Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Christmas

  • Friday after Epiphany

    Friday after Epiphany

    Today’s readings

    Today, as we continue to celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, we see Jesus manifested as healer.  “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”  What a wonderful profession of faith!  Here is a man, full of leprosy, who has been in pain and ostracized for perhaps a good portion of his life.  He perhaps has heard about Jesus and was eager to see if he would do what no one has been able to do for him.  No one would even touch a leper, for fear of contracting the disease, or becoming ritually unclean, or both.  So he has been forced to live with it for all this time.  But Jesus isn’t going to be limited by anything, so he does it: he touches the man and says, “I do will it.”  Healing is the will of our Father, and Jesus came to do the Father’s work.  Responding to the man’s faith, Jesus is able to do in him what no one else could do, or even would do.

    So Jesus is manifested as a healer, but we know that despite our best efforts of prayer, it doesn’t always work out as it did for the leper.  But there are so many kinds of healing.  What God intends for us may be far different, perhaps far more important to our salvation, than the healing of a disease. 

    In any case, whether the disease goes away or not, the person of faith is always given what God intends for her or him.  And that person never walks through suffering alone, because we know that our Lord suffered greatly on that Cross.  So, joining our sufferings to Christ’s, we have him to help us with our own cross, whatever it may be.  Whether God intends our disease to go away or not, he always wills our salvation, which in the end is the essence of what he came to do.  Today Christ is manifested as healer.  Healer of our bodies, perhaps.  But healer of our souls to make them fit for heaven, for sure.

  • Thursday After Epiphany

    Thursday After Epiphany

    Today’s readings

    The feast of Epiphany is a celebration of the fact that Christian life looks like something.  Because Jesus has appeared on the earth and taken our own human form, because he has walked among us and lived our life and died our death, we know what the Christian Way looks like.  We know that the Christian life consists of embracing our humanity, with all its weaknesses and imperfections.  We know that it consists of living our own lives well, mindful of the needs of others, forgiving as we have been forgiven, and spreading the light of the Gospel wherever it is that God puts us.  The Galileans in the synagogue in today’s Gospel were amazed at Jesus’ speaking words of grace.  We too are called to do this so that all will recognize in us the presence of Christ.

    Because Christ is still manifest among us.  Every encounter with someone else is an opportunity for Epiphany.  It is an opportunity for us to look for the presence of Christ in that other person, and for them to see Christ at work in us.  How we do that depends on the situation, certainly, but it must always be our top priority if we are eager to be called Christians.  John’s words in the first reading are clear, and are words of indictment on those times we forget to be the Epiphany to others: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

    Christ is made manifest in all of us and among all of us.  In the ordinariness of our lives, we can find Christ’s grace abundantly blessing us, or we can reject it.  If we make it our priority to be Christ’s presence in the world in every encounter with a brother or sister, we may find that we are blessed with epiphany upon epiphany, constantly growing in God’s grace.  This is all part of our faith, of course, and it is this faith, as John tells us, that conquers the world.

  • The Epiphany of the Lord

    The Epiphany of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    It’s so simple: walk toward the light.

    This is good advice, I think, for us who walk around in what can be a very dark world. Today’s first reading speaks of that darkness: “See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples…” We’re not talking about some kind of simple darkness that is cured by simply turning on a lamp. This darkness is pervasive, not just physical darkness, but a darkness that has psychological effects, and even affects communities and nations. When Isaiah speaks of the thick clouds covering the peoples, that’s what he means: “peoples” means nations.

    And we don’t need to look too much farther than the newspaper or evening news to see that darkness. The year ahead of us might seem rather foreboding.  The latest variant of COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire, even affecting those who are fully vaccinated, boosted, or have even had COVID in the past.  We are about to enter year three of the pandemic, and we’re all weary.  And if that’s not enough, there is all the crime going on.  People are getting shot on expressways, shopping centers, schools, hotels, and well, just about everywhere.  Prices are skyrocketing for everything from food to fuel.  People don’t have informed discussions about anything anymore, just sound bytes and Twitter wars and siding with one extreme or the other.  There’s plenty of darkness to go around, and it may not seem like there’s enough light in all the universe to make it better, to illuminate that darkness, to help us to break free of it all.

