THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

27 JANUARY 2019

          About 450 years before the birth of Christ, King Artaxerxes of Persia gave his Jewish cupbearer, Nehemiah, permission to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.  This permission to return from fifty years of Exile brought joy to his people.  But, that joy was short lived when those who had chosen to return finally completed their journey.  They found their beloved city in complete ruins.  If any structures remained, squatters had moved in.  So Nehemiah directs the priest Ezra to gather the people.  With nothing else to give them hope, Ezra reads the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) to the people to inform them that God loves them.  The people had lost this most basic element of their identity.  God had chosen them to be his people, a reality most of them had forgotten.  That is why Ezra’s reading from God’s Word brought so much joy.  Knowing their identity and God’s presence in their difficult task, they celebrate with a festive meal and realize that rejoicing in the Lord must be their strength.

            Over four centuries later, Jesus returns to his hometown, goes to the synagogue, and reads from the Prophet Isaiah.  Unlike the people of Nehemiah’s time, the people of Nazareth are very familiar with this passage and had heard it often with hope for the future.  Just as Ezra and his scribes had helped their people to understand the words of the Torah, Jesus explains the passage by announcing: “today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  He identifies himself as the one sent to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

            Saint Luke addresses his Gospel to Theophilus, a Greek word meaning one loved by God. In other words, he is addressing his Gospel to each of us, because we are loved by God.  Saint Luke stresses the working of the Holy Spirit in the person of Jesus Christ.  It was through the Holy Spirit that the eternal Word was made flesh in the womb of the Virgin.  The Holy Spirit had driven Jesus into the desert for forty days to realize his vocation.  It was the Holy Spirit who appeared as a dove when Jesus emerged from his baptism in the Jordan River.  Now, it is the Holy Spirit who leads Jesus to his hometown to make this remarkable announcement.

            In writing to the Church in Corinth, Saint Paul reminds us of what it means to be loved by God.  When we passed through the waters of Baptism, we were incorporated into his Body.  That is our identity.  The mission of Jesus Christ can be continued in our midst today when we take our identity in Christ seriously.  As members of Christ’s body, each of us has been given different gifts.  Jesus is challenging us to put those gifts at the service of the Church and to trust that the Holy Spirit will give us the courage to use those gifts to make his presence in our world a more visible reality.  We hear him speak to us every Sunday, and he feeds us with the finest banquet – his real presence in the Eucharist. 

            Like Ezra and the scribes who helped their people understand the importance of God’s Word, we are also given tools to better understand our roles today.  That is why we are encouraging everyone to read the book Why I Am Catholic and you should be too.  That is why we encourage everyone to make a retreat.  The women are participating in their retreat this weekend.  There are still openings for the men’s retreat next weekend.  An important part of the Strategic Five Year Plan will involve new ways to grow in our faith.  The Word of God is addressed to us now, and the Holy Spirit will continue to guide us as explore what it means for us to be chosen through Baptism to be people loved by God and called to rejoice that God is the source of our joy and hope.  No matter what difficulties we may be experiencing in our lives or in our Church, the Lord is present and gives us hope and direction.

THE BAPTISM OF THE LORD

13 JANUARY 2019

          Saint Luke gives no details of the actual baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.  However, it is clear that the Word made flesh, whose birth we have been celebrating during this Christmas Season, had been immersed in the same muddy and sinful waters as the rest of us.  After emerging from the waters, Saint Luke tells us that Jesus is engaged in prayer.  As he is praying, the Holy Spirit descends upon him in bodily form like a dove.  This is the same Spirit that hovered over the watery chaos of the world at the beginning of creation.  This is the same Holy Spirit who caused the conception of Jesus in his mother’s womb. 

            Then Jesus then hears a voice from heaven declaring, “You are my beloved Son; with whom I am well pleased.”  As the only begotten Son of God, Jesus will exercise his ministry through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus will reveal his true nature by teaching, healing, and working miracles.  Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus will give himself as the good shepherd of Isaiah’s prophecy and become the Lamb of God sacrificed for our salvation.  After his saving death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven, this same Holy Spirit will come upon the Apostles at Pentecost and form the infant Church.

            It is most fitting that we end the Christmas Season by celebrating the Baptism of the Lord.  This feast reminds us of the critical importance of our Baptism.  When we were baptized, we were grafted onto Jesus Christ.  In fact, some people refer to Baptism as being “christened.”  That is what happens to us.  Our identity is intimately tied with that of Jesus Christ.  We become God’s beloved sons and daughters.  When infants emerge from the waters of Baptism, they are anointed with Chrism, the sacred oil that emphasizes their identity with Christ.  Eventually, the baptized are confirmed with Chrism, sealed with the Holy Spirit to live our baptismal promises to point toward Christ, dwelling in our midst, as John the Baptist had done.

