Saturday after Epiphany
1 John 5:14-21  +  John 3:22-30

There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray.

On this last weekday of Christmastide before the season’s concluding with the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord, the Beloved Disciple in the First Reading tackles a challenging subject.  What he states follows from what he has proclaimed in passages heard earlier in Christmastide.  Yet he’s more specific here about the demands made of the Christian disciple.

St. John in his biblical writings repeatedly proclaims the Crucifixion of Jesus as God’s clearest revelation of His love for fallen man.  In today’s First Reading, St. John declares that the disciple of Jesus must forgive sinners as Jesus did on the Cross.  In St. John’s exposition, there are several specific points that deserve attention.

First, St. John proclaims that the Christian disciple ought to pray for a sinner, and that God “will give him life.”  This makes clear that God wants Christians to intercede for others in prayer, contrary to what some of our separated brethren claim.  Moreover, God specifically wants the Christian to intercede for a sinner.  While St. John does not state here that the Christian’s intercessory prayer for a sinner will bring the sinner forgiveness, but rather “life”, the principle of a Christian interceding for another sinner is one of the principle underling the Sacrament of Confession.

Second, St. John very clearly distinguishes two types of sin based on the degree of severity.  He states that there “is such a thing as deadly sin”, and shortly thereafter that “there is a sin that is not deadly.”  These two types of sin correspond to the Church’s distinction between “mortal sin” and “venial sin”.  Both types of sin can be forgiven through the Blood of Christ, but the forgiveness of “deadly sin” is reserved to the Church’s Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Friday after Epiphany
1 John 5:5-13  +  Luke 5:12-16

And this is the testimony:  God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.

The Beloved Disciple, St. John the Evangelist, uses many words to describe God throughout the course of his Gospel account and three epistles.  Among these words are “life”, “light”, and “love”.  In today’s First Reading St. John considers divine life and how an ordinary human person may share in this life.

One of the more overlooked principles of the Christian spiritual life is that the Christian is not called merely to imitate Jesus.  Jesus is not a mere example for the Christian to follow.  The Christian disciple must live and act “in” Christ, as one member of Christ’s Mystical Body.

It’s within this Body as one of its members that he Christian shares in the life of Christ.  This life is not only the divine life that God the Son shared with the Father from before time began.  This life also includes all the human experiences of God the Son, especially His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension.  These experiences are the experiences of the Christian disciple.

This life of Christ is the source of strength and inspiration for daily Christian life.  This is one reason that the sacraments are key to Christian growth.  For when the sacraments are devoutly received, their graces deepen one’s share in the life of Christ.  This in turn allow the disciple’s human life more easily to follow the pattern of Christ’s earthly life, if the disciple submits his daily thoughts, words, and actions to Christ’s life.

The Baptism of the Lord [C]
Isaiah 42:1-4,6-7  +  Acts 10:34-38  +  Luke 3:15-16,21-22
[or Isaiah 40:1-5,9-11  +  Titus 2:11-14;3:4-7  +  Luke 3:15-16,21-22]

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

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reference to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

CCC 535-537: the Baptism of the Lord

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God reveals two important mysteries at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River.  The first is an eternal mystery, while the second is bound up with the course of salvation history.

The first mystery revealed at the Baptism of the Lord Jesus is the Most Holy Trinity.  This mystery is not spoken of often in the Gospel accounts, so consider each of the three divine Persons of the Most Holy Trinity in the light of the Lord’s baptism.

Concerning God the Holy Spirit, it’s notable that the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove.  The dove calls to mind Noah and the Ark.  After forty days of the Flood, a dove descended to reveal to Noah that dry land had been found and God’s destruction ended.

In the account of the Baptism of Jesus, the order of events is reversed:  Jesus ascends from the water, the dove descends, and then—the next passage in the Gospel according to Mark tells us—Jesus spends forty days in a desert to start His work of restoring life.

In the Flood, God destroyed corrupt human beings to destroy sin.  But in the Gospel, Jesus is destroyed by corrupt human beings in order to destroy sin.  The former effort failed, while the latter—thanks be to God—has truly won for us God’s victory over sin.

Concerning Jesus, it’s revealed at His Baptism that He is the Son of God.  The Church proclaims this truth throughout the Christmas Season, of course.  But Jesus is baptized when He is thirty years old.  Very likely, the events surrounding the birth of Jesus had been forgotten by many at that point.  Yet the Baptism of Jesus was the start of His public ministry.  It was important at this point that God the Father would declare Jesus to be His own Beloved Son.

However, today’s feast reveals a second mystery in addition to the mystery of the Trinity’s inner life.  Today’s feast of the Baptism of Jesus reveals that you yourself are called to be a child of God by means of sharing in the life and death of Jesus Christ.