    There may be darkness in our own lives too. Maybe we have patterns of sin of which we cannot seem to break free, maybe there are family difficulties that cloud our day-to-day living, maybe there are old hurts among family or friends that prevent us from moving forward in grace. Even our own personal and spiritual lives can be such dark places at times.

    Today’s Liturgy acknowledges all the darkness and invites us: “Walk toward the light.”

    We do have light to scatter all that darkness, and it comes from God himself. Isaiah says again: “but upon you the LORD shines, and over you appears his glory.” A darkness as pervasive as the one that covers all peoples requires a very bright light to scatter it. Does this mean that all that darkness will go away immediately? Of course not. But it does mean that God has provided a way, lit up a path, for people of faith to take baby steps if necessary to walk toward that light. We see that light in the Church, through the Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in our celebration of the Eucharist, when we reach out to others in service, in our interaction with each other as people of faith. Those thick clouds may make it pretty hard to see at times, but ultimately they are no match for the bright light of the glory of the Lord, because that Light absolutely has won the day, the Word has taken flesh, and the darkness cannot overcome Light like that.

    Isaiah goes on to point out that all that light isn’t intended just for us. When we have approached the light, we need to share that light with others. “Nations shall walk by your light,” Isaiah says, “and kings by your shining radiance.” Having received the light of the glory of the Lord, we are meant to spread it over our corner of the world. We are meant to radiate that light as a beacon in a dark place, so that all peoples – all those peoples that were covered by those thick clouds of darkness – can see their way to the Lord too. We spread that light by changing our lives. We spread it by being people of integrity. We spread it by doing everything we can to reinvigorate our spiritual and devotional lives. We spread the light by paying it forward, by giving of ourselves, by having concern for those in our lives and those the Lord puts in our lives. We spread the light by reaching out to those in need.

    The glory of the Lord is never diminished by shining the light on others. In fact, when we share that light with others, we only receive more, so that our hearts are throbbing and overflowing, beholding all the riches that we could ever hope to find. We may find a talent we never knew we had, one that can reach others for Christ. We may find a new energy that comes to a spiritual life that was previously rather listless. We may find new challenges, new opportunities, and always new grace. The riches and wealth of our God are never exhausted.

    All we have to do is walk toward the light.

    An important way to light up your homes today is to bless them.  It’s no secret that the family is under attack by the evil one in these days.  One way to protect that is to bless them on the feast of the Epiphany.  We have a gift of blessed chalk, a prayer, and blessed Epiphany water for you to use at home.  Please take just one on your way out to bless your home today, and please gather as a family, take time to pray the prayer together, to mark the door of the house, and to sprinkle the Epiphany water around each room in the house.  The Epiphany water is blessed and exorcised, and it has the power to cast out evil.  Of course, you need to support this holy action by going to confession, receiving the Eucharist, and striving to lead a life that is led by the light.

    The light that we walk toward today is very-likely life-changing. The Magi came to seek the light in today’s Gospel reading. All we get from Matthew is a description of the encounter. But we have no idea what the encounter did in the lives of those wise astrologers. We don’t know how it changed them, what it cost them, where it ultimately led them. We see that the light was not intended just for the Jews, but also for all the nations: pagans and religious people alike. All could come to the light, all could be affected by the light, all could experience the true light of the world.

    And in just the same way, we have no idea how walking toward the light will affect us. We don’t know how it will change us, what it will cost us, where it ultimately will lead us. All we know is that, coming to the light, we will be changed, with the promise of grace upon grace. Just as the Magi were led to return by another way, we too might find ourselves taking another way in our lives. Epiphany is not the end of the story; it is just the beginning for us. May this coming year find us walking toward the light countless times and in countless ways, and open to the many riches of grace that the Lord has in store for us.

  • The Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

    The Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

    Today’s readings

    Today, on the octave day of Christmas, which we still celebrate as Christmas Day, we are blessed to remember the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God. We do this because we all know that Mary’s faith made possible our own lives of faith and even more wonderfully made possible the salvation of the whole world and everyone ever to live in it. She was the one, chosen by God, to see the Gospel come to life before her very eyes. She intimately beheld the Word, she held our God in her faithful and loving hands, treasuring each moment in her heart.

