The angel told him that people were planning to harm the new baby.  So, at the angel’s instruction, Joseph got up from bed, took Mary and Jesus, and fled to the land of Egypt so that they would be out of harm’s way.  They stayed there until the angel told Joseph that those who wanted to harm Jesus were dead, and it was okay to go back to their own town now.

    Joseph watched the child grow up, and was so proud to be his foster-father.  He taught Jesus how to live and how to respect others, and all about the religious law, just like any father would do for his children.  In his private moments, Joseph always wondered what would become of Jesus, wondered what God had in store for him.  All he knew was that something wonderful was happening, and as hard as it was sometimes, he had been called to help it happen.

    And God wants to continue to do wonderful things for us.  Jesus didn’t just get born two thousand years ago; Jesus is born right here, right now for us, if we would just make a little space, a little shelter for him in our hearts.  Just as Joseph didn’t know exactly what God had in store for Jesus, we don’t know what God has in store for any of us in the year ahead.  But we do know this: God sent Jesus so that God could be here among us, and he is here among us now, leading us back to him, telling us that we are his special children, and loving us all with love beyond anything we can imagine.

    Just like things were hard for Mary and Joseph as they travelled along, trying to find a place to stay, sometimes things for us will be hard too.  But all along the way, there are angels, guiding us to where God wants us, watching over us, and helping us to find the Good News.  Today, God brings us here to worship, so that like those shepherds and astrologers, we can find Jesus again, and we can see Jesus in those who love us, and in our own hearts.

  • The Baptism of the Lord

    The Baptism of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    Do you know the date of your baptism?  I know the month of mine, but have to admit I’m not really sure about the date.  But when was the last time you even thought about your baptism?  Most of us don’t remember much about our baptism day, having been to young for it to really register in our memories.  In some ways, our lack of knowledge about our baptisms is sad, because baptism is, we believe, a radically life-changing event.

    In the sacrament of baptism, our sins are washed away.  For those of us baptized as infants, that means our original sin.  For those baptized as adults, that also includes any personal sins committed up to that time.  Baptism also gives us the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which fills us with grace to participate in the mission of Christ in this world.  So those waters of baptism are powerful ones: they wash away our sinfulness and give us the grace to be who we were created to be.

    Today, Jesus himself is baptized.  Which is odd: he certainly didn’t need to be cleansed from sin, which was the type of baptism John the Baptist was doing.  But there was a reason for it.  Jesus told John to allow it for now.  This was how Christ desired to be one with us, to be manifest to us.  By entering the waters of baptism, Jesus makes those waters holy.  When we then enter the waters of baptism, we are made holy – that never could have happened if Jesus had not been baptized.  By being baptized, Jesus identifies himself with sinners; pledges to be one with them and make salvation possible.  Today’s Gospel story is an incredibly significant event.

    So if Jesus Christ identified himself with us sinners through baptism, then we who have been baptized must also identify ourselves with him. We must manifest him in the world through living the Gospel and following in his ways. Today we hear in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles that Jesus, having been anointed with the Holy Spirit, “went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil.” That’s the model he set for all who would be baptized as he was. So we baptized ones must do the same.

    It is easy to see how we can go about doing good. There are thousands of opportunities to do that in our lives. Children and young people can do good by obeying their parents, being kind to brothers, sisters and friends, attending to their school work, and praying for those who are needy. Adults can strive to lead godly lives, raising families in peace, working diligently at their jobs, and being of service to the community. Every day there is an opportunity to do good in ordinary and extraordinary ways. All we have to do is decide to live our baptismal call and do it.

    Healing those oppressed by the devil might seem harder to do. But there are lots of ways to cast out demons. Teaching something to another person is a way to cast out the demons of ignorance. Reaching out to an elderly neighbor is a way to cast out the demons of loneliness. Educating ourselves on the evils of racism is a way to cast out the demons of hatred. Bringing food to the food pantry, or volunteering at a soup kitchen or loaves and fishes is a way to cast out the demons of poverty and hunger and homelessness. Visiting the sick, or picking up medication or groceries for a sick neighbor, is a way to cast out the demons of illness. We have opportunities to heal those oppressed by the devil all the time. All we have to do is decide to do it.