            As God’s beloved sons and daughters, we depend on the Holy Spirit to guide us in living as people truly grafted (or immersed, to use a water imagery) onto Jesus Christ.  That is why our Baptismal Font can accommodate the baptism by immersion of both adults and infants (not a hot tub!).  In writing to Titus, Saint Paul quotes a confession of faith used at a baptismal liturgy.  He reminds Titus that being grafted onto Jesus Christ is a pure and simple grace.  Titus does not earn that gift.  He does not deserve that gift.  But once grafted onto Christ, Titus works with the power of the Holy Spirit to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in an age that of lawlessness.

            The same is true for us.  We became God’s beloved sons and daughters at when we were baptized.  But that was only the beginning.  The rest of the Sacraments flow from Baptism.  We are sealed by the Holy Spirit at Confirmation to empower us to live as Christ.  We are fed by the Eucharist to nourish us for our mission.  When we break our connection with Christ or damage it through sin, the Sacrament of Reconciliation reconnects us with Christ.  When we experience sickness, the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick heals us.  Those of you who are married receive strength to live your commitment, as do we who live the Sacrament of Holy Orders.

            During this Christmas Season, we have been reminded that Jesus took on human flesh and dwells in our midst as God’s beloved Son.  Today’s feast sends us out as God’s beloved sons and daughters to recognize the Lord’s real presence in the Sacramental life of the Church.  In recognizing that real presence, we can more readily cooperate with the Holy Spirit in making that presence more evident in a world filled with lawlessness and darkness. 

THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD

6 JANUARY 2019

          We know very little about the mysterious Magi who appear in the Gospel of Saint Matthew.  We conjecture that they are the kings mentioned in Psalm 72 (our Responsorial Psalm today) who have traveled from Persia (modern day Iran).   We presume that they are astrologers, interested in studying the heavenly bodies.  We count them as three individuals, because they bring three gifts to the newborn King.  Over the centuries, artists have been intrigued by their story and portrayed it in plays, poems, songs, and religious images.

            What we do know about them is that they are not members of God’s Chosen People.  The Jews would regard them as unclean pagans.  They are spiritual seekers who have seen news of a remarkable birth in the natural signs of the stars.  They have traveled far to reach Jerusalem, where they presume that proper king would be born.  They seek advice from the present king, Herod, who consults the chief priests and scribes.  The religious leaders cite Micah's prophesy pointing to Bethlehem.  With this revealed quote from Scripture, they complete the final seven miles to Bethlehem, where they find the child.  Their gifts express the truth about this child:  gold signifying that he is a king; frankincense identifying him as God; and myrrh pointing to his role as a suffering servant who will die for the sake of all.  Changed by this encounter, they return home by a different route, knowing that God had been seeking them all along.

            Like the Magi, there are many spiritual seekers today.  Some of them are probably members of our families.  They tend to be sincere young people who see themselves as spiritual but not religious.  They are seeking to find God through many different means – through communing with nature, studying world religions, pursuing philosophy, or by relying on their own instincts.  We are gathered for Mass today, because we know the importance of being religious.  We know what the Magi discovered.  Despite their efforts to seek God, it was God who was seeking them all along.  Saint Matthew understood this point in writing his Gospel and emphasizes God’s universal call to respond to the Good News of the Gospel.

            At this time in our parish, we are finishing the work of our five year plan, which many of you have helped through responding to our parish survey.  We hope that the plan will give practical guidance to improve our work to help people see the value of being religious.  When spiritual seekers come to us, we must avoid the insecurity of Herod, who was threatened by someone he perceived as a rival.  We cannot dismiss them like the priests and scribes, who were so smug that they did not follow through with their own advice in studying Scripture. 

            The prophet Isaiah wrote to people living in darkness.  They had just returned from fifty years of exile, and they were living in the poverty stricken ruins of Jerusalem.  Isaiah challenges them to look beyond the darkness to recognize the glory of the Lord shining through them.  We must do the same.  We too dwell in darkness:  the darkness of a world broken by war, hatred, and racism; in a nation torn apart and by angry partisan divisions; and in a Church plunged into darkness by the revelations of failures by priests who violated the trust of those entrusted to their care and by bishops who did not address the issue.  Isaiah insisted that his people trust in God’s promise, even when the results of that promise were not visible.  This Feast is called Epiphany, because that word literally means “to manifest”.  God kept his promise by manifesting himself in the birth of a child in the manger.  Our task is to help those who are seeking God to understand that God has been seeking them all along.  We hope that they can see the value of being religious.  Enlightened by the Word of God and fed by the Eucharist, all of us can complete the final few miles of the journey to encounter the Lord dwelling in our midst.