    So Mary’s faith is a model for us, a goal which we disciples must strive to attain.  God’s call will often take us into unknown territory, as it did for our Blessed Mother, but in faith we are called to say “yes” to his plan for us anyway.  God’s call will often call for sacrifice and even sorrow in the short term, as it did for our Blessed Mother, but we are still asked to give all that we have.  Mary did that without a second thought or a moment’s regret.  How willing are we?  Can we take a leap of faith, make a fiat, and cooperate with God’s work in our lives and in the world?  We have no way of knowing where that might lead us; just like Mary, that might lead to heartache and sorrow; but just like Mary, it may lead to redemption beyond belief, beyond anything we can imagine.

    Today the Church proclaims courageously that Mary is the Mother of God.  And let me tell you, this was a doctrine that came at great price.  People literally fought over whether a human woman could ever be the mother of God.  How would something like that even be possible? But the alternative, really, would be to insinuate that Jesus was not God.  We know that Jesus had two natures: human and divine.  Neither nature was subordinate to the other there was no separation or division or elevation of one nature at the expense of the other; they were both wrapped up intimately with one another, incapable of being divided in the person of Jesus Christ.  So, because we clearly know that Mary was his mother, we say that Mary is the Mother of God.  And as theologians teach us, Mary is the Mother of God the Word according to his human nature.  She didn’t give birth to his divine nature; that was begotten by God.  She is not the mother of the First or Third Persons of the Blessed Trinity; she is the mother of the Second Person, God the Word.  Sister Sarah made us memorize all this in seminary, and every once in a while, when I’m feeling particularly theologically courageous, I reflect on this doctrine and marvel at its beauty.

    So, Mary is the Mother of God, but Mary is also the Mother of the Church, leading its members to her son Jesus and to faith in God.  She is mother of priests, caring for us in a special way and interceding for the faithful work of our calling.  She is the mother of mothers, interceding for them and showing them how to nurture faith in their children.  She is the mother of the faithful, showing us how to cooperate fully with God’s plan.  She is mother of Scripture scholars and those who just love and study the Scriptures, having seen the Word unfold before her and treasuring it in her heart.  She is the mother of disciples, having been the first of the disciples and the most dedicated of them all.  And she is the Mother of Mercy, who gave birth to our Savior and birth to our eternity.  She is the Mother of God, and our mother, and we cannot sing our Christmas carols without singing our thanksgiving for her.  We honor her faith and example today, and we ask for her intercession for our lives, for our families, for our Church and for our world.

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

  • Thursday Within the Octave of Christmas

    Thursday Within the Octave of Christmas

    Today’s readings

    What did you get for Christmas?  Was it everything you’d hoped for?  Or are you at that stage of life where gifts are nice, but you really don’t need anything special?  A lot of my family has come to that point, because we’re at that point where the gifts aren’t so important as it is to be together at Christmas and enjoy one another.

    Today’s first reading is exhorting us to something similar.  While the rest of the world waits in line for hours to get whatever the coveted gift of the year may be, we have the consolation of knowing that nothing like that is ultimately important, or will ever make us ultimately happy.  The real gift that we can receive today, and every day, is the gift of Jesus, the Word made flesh, our Savior come to be one with us as Emmanuel.

    Saint John tells us quite clearly: “Do not love the world or the things of the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”  Because what we have is so much better than anything the world can give.  Anna the prophetess in the Gospel reading recognized the Gift.  She had been waiting for it, praying for it, every day of her life.  Heaven forbid that we should miss it! 

    The real gift this Christmas, and really every day, is the gift of eternal life.  And we have that gift because Jesus came to earth and chose to be one with us in our human nature.  That’s why the angels sang that night, and why we sing his praise every day of our lives.

  • The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

    The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

    Today’s readings

    One of the great snapshots of Christmas for me has always been the manger scene. These beautiful figurines give us a glimpse as to what God is doing at the Incarnation of Christ – an amazing moment in time!  But I am aware that the idyllic holiness, peace and love the crèche depicts is often quite foreign to the experience of many families, including many families in this assembly. I know there are families where communication is anything but good. There are families who may never have known the kind of love that is shared between Jesus, Mary and Joseph. There are families who struggle with abuse: physical, sexual, or emotional.

