Thursday of the First Week in Ordinary Time [II]
I Samuel 4:1-11  +  Mark 1:40-45
January 11, 2018

[Jesus] remained outside in deserted places….

In today’s Gospel passage, we hear that Jesus “remained outside in deserted places, and people kept coming to him from everywhere.”  Jesus’ “retreat” is not that of a hermit.  Jesus’ frequent journeys to deserted places was a prudential distancing himself from those He came into this world to serve.  Jesus wanted at times simply to be in prayerful communion with His Father.

At the same time, perhaps Jesus knew that the people He was sent to serve needed a “breather”.  It’s hard for us to imagine what it was like to hear the Word of God preach the Good News, or work stupendous miracles.  We may imagine that because we’ve seen movies portraying such events, that we have an idea what it was like for those first-century folk.  If so, we underestimate the power of the Word of God made Flesh, and overestimate the power of cinema.

Often implicitly, and sometimes directly, Jesus says that the crowds are misunderstanding Him, even praising Him for the wrong reasons.  Some distance between Him and them, then, was prudent so that the crowds might reflect in their minds and hearts on the mysteries of Christ.  Of course, in the end, the crowds called for His death:  “Crucify him!  crucify him!”  So also have we ourselves cried by our sins.  But within the desert of Calvary Christ offered His life, so that throughout all ages to come, people might keep coming to Him from everywhere.

Wednesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time [II]
I Samuel 3:1-10,19-20  +  Mark 1:29-39
January 10, 2018

Rising very early before dawn, He left and went off to a deserted place, where He prayed.

In the light of Simon’s pursuit of Jesus and his informing Jesus that “everyone” is looking for Him, two actions of Jesus stand out.  Both actions show the falsity of Simon’s claim.

The fact that this passage begins with the cure of Simon’s mother-in-law gives us a glimpse into his way of thinking.  As more persons are cured, and as word spreads, Simon is convinced that “everyone” is looking for Jesus.

But “rising very early before dawn,” Jesus prayed in a deserted place.  In that “desert” He entered into communion with His Father.  His Father is primary to Jesus in an ultimate manner.  His Father is also primary to the crowds that Simon calls “everyone”.

When Simon makes his claim to Jesus, He responds by explaining the need to “go on to the nearby villages”.  Simon is parochial in his thinking, while Jesus wants no one excluded.  At this point in His public ministry, Jesus is preaching and healing “throughout the whole of Galilee.”  As those three years continue, the effects of His ministry spread out in waves.  Ultimately, His ministry culminates in His self-sacrifice on Calvary, which He makes for all mankind throughout all of human history.  This is the “everyone” whom Jesus was sent by His Father to serve.

Tuesday of the First Week in Ordinary Time [II]
I Samuel 1:9-20  +  Mark 1:21-28
January 9, 2018

“What is this?  A new teaching with authority.”

Twice in today’s Gospel passage we hear the word “authority”, both times applied to Jesus.  In both cases, astonishment or surprise is evoked by the fact that Jesus teaches with authority.  Why is there this astonishment, and what does it mean for Jesus to teach with authority?

In the culture that surrounds us, every person believes himself to be his own authority.  In effect, this wide-spread belief means that no real authority exists.  In our society there is a great need for clarity about the meaning and purpose of authority.

At its most literal level, the word “authority” comes from the word “author”.  The author of a novel can create worlds of his own design from his imagination.  Laws of physics need not apply.  Strange creatures can exist, and fantastic events are commonplace.  Tolkien, Baum and Rodenberry are all authors in this sense.  They have the authority to create worlds and races of creatures, and to confer life upon individuals and to take it from them.  However, this is merely a fictional form of authority.  In reality, there is only one Author of creation.

Jesus, as God from God and Light from Light, is this divine Author.  Through His divinity He has authority.  He exercises this authority throughout the three years of His public ministry for various persons, and for all mankind on Calvary.  However, in the face of His exercise of divine authority, astonishment arises for varied reasons.

Most cannot believe that a mere man could exercise divine authority.  Jesus, of course, was not merely a man, even though He was fully so.  In our own lives, we should not be astonished by the authority of Jesus.  We should root our daily lives in His desire to grant us His grace.

The Baptism of the Lord [B]
Isaiah 42:1-4,6-7  +  Mark 1:7-11
January 8, 2018

“You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

The great British layman G. K. Chesterton once wrote a poem of only 28 words on the topic of gratitude for the gift of life.  It’s titled simply “Evening”, and runs like this:  “Here dies another day / During which I have had eyes, ears, hands / And the great world round me; / And with tomorrow begins another. / Why am I allowed two?”

