Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Christmas

  • The Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God

    The Blessed Virgin 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, an ideal for which we disciples must strive to follow.  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 fought over whether a human woman could ever be the mother of God.  How would 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. So, because we clearly know that Mary was his mother, we say that Mary is the Mother of God.  And so, 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 God; 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 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.  She is the Mother of God, and our mother, and we cannot sing our Christmas carols without singing her praises too.  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.

  • Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas (St. Thomas Becket)

    Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas (St. Thomas Becket)

    Today’s readings | St. Thomas Becket

    The birth of Christ in our world ought to mean something to us: the birth of Christ ought to mean a change in our attitudes and our behaviors and even in the course of our lives.

    Today is a commemoration of St. Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury who ultimately lost his life to the man who gave him that prestigious post. When King Henry began to usurp Church rights, Thomas Becket found himself in a bind. Would he be beholden to the king, or would he protect the Church on behalf of the King of Kings? While it was a struggle for Thomas, he ultimately knew that the he must take a stand, no matter what the cost.

    In today’s first reading, St. John makes the point very clear. We cannot say we love God and yet defy his commandments. And we certainly cannot love God who is love itself, while at the same time refusing to love our brothers and sisters. Being Christian looks like something, and the world looks at us to see what it is. If the birth of Christ means something to us, we have to share that meaning with the world by loving, no matter what the cost.

    Perhaps the one who knew this best was Mary herself. Simeon the prophet knew that he had seen the promise when he looked at the child Jesus. Then he clearly told his mother that this Savior would cost her some happiness in life. Because Jesus would be a contradictory sign in the world, her heart would be pierced with sorrow. But all of this was to make manifest God’s glory.

    The birth of Christ in our world and into our lives this Christmas ought to mean something to us. A watching world should be able to look at us and see Christ. May this Christmas find us changing our hearts and minds so that we can be that Christ for all the world to see, no matter what the cost.

  • The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

    The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph

    Today’s readings

    I always feel like it’s appropriate that we celebrate the Holy Family today, just a few days after Christmas. This feast helps to underscore that Jesus came to live among us in a very ordinary way: by taking flesh and becoming one of us, even to being part of a family. As we praise the Holy Family today – and we certainly should – I’m aware that some families who are here today may have just managed to get here on time, or a little after. Maybe there was the constant argument with the kids about why they have to go to church. It might have been hard to turn off the television or tear someone away from the latest toy they just got for Christmas. And so, as we hustle in here to church and sit down, maybe the holiness of the family is the furthest thing from our minds.

    So maybe it’s hard to relate to the Holy Family. Maybe you’re thinking, “How do I get one of those?” There are all sorts of families out there: families broken by divorce or separation, families marked by emotional or physical abuse, families fractured by living a great distance apart, families grieving the loss of loved ones or agonizing over the illness of one of the members, families of great means and those touched by poverty, homelessness and hunger, families torn by family secrets, grudges and age-old hurts. Some are trying to form a family: they want to have children, but have been unable. There are healthy families and hurting families, and every one of them is graced by good and touched by some kind of sadness at some point in their history.

    Even the Holy Family, whose feast we celebrate today, was marked with challenges. An unexpected – and almost inexplicable – pregnancy marked the days before the couple was officially wed; news of the child’s birth touched chords of jealousy and hatred in the hearts of the nation’s leaders and caused the young family to have to flee for their lives and safety. Even this Holy Family was saddened, in some ways, by an extremely rocky beginning.

    The institution of the family is an extremely precarious thing. We know this. God knows this. Yet it was into this flawed but holy structure that the God of all the earth chose to come into our world. Taking our flesh and joining a human family, Christ came to be Emmanuel, God with us, and to sanctify the whole world by his most merciful coming.