    Even in the “best” of families, there is often hardship. I know there are families who struggle to keep up with all the activities that are expected of them. There are families who can’t find time to have a meal together, let alone take a trip together. Families often struggle to make ends meet. There are families who struggle with the changing needs of children as they grow older. Families may be separated by great distance, or may have suffered the sickness or death of one of the members. Other families may find themselves changing roles as a parent, the one who provided for his or her children, grows old and becomes ill and then becomes the one in need of care.

    Families can be and are the source of our greatest joys and our deepest anguish. Sometimes all in the same day. The truth is, and perhaps you find yourself thinking this as you sit there and listen to these readings today, none of our families is perfect. Few of us would rush to describe our families as well-functioning, let alone holy. And so we can sit there and look at the manger and find its serenity meaningless in the hectic anxiety of our day-to-day family lives.

    But maybe we need to look a little deeper or listen a little harder today. “Holy” and “perfect” are perhaps not the same thing. We don’t need to be perfect to be a family. That was true of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as well. Would a perfect family have lost their child on the way home from a trip? I don’t think so, but that’s exactly what happened, isn’t it? Mary says to Jesus when they find him that she and Joseph had been looking for him with “great anxiety.” Those of you who are parents can well imagine the anxiety and can totally identify with what Mary and Joseph had to have been feeling.  

    Not everything was perfect in that family, even from the beginning. Right at the beginning, they had to flee for their safety; they suffered from poverty and violent threats. Like many modern families in various places in the world, they suffered under political and military oppression, had to settle far from their original home and had to start a new life in a foreign place. Two thousand years may separate the modern family from the “Holy Family,” but there are so many similarities.

    So, what we are supposed to see in the Holy Family is something perhaps different from perfection.  I think it is faithfulness.  Faithfulness to God and faithfulness to one another: indeed, it is this faithfulness that leads them to the holiness we celebrate today.  Look at the way the situation in the Gospel reading today was resolved among them.  Even though they were panicked and anxious about the disappearance of their son; even though they did not understand what was going on with him, yet they strove to understand him and loved him beyond measure, and Mary kept all of these memories in her heart, kept them to be sorted out and understood and treasured later.  And even though Jesus was ready to grow into adulthood and ready to begin his mission, yet he understood the concerns of his parents and continued to be obedient to them as he continued to grow in human wisdom and grace. They were faithful to one another.

    I continue to be aware that even as I pull that theme of faithfulness out of today’s Scriptures, that can still seem insurmountable to many of you. Why should you be faithful when the hurts inflicted by other members of your family still linger? That’s a hard one to address, but the call to faithfulness is still there for all of us. And we’re not told to be faithful just when everyone else is faithful. Sometimes we are called to make an almost unilateral decision to love and respect the others in our families, and let God worry about the equity of it all. I know that’s easier to say than to do, but please know that this Church family supports you with prayer and love as you do that.

    Every single one of us is called to be holy, brothers and sisters. And every single one of our families is called to be holy. That doesn’t mean that we will be perfect. Some days we’ll be pretty far from it. But it does mean that we will be faithful in love and respect. It means that we will unite ourselves to God in prayer and worship. It means we will love when loving is hard to do. Mary loved Jesus all the way to the Cross and watched him die. What we see in the model of the Holy Family for us is not perfection, but faithfulness and holiness.

    That holiness will make demands of us. It did for Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Holiness demands that we seek it; it doesn’t just descend from above. If we want holy families, and we certainly should, we will have to make decisions and even sacrifices to pursue it. We will have to make an honest priority of worship; attending Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation as a minimum without fail. We will have to surround our families in prayer, praying at meals, teaching and reviewing prayers, praying together at night, reciting the rosary together, reading the Scriptures together. Holy families are not going to be perfect in these things, but they will not fail to pursue that holiness every single day. It takes a daily decision to do that; but that is the vocation of the family in the world.

    Jesus, emerging from childhood to adulthood, reminds us that in his name, we must be ready to live faithful and holy lives, regardless of whether others are doing the same, and no matter what the personal cost. Because the cost of rejecting holiness in our lives is just too great, and the loss of an earthly family is nothing compared to losing our place in the family of God.