Jesus, of course, had no need to be baptized.

He was baptized for the same reason that He became human; for the same reason that He taught and worked miracles; for the same reason that He was crucified, died, and was buried:  for us.

Likewise, Jesus was baptized for us.  He was baptized to show us the way, because baptism is the way into the life of Jesus, and through Him into the inner life of the Trinity.

Your baptism was the moment when you became one member of Christ’s Body.  Your baptism was the moment when Christ’s life became the meaning and goal of your life.  Your baptism was the moment when God the Father adopted you as His own child.

Your relationship with God the Father—as one of His very dear children [see Ephesians 5:1)—is the heart of your life as a Christian.

Concerning, finally, the divine Father who adopts sinners through baptism, there are pitfalls that we have to be wary of.  First, God as a Father is a father in His own way, not as we might wish.  In other words, God is not Santa Claus, who gives us what we want.  God is our divine and providential Father who gives us what we need.

Second, God the Father does not remove every obstacle from our path.  Some obstacles He does remove for us, out of love.  But out of love, some obstacles He does not remove, instead showing us how to resolve them ourselves, and demanding that we take responsibility for that which is in our power.

Third, God the Father doesn’t keep us at a remove.  He wants us to become like Himself in all things.  He wants us to become like Him even in offering sacrifice.  Santa Claus never asks us to give up things, or to sacrifice our very selves.

God the Father does ask that of us, because that’s what He Himself did for us in sacrificing His Son Jesus for our sins.  Sacrifice is not the sum total of our relationship with God the Father.  But it is the highest measure of whether each of us becomes like Him, which means:  whether each of us becomes as loving as He is.

Thursday after Epiphany
1 John 4:19—5:4  +  Luke 4:14-22

… whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

God loves every person, for it’s God’s very nature to love.  Certainly, God at times withholds certain graces from His beloved children so that they might be purified, or grow in longing for Him.  Likewise, God bestows certain graces called “charisms” upon certain of His children but not upon others.  Nonetheless, God never at any moment fails to love each human person.  This love sustains each person in being and calls each fallen person to greater holiness.

Since God loves unconditionally, and since man is called to live in the likeness of God, each human being is called to love unconditionally.  Naturally, it’s more difficult to love one’s neighbor than to love God, for God is more lovable.  Yet God does not love a person because that person is lovable.  God loves a person in order to make that person lovable.  St. John points to this truth in today’s First Reading:  “Beloved, we love God because He first loved us.”

If and when you do not love another human person, then, you are not acting in the likeness of God.  This truth does not mean that love never makes any demands of another.  Indeed, God’s love demands that one become like God in how one loves, in all the forms that love takes, including the forgiveness of sins.  In the Crucifixion of Jesus we see most profoundly that God does not love us in spite of our sins.  He loves us right through our sins.

Wednesday after Epiphany
1 John 4:11-18  +  Mark 6:45-52

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another.

Christmastide is a school of love, and the Beloved Disciple is its headmaster.  While it might be argued that Eastertide is also such a school, there’s an important difference between these two seasons.  During Eastertide the Church proclaims passages from St. John’s account of the Gospel.  During Christmastide, however, the Church proclaims passages from his epistles, and these focus sharply upon the nature of love.

Yesterday’s First Reading proclaimed the nature of God’s love as revealed through the sacrifice of God the Father and God the Son on Calvary.  Today’s First Reading extends that focus to love for one’s neighbor.

The Ten Commandments are of two types.  The first three command us to love God.  The latter seven command us to love our neighbor.  For Christians, what unites these two types is the revelation of God’s love in the Crucifixion.  From the Cross Jesus reveals how to love God and neighbor.  It’s on the basis of that revelation that St. John explains:  “if God so loved us, we also must love one another.”

However, there’s a danger here.  We might take St. John’s words to mean that we’re called merely to imitate God’s love as shown to us on Calvary.  But it’s impossible for a fallen human person to love as God love through one’s own natural power.  A fallen human person can only imitate God’s love if God loves through the fallen human person.  This is what St. John speaks to when he proclaims that “God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him.”  Only when one abides in God’s love can one love as God loves.

Tuesday after Epiphany
(or January 8 where the Epiphany is always January 6)
1 John 4:7-10  +  Mark 6:34-44

In this is love:  not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

“Love” is cheap in modern society.  It means little and bears little fruit because it is rooted in the self.  St. John in today’s First Reading reveals that the truth about love is contrary to what modern society preaches.  True love is rooted outside the self.