    St. Paul exhorts us all to be marked by holiness, part of the family of God. We do this, he tells us, by showing one another “heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, if one has a grievance against another; as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.” Living in a family, living the Christian life, requires sacrifice. Some days we don’t feel very compassionate, but we are still called to be that way. We might not feel like showing someone kindness, or patience, or being humble. But that’s what disciples do. But the real sticking point is that whole forgiveness thing. Because all of us are going to fail in compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience at one time or another. So just as the Lord has forgiven us, so many times and of so many things, so must we forgive one another. We live our whole lives trying to figure out how to do this.

    The Holy Family is the model for us in all of this. Because I think what we’re supposed to be seeing in the Holy Family today is not some kind of idyllic perfection. Certainly they attained more perfection than any of us could ever possibly hope for in this life, but that’s not what we’re supposed to be focusing on. What I think is worth focusing on is that, even though they knew there would be hard times ahead for them, they faithfully lived their lives through it all. They continued to be a family, Jesus continued to grow and become strong in his human nature, and to be filled with wisdom and the favor of God. And that, for us, is something worth striving for. Being perfect might seem unattainable, but being faithful is in our grasp and faithfulness leads us to holiness.

    For Jesus, Mary and Joseph, their faithfulness helped them to absorb the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy and the dangers of oppression from the government, and still shed light on the whole world. For us, faithfulness can help us to get through whatever rough spots life may have in store for us and not break apart.

    I am aware, however, that as I speak about faithfulness, that it all can still seem insurmountable. 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 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 I think we can rely on the intercession of the Holy Family when we attempt to do this.

    Holiness will make demands of us. It did for Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Simeon and Anna were quite clear that sorrow lay in store for them. But they continued to live their lives, aided by the Spirit of God, and they all grew strong in wisdom and grace. Those same blessings are intended for us also, all of us who do our best to live according to the Spirit in our own human families.

  • Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist

    Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist

    Today’s readings

    “He saw and believed.” The “other” disciple, often called the “beloved” disciple or the disciple “whom Jesus loved,” is Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist, the one we celebrate today. Saint John had a very special relationship with Christ. He wasn’t as zealous and boisterous as Peter could be, but he had a faith as strong as Peter’s in his own way. His was a faith that observed and processed and believed. His was a faith that grew quietly, as he made connections between what Jesus prophesied and what came to pass. It’s no wonder that when he stood at the tomb, “he saw and believed.”

    In Saint John’s writings, the theme of love is almost overwhelming. We hear that in today’s first reading, from his first letter. That love is bound up in the whole theme of fleshly existence. John proclaims that because God loved the world so much, he could not bear to be apart from us or aloof from our nature. Instead, he took on our fleshly existence, this body that can so often fail us, can so often turn to sin and degradation, can so often lead us in the wrong direction. Taking on that flawed human flesh, he redeemed it for glory. Through the Incarnation, God proclaims once and for all that we have been created good, that we have been created in love, and that nothing can ever stand in the way of the love God has for us.

    Saint John’s preaching of love and the goodness of our created bodies is a preaching that has a very special place in the celebration of Christmas. It was because of that love that God had for us, a love that encompasses our bodies and our souls, that he came to live among us and take flesh in our world. His most merciful coming was completely part of his loving plan for our salvation. That’s the message Saint John brings us on his feast day today, and throughout this celebration of Christmas.

  • The Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ: Mass During the Day

    The Solemnity of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ: Mass During the Day

    Today’s readings

    There’s a great commercial out that has three senior ladies talking. One of them, the hostess, has taped all kinds of photographs to her living room wall and says that it’s a really quick way to share these memories with her friends. Just like her car insurance; it only took 15 minutes to get a quote. One of her friends said she was able to do that in half the time, so the hostess says, “I unfriend you.” Her former friend says, “That’s not how this works; that’s not how any of this works!”

    I thought of that commercial because I think that, often, many people don’t get how God works. They either think that he’s a capricious policeman who’s always looking for some kind of way to catch them in a trivial sin so that he can send them to the place downstairs, or they think he’s a friend who overlooks all their faults and doesn’t mind if they never give him a second thought. Both positions are not how God works!