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Day

    The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Day

    Today’s readings

    What came to be through him was life,
            and this life was the light of the human race;
        the light shines in the darkness,
            and the darkness has not overcome it.

    Sometimes, when I am preaching at a reconciliation service for children, I will ask how many of them are, or ever have been, afraid of the dark.  I ask the parents too.  Lots of us raise our hands.  Because darkness is a fearsome thing.  In those homilies, I liken the darkness to sin, which is fearsome as well, because it takes us out of relationship with God, out of relationship with the people in our lives, and out of relationship with the Church. 

    None of us likes darkness.  One of the things I like to do this time of year is to drive around the neighborhoods I pass through and look at the Christmas lights.  Some of them are very elaborate, some are almost what I like to call “Griswoldian,” after the characters in the movie “Christmas Vacation.”  I know that I look forward to putting up the lights for Christmas, and I always love to see the creativity of others who have lit their houses.  As the days get shorter and the nights get longer, as darkness comes earlier and earlier, having brightly lit trees and houses seems to be a way of ordering the darkness to get lost and not to terrify us any longer.  We are a people who crave the light, who need it at the very core of our beings.  We were not made for darkness, but for light.

    All during Advent, we have been yearning for the light.  Advent reminds us that the world can sometimes be a very dark place, that war and terrorism and crime and disease and sin and death can really give us a beating, that very often we experience life much differently than God intended us to, and that all of this darkness has kept us from union with our God.  But Advent also has reminded us that it’s not supposed to be that way, and that God has always intervened for love of the people he has created.  And so in Advent, we came to see that God promises salvation for the people that are his own, and that he would do everything to make that promised salvation unfold for us.

    The Old Testament unfolds for us the many ways that God has intervened in history to save his people.  He placed man and woman in the Garden of Eden, safe from all harm, should they choose to accept it (which, of course, they did not!).  He brought eight people through the deluge of the great flood on Noah’s Ark.  He promised Abraham his descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky.  He led his people out of slavery in Egypt, through the desert and into the Promised Land, protecting them and guiding them through the hand of Moses all along the way.  His love for his people, his desire that they be one with him, and his efforts to save them from their own folly have been abundant all through human history.  But as numerous as his efforts have been, so have humankind’s failures to follow him been numerous as well.

    Which brings us to the event we celebrate today.  Let’s be clear: this is not some last-ditch effort before God throws up his hands and leaves us to our own devices.  This is the saving event.  This is the way to salvation that has always been intended and has been promised through the ages, from the very days of the creation of the world, when the Word, as Saint John tells us today, was with God, and with God, was the Word through which everything in heaven and on earth came to be.

    This awesome event is the Incarnation: Jesus, the Word through which all were created, comes to be one of the created ones.  This is the primordial mystery of our faith: without the Incarnation, there could be no cross, no resurrection, no ascension, no salvation.  None of the savings events of the Old Testament could be as wonderful as the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery: in fact, those previous acts of salvation led up to the salvation we have in Christ Jesus, and paved the way for that saving act.  In today’s feast, the great light of Christ has taken hold of the darkness this world brings us and shatters it forever, shining great light into every corner of our dark world, and into our sometimes very dark lives as well.

    That’s all very theological and theoretical, I know, and maybe it goes over our heads most of the time.  So let me put this all another way.  For this illustration, I have to thank one of my seminary professors, who beat this image into our heads over and over again.  Here’s the way it works:  God always intended for us to be with him.  But, that became impossible, because over time we developed this great, dark chasm of sin and death.  That chasm separated us from God, and we could not reach across it to get to God.  So, on December the 25th, in the year Zero, if you will, God sent his only Son to be our salvation.  He was born into our midst and became one of us: he walked our walk, he lived our life, and he also died our death.  But that death did not last forever: instead he rose to new life that lasts forever, canceling out that great chasm of sin and death, and forever uniting us to God, allowing us to live the life God always intended us to have.  Now, I should mention, he used to call that chasm the “deep dark yogurt of sin and death,” and he once explained that he used that image because he didn’t like yogurt!

    You get the idea.  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 genuflect, not just bow.  So we will genuflect when we say the words, “by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.”  And we genuflect 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.  Praise God for this great gift today!