At the heart of this poem is the virtue of gratitude.  We need to cultivate this virtue in our lives, both on the natural and supernatural levels.  The feast of the Baptism of the Lord is a good day for cultivating gratitude for the graces that flow from the One who descended into the waters of the Jordan so that our sins might be washed away.

In fact, there are four gifts that were given, or four changes that happened to you at the moment that you were baptized.  For each of these, each Christian needs to express gratitude to God.  The first change was a washing away of something negative:  all of your sins, both Original Sin and any personal sins.  But this cleansing was simply preparatory for the other three changes:  that is, the gifts that positively strengthened you.  These three are inter-twined.

At the moment of your baptism, God made you His own child by infusing you with the divine virtues of faith, hope, and love.  At the same time, you were incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ, which is the Church.  Any time that a person becomes God’s child, it’s as one member of the Body of Christ.  So in this sense, Baptism united you not only to God, but also to all the other members of the Church.  This new life of Baptism is about gaining not just a spiritual Father, but an entire spiritual family!

Yet at the same time that God made you His child, and also a brother or sister to all His children, God marked your soul with an indelible seal.  This seal makes clear to us that God’s choice is irrevocable.  He will never divorce us, so to speak.  Any of us can choose to wander as far away from God as we wish, but God—like the father of the Prodigal Son—never ceases to wait patiently and lovingly.  The seal of Baptism reminds you that you are just as much God’s child after you sin as you were at the moment of your baptism.  Whenever we go to Confession, then, we need to express to God our gratitude for Him being willing to welcome us with open arms, like our Savior on the Cross.

The Epiphany of the Lord
Isa 60:1-6  +  Eph 3:2-3,5-6  +  Mt 2:1-12
January 7, 2018

Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.

When you were little, maybe you had an Aunt Wilhemina.  That may not have been her name:  she may have been Aunt Josephine, or Aunt Gertrude or Aunt Mary Catherine.  If her name was different, her Christmas gifts to you were very much the same each year.  Out of sincere love, Aunt Wilhemina offers to every niece and nephew a Christmas present of green and purple crocheted mittens.  Upon opening this present, the average youngster doesn’t find the words “thank you” coming immediately to mind.  But hopefully in addition to a loving aunt, the child also has parents who instill in her or him the need to say “thank you.”

There’s hardly a better way to spend the days of Christmas than to offer thank you’s.  Of course, when we as Christians speak about the “days of Christmas”, we’re not talking about the days that stretch between Thanksgiving and December 25th.  The days of Christmas only begin on December 25, and continue through the celebration of five mysteries of our Catholic Faith.  All five mysteries help us to offer thank you’s more readily and sacrificially, truly from the heart.  We offer up thank you’s not just for gifts in boxes and bows, but more importantly, for the gifts of human life and the opportunity to share in divine life.

As we celebrate the Epiphany, we see three wise men arriving at the manger scene.  They were men willing to sacrifice of themselves in order to find a newborn King.  This is a sign of their wisdom:  their willingness to sacrifice.

Their sacrifices reflect not only their own wisdom.  Their sacrifices also reflect the wisdom of the One they were seeking.  In other words, they were willing to sacrifice so greatly because they believed in the greatness of the One they were seeking.

Each of the wise men was willing to leave the realm where he was king—where everyone bowed down before him—in order to find the King of Kings before whom he could kneel in homage.  Each of the wise men was willing to give up his riches in order to find an even greater treasure.

There are many people who believe they’re rich, but who actually have become satisfied with riches that—in the end—are not going to do them any real good.  This usually happens because people don’t recognize that inside the human soul, the desire for sacrifice is greater than the desire for the riches of the world.

Look at these three wise kings.  Look at their sacrifices.  There are at least two sacrifices that each king makes.

The first sacrifice is the journey that each makes.  He leaves behind the land where he rules and where he is in control, in order to bow down before the Ruler of Heaven and Earth.

The second sacrifice is what each sacrifices from his treasury, to place before the new-born King.  But these gifts are given as a response to a greater Gift.

Jesus is the greater Gift.  The wise man knows that the whole world, and every land, and every person in every land, will receive from Jesus an infinite blessing, if accepted.  The gifts of the wise men are only responses to God’s goodness.  God’s goodness—that is, His love—is primary.  Always.  Our response is only and always secondary, both in sequence and in the measure of its goodness.

In God the Father giving us the Gift of His Son, the Father calls us to give a gift in response.  But we might understandably worry, asking, “What can measure up to God’s gift?  God’s gift is infinite.  I cannot give an infinite gift.”