    And if you asked a lot of people why Christmas is so important, if they have any religious answer at all, they might tell you that probably God finally found the right answer after so many years of failure. That all along, from the time of Adam and Eve, people had been doing whatever they wanted, and so God was at his wit’s end and finally just sent his only begotten Son down here to straighten things out. But that’s not how God works!

    The truth is, as we see in today’s Gospel, that God had always intended to save the world by sending his own Son who was with him in the beginning. The Word – God’s Son – was with him in the beginning and everything that has ever been made has been made through him. Not only that, but in the fullness of time, the Word became flesh, and made his dwelling among us. The Greek here says literally that he “pitched his tent” among us. That was the plan – from the beginning – for God’s own Son to become flesh so that we could become like God. It’s a marvelous exchange!

    And when he became flesh, he lived as one of the people in that time. He walked among them and had all the same concerns they did. He was like us in all things but sin. When the appointed hour came, he took on our sins and was crucified for our salvation. He died like we do, but so that sin and death would no longer be able to hold us bound to the earth, he rose from the dead and attained eternal life. Now we can do that, too, one day, if we believe in God’s Word and live the way he taught us.

    Jesus became one of us, pitching his tent among us, so that he could gather us all up and bring us back to heaven with him, to the kingdom of God for which we were created, in the beginning. That was always the plan. But sin and death keeping us from friendship with God is obliterated by the saving act of Jesus. Sin and death no longer have the final word, because that’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works!

  • The Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Mass During the Night

    The Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Mass During the Night

    Today’s readings

    It’s all about the zeal of the LORD of Hosts! 

    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 because God is who he is, because he is Goodness in all its perfection, because he is Love beyond all telling, because he is Truth in its purest form, because he is Beauty beyond anything we’ve ever seen, because he is our God, he cannot not care about us. He cannot not want us to come to salvation. And so he pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal. 

    He created us in love, and even though he doesn’t need us, he still loves us, and can’t do anything but that. Throughout time, 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. 

    We gather this night not to wish each other happy holidays or season’s greetings, but instead to revel in the zeal that our God has for our souls. We who are so much less than him, and so unworthy of his love, nonetheless have his love and are intimately known to him, better than we even know ourselves. In God’s zeal for us, he reaches out to us when we fall, walks with us when we suffer, and brings us back to him when we wander away. There is nowhere we can go, no place we can run, no depth to which we can fall, that is beyond the reach of God’s zealous love for us. And that’s why this night, when we celebrate the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, is such an amazing and holy night for us. If not for this night, the night of our salvation on Easter would never come to pass. This night we celebrate not just the birth of a baby, but the birth of God’s intimate presence in the world from the moment of his birth until time is no more. 

    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 new the light of God’s Radiant Dawn had burst forth upon the earth. 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. Nothing would be the same. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will do this!

  • The Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Vigil – Childrens Mass

    The Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Vigil – Childrens Mass

    In a town called Nazareth in Galilee, a long time ago, Mary lived with her parents, Joachim and Ann. Mary was only a young girl, maybe 14 years old. She came from a quiet little area of the world, and just looking at them, you’d have to say nothing about her family was very special. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, because that was when people got married in those days, but she wasn’t married yet.

    She was busy doing her chores one day, when she was surprised by the appearance of an angel named Gabriel. As you can imagine, the appearing of an angel can be a little frightening, but Gabriel reassured her and told her that the Lord was with her. He told her not to be afraid, because God wanted her to be the mother of his Son Jesus. Jesus would become great and would rule over the kingdom of Israel forever. Mary was confused how she could have a baby, because she was not married, but the angel reassured her that all things are possible with God. She was amazed, but she had faith, and said to the angel, “Let it happen as you have said.”

    Mary sang a hymn proclaiming how great God was, and went in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was also going to have a baby, even though she was very old. When she got there, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt for joy, and Elizabeth said, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” Mary helped Elizabeth for three months and returned home.

    Mary was engaged to a man named Joseph, and when he heard that Mary was pregnant, he was upset. He was going to break off the engagement, but he heard from the angel too. He came to be with her and took her into the city of David for the census, so that they could be counted. On the way, Mary gave birth to her baby, and had Jesus in a manger where the animals stayed. Many people came to visit Mary and Joseph and Jesus, and gave the baby gifts and said wonderful things about him, things Mary would never forget. She kept all of this very close to her in her heart.