    And so as we continue our prayer today, we offer God the darkness in our lives: our sins, our frustrations, our disappointments, our pain, our grief – and we hold up all of this to the great Light that is God’s Word, the one who became one like us, who pitched his tent among us, and who dwells with us now.  We pray that the Light of the world would banish our darkness, and help us to see the way to God from wherever it is that we find ourselves on the spiritual path today.  We celebrate that, today and every day, Jesus Christ is the Light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

  • The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night

    The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night

    Today’s readings

    The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
    upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom
          a light has shone.

    Sometimes, when I am preaching at a reconciliation service for children, I will ask how many of them are, or ever have been, afraid of the dark.  I ask the parents too.  Lots of us raise our hands.  Because darkness is a fearsome thing.  In those homilies, I liken the darkness to sin, which is fearsome as well, because it takes us out of relationship with God, out of relationship with the people in our lives, and out of relationship with the Church. 

    None of us likes darkness.  One of the things I like to do this time of year is to drive around the neighborhoods I pass through and look at the Christmas lights.  Some of them are very elaborate, some are almost what I like to call “Griswoldian,” after the characters in the movie “Christmas Vacation.”  I know that I look forward to putting up the lights for Christmas, and I always love to see the creativity of others who have lit their houses.  As the days get shorter and the nights get longer, as darkness comes earlier and earlier, having brightly lit trees and houses seems to be a way of ordering the darkness to get lost and not to terrify us any longer.  We are a people who crave the light, who need it at the very core of our beings.  We were not made for darkness, but for light.

    Some of us this Advent were reading and discussing a little book called, “The Heart that Grew Three Sizes.”  The book was based on the popular Dr. Seuss classic, “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”  If you were part of that study, you know there were a lot of gems in that book and it gave us a wonderful new perspective to look at Advent and our faith.  One of my favorite parts of the book was when author Matt Rawle took on the theme of light and darkness.  Here is what he noticed in the story:

    “When the Grinch begins shoving the Who family’s Christmas tree into the chimney at night, he notices young Cindy Lou Who standing and watching him.  She asks why the Grinch is taking the tree away.  Without so much as a blink, the Grinch says that the lights on one side of the tree aren’t working, and he’s taking the tree to his workshop where he will fix it up and bring it back.”  He goes on to say that a tree without lights is fine for holding ornaments or putting gifts under, but without the lights, it’s definitely missing something.  In the same way, the Grinch certainly had a heart, but it was three sizes too small: it was missing something.

    The darkness is like that.  When a room is dark, like when we are walking to the bathroom in the middle of the night, there is stuff between us and the bathroom, and if we are not careful, we will walk into it or on it, or trip over it.  It’s the same room during the day, but in the night, it is missing something, namely the light, which helps us to interact with the room the way we should. 

    When I visited the Holy Land a couple of years ago, I had an experience in Bethlehem that allowed me to reflect on what missing the light meant for the shepherds.  I got to visit what is called the “Shepherds’ Field,” which may or may not have been where the shepherds met the angels, but even if it’s not the exact place, one could certainly imagine it happening in there or a place an awful lot like it.  It was quiet and peaceful when we visited during the day.  It was about 90 degrees out, and so the shade from the numerous trees in the field and the slight breeze was certainly welcome.  As I sat on a bench in the field, I tried to imagine what it might have been like at night, when the shepherds were there.  Now they were used to the darkness, and probably were able to see most hazards from the ambient light of the moon and stars.  And I’m sure they kept a watchful eye through the night for the gleam of light reflecting off the eyes of any predators that might be nearby.  They were used to the darkness.

    Sometimes we get used to the darkness too, perhaps a little too used to it.  We become used to what we see: the shadows, the darkness, even the sadness around us.  Bad news doesn’t surprise us anymore.  More crime in the streets, another school shooting, people doing smash and grab robberies in stores, the latest COVID variant filling up the hospitals.  There’s a whole lot of darkness out there, and sometimes I think the way we deal with all that darkness is to let it desensitize us.  The real surprise on the evening news is the occasional human-interest story about something positive happening somewhere in our world.  We get very used to our day-to-day lives, filled as they are with long to-do lists, running from one errand or event to the next, managing the stress, frustration, and anxiety that come from falling behind in one area or the other.  This is the dim light we become used to.