This is true.  We can only give our “all” to God.  In this way, at least, we can give as God gives:  as the old saying goes, not equal gifts, but equal sacrifice.  If we give as God gives—by giving Him our “all”—we tap into what is best in us:  the desire to give, not to get; to take joy in showering others with good things, not to accumulate them for oneself; to take interest in the growth of one’s soul, not to watch the growth of one’s accounts with interest; to sacrifice our time and pride by saying “thank you” rather than looking for the applause of the world.

Christmas Weekday
1 John 5:5-13  +  Mark 1:7-11
January 6, 2018

So there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the Blood, and the three are of one accord.

In today’s First Reading, St. John speaks of “testimony” that is given to the divine Person of Jesus.  He says that “there are three who testify, the Spirit, the water, and the Blood.”  The odd thing about this statement is the Beloved Disciple’s use of the word “who”:  he states that there are “three who testify”.  This is understandable in regard to “the Spirit”, who is the Third Person of the Trinity.  But why does St. John use the word “who” in regard to “the water, and the Blood”?

Perhaps these “three who testify” can be spoken of in terms of “who” because these three flow from Holy Mother Church:  in this case, “the Spirit, the water, and the Blood” might easily be understood in terms of the Church’s Sacraments of Initiation.

Perhaps instead these three refer to Christ in terms of His Crucifixion.  All three of these flow from the Person of Jesus on the Cross:  after Christ gave up His Spirit, water and Blood flowed from His side.  This suggests also the image of the Divine Mercy, with three rays of light—red, white and blue—flowing from Him.

No matter how we reflect on these three who give testimony, the one to whom they testify is clear:  the Word made Flesh within the womb of Mary, who offers His Body and Blood so that we might have life, and have it to the full.

St. John Neumann, Bishop
1 John 3:11-21  +  John 1:43-51
January 5, 2018

Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

Everyone knows that Christmastide is about the beginning of Jesus’ human life.  But this holy season is about other beginnings, as well.  In today’s Gospel passage, from the first chapter of John’s Gospel account, John narrates “preliminaries” in the unfolding of Jesus’ public ministry.

Jesus calls first.  Calling is the beginning of His ministry.  This truth reminds us of God’s respect for human free will.  The Christian Faith does not profess a belief in absolute predestination.  That is to say, it would make no sense for God to call someone to follow Him if that someone had no freedom to reject or accept God’s call.  Human free will, then, is the first point we notice in today’s Gospel scene.

Secondly, today’s Gospel passage presents a double calling.  Jesus calls Philip, and Philip calls Nathaniel.  This double calling sets before us the truth that Jesus’ call is at times mediated through others.  This truth is foundational not only to salvation history as a whole, but also to the life of each Christian disciple.  We must teach those in our care to reject the shallow “me and Jesus” approach to Christianity that refuses to admit that God’s grace is mediated to us through others.  In turn, we ourselves must listen to others not only as fellows, but as potential bearers of God’s Word for us.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Religious
1 John 3:7-10  +  John 1:35-42
January 4, 2018

Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the Devil.

One of the words in today’s First Reading—“revealed”—can help us focus on serving others to foster love.  We continue to hear from the First Epistle of St. John.  The Beloved Disciple is very blunt in his epistles.  He has just as sharp a sense of evil as he does of divine love.  Surely John’s perception of both was whetted on the rock of Calvary.

John declares plainly that “the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the Devil.”  You could say that this sentence sums up John’s Gospel account, as it moves from the signs of Jesus’ seven miracles, to the Sign of the Cross, the glory of which destroys Satan’s power.  John’s account of the Gospel shows how Jesus “revealed” Himself to mankind in stages.  So the Holy Spirit has worked in the history of the Church, and in the life of each saint.  Ask God for yet another Christmas gift:  the same patience with your own spiritual growth that God has with you, as He continues unfailingly throughout your life to love you.

The Most Holy Name of Jesus
1 John 2:29—3:6  +  John 1:29-34
January 3, 2018

“Now I have seen and testified that He is the Son of God.”

While the feast of the Most Holy Name of Jesus is only an optional memorial in the Church’s liturgical calendar, its meaning dovetails beautifully with the Scriptures the Church proclaims today from the writings of St. John.

The Most Holy Name of “Jesus” literally means “God saves”.  In today’s Gospel passage, when His cousin John sees Jesus approaching he declares, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.”  God saves us from the power of sin through the self-sacrifice of the Lamb of God.

One obvious reason why we hear 1 John proclaimed as our First Reading during Christmastide is its emphasis on childhood.  Unbelievers can see the spirit of Christmas in the joy and wonder of a child, even if they choose not to emulate her.  The Beloved Disciple wants us to emulate himself when he beckons us to see “what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God.”

It is the love of God the Father that makes us His Children.  This is so because “God is Love”, and in giving us a share in His life, we become like Him.  This love is bestowed on us through the Father’s Gift of His only-begotten Son.