    Mary and Joseph raised Jesus and watched him become a strong, healthy, and smart young man. One time, when the family went to Jerusalem for a visit to the holy temple, Mary and Joseph lost track of Jesus. They were on the way home when they discovered Jesus wasn’t with them or any of their friends or family. Returning to Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple, talking about their faith, with all of the rabbis and teachers. He was only twelve years old!

    Eventually Joseph died, and Mary stayed near Jesus. She watched him start his ministry, the whole reason God had sent him to earth in the first place. He called his disciples and taught all the people. He cured the sick and fed many hungry people. He worked many miracles and always talked about how good God was, and how much God loved people, and how they should all turn back to God and turn away from the bad things they had been doing. Mary watched as he did all these wonderful things, and she saw how faithful he was to God’s work.

    But Mary also began to see that Jesus wasn’t making everybody happy. She saw that when he cured people on the Sabbath day, the day of rest, the leaders of the temple became angry. She saw that when Jesus told them to take care of the poor and the hungry and the homeless instead of worrying about what day it was, the religious leaders wanted to kill him. Mary watched as eventually they did take hold of Jesus, carried him off for a trial before Pilate the governor, and nailed him to the cross.

    At the foot of the cross, Mary stood sorrowful, knowing what a wonderful gift she and the whole world had been given in Jesus. But Jesus took care of Mary even then, and entrusted her to the care of his friend John. After Jesus died on the cross, Mary along with some of the other women in the group were the first ones to see that Jesus rose from the dead! Mary stayed with the other disciples and prayed with them that the whole world would come to know the message of Jesus. Her sorrow turned to joy as she watched the community grow and live the things Jesus had taught them.

    Those disciples were the ones who passed the faith on to us. Because of the courage of the disciples and especially of Mary, we today can believe in Jesus and receive the gift of everlasting life from him. Because of the faith of Mary, we can live forever with God and never have to be afraid of death or be mastered by sin. All of this happened because Mary said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.”

    It is good for us to hear Mary’s story, because she lived her life following Jesus. We’re supposed to do that too. Mary got to see Jesus face-to-face, even hold him in her arms. We might not be able to do that, but Jesus is close to all of us as long as we let him in. Just like they made a place for Jesus to be born in a manger, we need to make a manger for Jesus in our own hearts so that he can be born in us and always be with us.

    It’s very important that we all hear that just as God sent an angel to Mary, he sends angels to us all the time. Those angels tell us, too, that we should not be afraid because God loves us and cares for us and wants to do great things with us, just like he did with Mary. All he needs for us to do is to say, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.”

  • The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

    The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    I think we have to be a little bit careful about how we read and hear today’s readings.  We’re still in the Christmas season – at the end of it, actually – and, more precisely, we’re at the octave day of the Epiphany of the Lord, which we celebrated last week, in which we started to see Jesus revealing himself, manifesting himself, to the world.  Today’s readings are Epiphany readings, too, because they show us even more about who Jesus is and why he came.

    But I say that we have to be careful about how we hear these readings because I think they can lead us to define Jesus by what he does.  And that’s a start, but it’s just inadequate.  Let’s see if we can recognize this a bit more clearly.  In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah tells us about the Suffering Servant, and he says that that suffering servant is one who would “open the eyes of the blind … bring out prisoners from confinement …. and from the dungeon, those who live in darkness.”  So it’s easy to see Jesus as the suffering servant who would bring about justice.  This in itself is pretty huge, but again, if we define Jesus as a justice-bringer, then he’s just a glorified judge or legislator.  But Jesus is the true Suffering Servant: the one who would come and serve the people while himself suffering the effects of the peoples’ sins.  Jesus did in fact came to suffer and die for us, to pay the price for our many sins.  So far from being a judge or legislator, he also stands in place of the condemned – that would be us – and pays the price we deserve for our own lack of justice.