    For the shepherds, the bright light of the angels’ presence was startling.  They weren’t used to the light, and in the darkness of the night, they were probably blinded by it, in much the same way as the light of the Griswolds’ house blinded his neighbor and caused him to fall down the stairs.  It’s no wonder they were afraid: they could hardly see, and what they could see was the surprising appearance of an angel into their mundane nightly watch.  But as their eyes adjust to the light, they experience the glory of God and the reassurance of an infant lying in a manger, an infant who is Christ and Lord and Savior of all.

    Into our dimly lit lives, our God wants to shine the splendor of his glory.  The birth of his only begotten Son into our world isn’t just a nice event depicted on Christmas cards or Nativity scenes.  The birth of his only begotten Son is meant to change the world, including the dimly-lit recesses of our daily existence.  This is amazing grace.  This is an indwelling of God that changes the world and changes our lives.

    It’s incredible, because when you think about it, God doesn’t have to care about our welfare or our salvation.  He’s God, he’s not in need of anyone or anything, because he is all-sufficient.  He doesn’t need our love, he doesn’t need our praise, he doesn’t need our contrition … honestly, he doesn’t need us period.  But he wants us.  Love wants the beloved.  Grace wants the penitent.  Goodness and truth and beauty want the worn and weary.  And so our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.  Isaiah tells us that the zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this.  Indeed that zeal won’t rest until it reaches its perfection in the lives of all of us.

    He created us in love, and even though he doesn’t need us, he loves us beyond all imagining, and can’t do anything but that.  Throughout time, yes, we’ve disappointed him, and when he forgave us – which he didn’t have to do – we disappointed him again.  That’s been the story of us as a people, and also our own personal stories, if we’re honest.  How many times have we all sinned, and after being forgiven, go back and sin again?  Honestly, if we were God, we’d throw up our hands and walk away.  But, thank God, we’re not God, and our God isn’t like that.  As often as we turn away and come back, he reaches out to us with the love of the father for his prodigal son.  Our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    When our need for a Savior was great, when ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world, when century upon century had passed since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood, after Abraham, Moses, David and Daniel had made God’s desire for reconciliation known, our Lord Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desired to consecrate the world by his most loving presence.  Being conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, he was born in Bethlehem of Judah and was made man.  As a man, he walked among the people of his time and lived as one of us, in all things but sin.  At the appointed hour, he took on our sins and was nailed to a cross.  He died to pay the price for all of us, in order to redeem us and bring us back to friendship with the Father.  Because of this, the power of death and sin to keep us from God has been canceled out, and we have the possibility of eternal life.  Our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    It’s no wonder the angels sang that night: they knew what the world had yet to behold.  They knew that God’s zeal had obliterated the chasm between the world and its Maker.  They knew that the sadness of death was coming to an end.  They knew that the power of sin had been smashed to bits.  They knew the light of God’s Radiant Dawn had burst forth upon the earth and Emmanuel, God-with-us, became incarnate in our midst.  They knew that in this moment, the sad melody of sin had given way to a chorus of God’s glory.  They knew that the dirge of death had dwindled to the peace that God pours forth on those whom he favors.

    That moment, all those years ago, changed everything.  Light shone in the darkness.  The glory of the Lord enveloped the earth.  Nothing would be the same.  The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do this!

  • The Baptism of Our Lord

    The Baptism of Our Lord

    Today’s readings

    Sadly, friends, today is the last day of the Christmas Season.  Now, the rest of society may have tossed out the Christmas trees over a week ago, and taken down the festive decorations, but not us.  What a wonderful gift we have as Catholics to celebrate the birth of our Lord for an extended period of time!  Last Sunday was the Epiphany of the Lord, a time to celebrate Christ our Light, 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 is the Epiphany we all think about, 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 last week, 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; this child truly was the Light of the world.  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.