    Today we are called upon to remember our baptism, and perhaps to think about it in a slightly different light.  We should remember that our baptism was made possible by Christ’s baptism and above all by his saving sacrifice.  Given that extraordinary price, we must always be mindful of how important that baptism is.  We can live our baptism every day: all we have to do is decide to do it.

  • The Baptism of the Lord

    The Baptism of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    What wonderful words we have in today’s Gospel to close out the Christmas season: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.”

    We have come a long way since December the 25th.  Jesus, the Son of God has become the son of Mary, and has sanctified the world by his most merciful coming.  The Second Person of the Holy Trinity has taken on flesh and become one like us in all things but sin.  He took that flesh as the lowliest of all: as a baby born to a poor young family in the tiniest, poorest region of a small nation.

    But during his Epiphany, which we have been celebrating ever since last Sunday, we saw the importance of this Emmanuel, God with us.  Magi came from the East to give him symbolic gifts: gold for a king, frankincense for the High Priest, and myrrh for his burial.  Today, the Epiphany continues with the second traditional reading of the Epiphany: the Baptism of Jesus.  Obviously, Jesus didn’t need to partake of the baptism of John, because it was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  But Jesus’ taking part in that baptism manifests himself as One who has come to be with sinners, to take on their sinfulness, and to sanctify those waters of baptism so that they can wipe away our sins.

    And here’s a wonderful thing: even though the Christmas season officially ends today, we continue to celebrate it in some ways, all the way up to Candlemas day, February the 2nd.  We see that especially this year, because next week, we get the third traditional reading of the Epiphany, the Wedding Feast at Cana, in which Christ is manifested in his ministry, ready or not.

    The secret to our celebration of the Epiphany is that we must be ready to accept the manifestation of Jesus in our own lives.  We have to let him be our king and priest, accepting his death for our salvation.  We have to celebrate our own baptism, which is only significant because Christ has gone through it first, long before us, sanctifying the waters.  We have to let him minister to us as he did at the wedding feast, giving us the very best of food and drink, in great abundance, to nourish us into eternal life.

    This is the One with whom the Father was well-pleased; he is the One with whom we are in awe.  We are moved to silence before our Christ who came most mercifully to sanctify our way to heaven.  That silence can only be appropriately broken by the exclamation of the Father:  “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased!”

  • Wednesday after Epiphany

    Wednesday after Epiphany

    Today’s readings

    We still need more light, don’t we?  Just like the disciples who don’t yet get who this Jesus is and what he’s about, sometimes we too struggle with that.  Jesus was doing amazing things among the disciples and they didn’t yet understand.  Jesus is doing amazing things among us and sometimes we don’t get it either.  The Epiphany of the Lord, which we continue to celebrate today, continues to shed light on who Jesus is for us and for the world.  Today, may we open our eyes to the brightness of his coming.

  • St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

    St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

    Today’s readings

    Mother Seton is a major figure of the Catholic Church in the United States.  Her accomplishments contributed greatly to the growth of Catholicism in this country. She founded the first American religious community for women, the Sisters of Charity. She opened the first American parish school and established the first American Catholic orphanage. All this she did in the span of 46 years while raising her five children.

    And she didn’t start out Catholic.  She was born to an Episcopalian family and married an Episcopalian, William Seton, bearing five children with him before his untimely death. At 30, Elizabeth was widowed, penniless, with five small children to support.

    While in Italy with her dying husband, Elizabeth witnessed Catholicity in action through family friends.  She was drawn to Catholicism because of the Real Presence, devotion to Mary, and the apostolic succession which led back to the original Apostles and to Christ.  She converted to Catholicism in 1805, and because of that, many of her family rejected her.

    But perseverance was a special aspect of her spirituality.  She wrote to her sisters: “Perseverance is a great grace. To go on gaining and advancing every day, we must be resolute, and bear and suffer as our blessed forerunners did.  Which of them gained heaven without a struggle?”

    It is especially appropriate that we celebrate St. Elizabeth’s feast day during this season of Epiphany.  Just as we hear in the Gospel that Christ continued to come and shed more light on the people, so her life radiated with light that led to our Savior.  And the light of Christ’s most merciful coming has continued to shine in our Church, through the hard work and intercession of saints like Elizabeth Ann Seton.