    In our second reading from the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Luke tells us that Jesus “… went about doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”  Going about doing good and healing those who are suffering is a great thing.  But if we see Jesus merely in this way, then he’s just a glorified social worker or physician – there’s nothing special about that.  But during this year of grace, we will see Jesus as the divine physician who heals us from the inside out and makes us fit for heaven.  He won’t be just a food service worker, but instead the one who spreads the lavish feast that becomes food for the journey to heaven, where we are called to the heavenly banquet.

    And we know this is hard because we get confused about our own identities all the time.  We can easily define ourselves or especially others by what we or they do.  “He’s a computer programmer … she’s an attorney … he’s a retail worker.”  Or we may even go so far as to define ourselves or others by superficial factors like nationality or sexual identity.  None of this is adequate; it all falls short of saying who we really are.

    So we’re in a quandary.  If we don’t know who we are, it will be pretty hard for us to see who Jesus is.  If we define ourselves by what we do, then we’re definitely going to look to Jesus to fill a role for us, perhaps a different role depending on where life has us at the moment.  But it’s all inadequate, and we go through life confused.

    Until we hear the words of God the Father in today’s Gospel.  With Jesus coming up out of the river Jordan, the Father boldly proclaims: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”  So Jesus isn’t what he does: he is what he was begotten: the Son of God, who is in relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit from before time began and until eternity.  Because of this, his interaction with us is life-changing.  Maybe he will heal us of this or that current ailment, but whether he does or whether he doesn’t, he will surely heal us from the inside out, and if we let him, he will lead us to heaven.  Maybe he will help us with a family issue that has us up half the night every day, but whether he does or whether he doesn’t, he will surely give us a strength we never expected that will help us through it.  All we have to do is stop seeing Jesus for what he does, stop expecting him to fill a role, and instead enter into relationship with him as the Son of God who does nothing but please his heavenly Father.

    When we do that – when we enter into relationship with Christ – he will give us identity too.  And not just the paltry identity of what we do or our nationality or whatever, but the real identity that God created us with – our identity as sons and daughters of God.  It is our task to live that identity with authenticity.  And all of this is hard to do.  But thank God he gives us himself and gives us the Church to help us on the way to him.  We sons and daughters of God live for that day when he tells us that with us, too, he is well-pleased.

  • 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 witness in such a way that all will recognize in us the presence of Christ.

    This is urgent because we know that 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.

  • Monday after Epiphany

    Monday after Epiphany

    Today’s readings

    Perhaps our devotion for this Epiphany week should be to pray the Mysteries of Light on the Rosary.  Epiphany is a time of manifestation, of light coming into the dark place that our world can be at times.  We long to see, and more than that we long to see Christ, the one who comes with peace and justice to make all things right.

    Today’s mystery, then would be “Jesus proclaims the kingdom of God with its call to repentance,” the third Mystery of Light.  This preaching is accompanied by the great and mighty acts of healing, which have the crowds flocking to him in droves.  They definitely see in Jesus a light that shines into the darkness of their lives, marked as they are by illness both physical and mental, but also perhaps overwhelmingly spiritual.

    Saint John speaks to us today in the first reading about the discernment of spirits, which is a very important spiritual practice, a skill we all need to develop.  How do we know what is of the spirit of God and what is of a spirit of deception?  Saint John tells us that the decisive test is whether or not that spirit acknowledges that Jesus is incarnate in the world, that he has come to live among us and continues to shed light on the darkness of our world and of our lives.  Anything that prefers the darkness, then, is of a spirit of deception.

    And we know very well that there were all sorts of people who didn’t flock to Jesus.  Many saw him as a charlatan and thought his healings were smoke and mirrors.  They preferred the darkness.  The same is certainly true today.  Many hear the word and turn away from it.  Many hear of the kingdom with its call to repentance and would rather live as they want to live.  But we cannot be that way.  We have the Light, and we are called to live in the Light.  Living in that Light, as the Psalmist tells us, gives us the nations for our inheritance.