    Obviously, Jesus did not need Saint John the Baptist’s baptism, because it was a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and Christ was, as we know, like us in all things but sin.  So he chose to be baptized so that he could identify himself with us sinners through baptism.  That being the case, 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 first reading from the prophet Isaiah that God sent his Word into the world to make things happen: “My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

    So today we need to reflect on the end, the goal of all that we have celebrated in these Christmas days.  What was God’s purpose in sending his Son to take on our frail flesh and live among us?  Well, we know the whole story, don’t we?  God sent his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into our world as a human being, born to a poor family as a tiny child.  He did that because he had created us good, and even though we acquired sinfulness through the great fall, and all along the way, our humanity was never so broken that it could not be redeemed.  He would not have us die in our sins, so he sent his Son to take flesh and lead us to heaven, our true home.  That’s a glorious grace, worth celebrating for many days, and that’s why our Christmas season extends beyond the point where the stores put out the Valentine’s day candy!

    Christ is baptized today so that our own baptism can be the source of eternal life for all of us.  His baptism sanctifies the waters of baptism forever, and to make the waters of baptism, with which we too were baptized, consecrated in holiness.  Then we who have been sanctified in baptism must now go out and do what Jesus himself did: doing good and healing the broken and all who are possessed by evil spirits.  It is easy to see how we can go about doing good.  There are literally thousands of opportunities to do that in our lives.  Every day there are opportunities 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 evil spirits might seem harder to do.  But there are lots of ways to cast out demons.  Teaching something, especially teaching the faith, 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.  Visiting the sick, or, in these COVID days, at least calling them or FaceTiming them, is a way to cast out the demons of illness.  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 in-spired – 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.

  • Friday after Epiphany

    Friday after Epiphany

    Today’s readings
    This was for the school children.

    How many of you have already taken down your Christmas decorations?  I think probably a lot of people have done that.  Probably if you go to some of the stores, you’ll see Valentine’s day decorations and candy for sale.  In our world, we always want to move on to the next thing right away.  

    But our Church is different.  In the Catholic Church, we celebrate things for a while, these big things like Christmas and Epiphany, and later on, Easter.  We celebrate a whole season of these important feasts, because, well, they’re important to us!  At Christmas time, we remember that God loved us so much that he sent his only Son to be born among us so that we could come to know that we are loved, and so that we can learn and follow the Way to heaven.  At Epiphany, the message of Christmas is continued and we celebrate that Christ is the Light of the World, that he came to shed the light of God’s love into every dark corner of our world and our lives.

    So that’s important Good News, and we want to celebrate it for a while.  That’s why our decorations are still up: we didn’t forget to take them down!  They’ll stay up and help us to celebrate until this coming Sunday, the official end of the Christmas season for us.  But today, we continue to celebrate the Epiphany, which was last Sunday.

    When we celebrate the Epiphany, we usually think about the visit of the Three Kings, which was our Gospel reading last Sunday.  And that’s a part of the Epiphany: it helped us to see that Jesus came to be the King of kings (that’s what the Gold was for), that he came to be our High Priest (that’s what the frankincense was for), and that he came to die for our sins (that’s what the myrrh was for – it was used to anoint the dead for burial).  But today we still celebrate the Epiphany, and we look in the readings for light, especially light that helps us to see Jesus and what he came to do for us.

    In our Gospel today, the light shows us that Jesus came to be a healer.  The leper says to him, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean!”  I think that was two things.  First, it was a prayer: the man desperately wanted to be healed of leprosy so that he could be an active member of the community again.  But it was also a kind of a profession of faith.  Here he is saying that he knows Jesus can do what he wishes to do: if Jesus wishes, he certainly has the power to heal him, to make him clean.  The man says what he believes, and Jesus responds to that belief. 

    When we believe, when we trust that God can do what he wants and needs to do in us, then that opens a little door in our hearts and in our lives.  Then Jesus can and will come in, because he wishes to make all of us clean.  We might not need to be healed of leprosy, but we all need to be healed of something.  We all certainly need to be healed of our sins, of the times we have ignored the light of Jesus’ presence among us.  

    So maybe in our prayers today, we can say to Jesus, just like the man with leprosy did: “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”  You can make me clean of my illnesses.  You can make me clean of my sins.  You can take away whatever stands in the way of being friends with you.  Lord, please do that.  Please make me clean.  And then, when we pray that, let’s listen for what Jesus says to us.  I just know he’s going to say the same thing he said to the man with leprosy: “I do will it.  Be made clean.”

    Come, Lord Jesus.  Fill us with your light.  Make us clean from the inside out.