Modern society claims that the lack of self-esteem is a chief cause of social problems.  Boasting self-esteem therefore becomes a major aim.  Yet an individual’s self-esteem inevitably degenerates into selfishness if it’s not rooted in the love that God has for that individual.

God is love.  God is love, pure and simple.  God is love through and through.  In other words, God is the gold standard of love.  Authentic love of oneself has to be measured against the love Who is God.

Love begins and ends with God.  From His very nature as love, God loves each human being.  Through this love, God the Father calls each human being to be transformed into the likeness of His love.

God the Father’s love is primary, before any human love and, indeed, before any human existence.  In the order of salvation history, the Father’s love for each human being has unfolded as St. John describes in the First Reading:  “In this is love:  not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.”  In these words, the love that lies at the heart of Christmastide shines clear.  This love of God the Father and God the Son for fallen man is the love to which God calls each human person to aspire.

Monday After Epiphany
(or January 7 where the Epiphany is always January 6)
1 John 3:22—4:6  +  Matthew 4:12-17,23-25

I will give you all the nations for an inheritance.

Some years, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord—which is the final day of Christmastide—is celebrated on a Monday, which makes for a shorter season of Christmas.  Most years, however, the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated six days later on a Sunday, which gives us many more weekdays of Christmastide.  These weekdays—today being one such—help us appreciate better how and why the Epiphany is the culmination of Christmastide.

These weekdays focus our attention upon the significance of the Epiphany.  The refrain of today’s Responsorial is an example:  “I will give you all the nations for an inheritance.”  Proclaimed by the Church, these words from Psalm 2 can be understood from a Trinitarian perspective.  That is, the words of this psalm foreshadow the Church’s doctrine about the Most Holy Trinity.

This refrain can be understood as God the Father speaking to God the Son about the fruit of the Son’s earthly mission.  The Son accomplishes His divine mission through His Death, Resurrection, and Ascension.  The fruits of what the Son accomplished are the saint of God Church, beginning on the day of Pentecost.  These saints are His “inheritance”.  These saints are the members of Christ’s own Mystical Body, and this Church is meant by God to be universal:  that is, to consist of “all the nations”.  The Epiphany is the beginning of Jesus’ mission:  revealing Himself to the nations so that they might place their faith in what He accomplishes for them.

The Seventh Day within the Octave of Christmas
1 John 2:18-21  +  John 1:1-18
December 31, 2021

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us ….

In terms of the Gospel Reading at weekday Mass, today is something of a hinge within the Christmas Season.  Yesterday’s Gospel Reading concluded the narratives of the Presentation, ending by referring to the Holy Family’s return to Nazareth, where Jesus grew in His sacred humanity.

Today’s Gospel Reading is the prologue of St. John’s Gospel account.  This prologue alternates between poetic descriptions of the divine Word of God who became flesh, and narrative descriptions of the ministry of St. John the Baptist.  These two forms come together, however, in the last three verses of the prologue [John 1:16-18].  The one whom John foretold manifests Himself as the source of grace for all who believe in Him.

Throughout the remainder of Christmastide, the Gospel Reading at weekday Mass presents Jesus as an adult during the three years of His public ministry.  This might seem out of place during Christmastide, although understandable from a practical perspective since the narratives of Jesus’ conception, birth, and infancy are relatively few.

The narratives of Jesus’ public ministry that we hear during the rest of Christmastide in fact have an important purpose.  They point our attention forward to the purpose of the Incarnation:  that is, the purpose of Christmastide.  That purpose is to manifest the divine presence in the world in the Person of Jesus.  This is why Christmastide culminates in feasts of the Lord Jesus’ epiphany.  The word “epiphany” means “revelation”, and the epiphanies of the Lord call for a response from each person who witnesses them.

The Epiphany of the Lord
Isaiah 60:1-6  +  Ephesians 3:2-3,5-6  +  Matthew 2:1-12
January 2, 2022

“We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.”

Secular culture takes what is three-dimensional and flattens it.  Christians, then, must be alert to secularism’s encroachment upon Christian culture.  If, for example, Christians adopt secularism’s counterfeits of Christmas and Easter, not only do Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny become the seasons’ patron saints.  The seasons themselves become distorted, so that Christmas begins on the day after Thanksgiving and ends on December 25^th.

By contrast, the Church calls Christians to order their lives in a way that recognizes December 25^th as the first full day of Christmastide, and the day of celebrating the first of several mysteries that the Church ponders throughout Christmastide.  Among all these mysteries, the Nativity and the Epiphany of the Lord are the two most important.

The Nativity focuses upon the divine Gift given by God the Father to fallen man.  The Epiphany focuses upon the gifts that men offer to God in return.  We might say that the Epiphany is the Church’s first focus upon the stewardship of grateful disciples.

In this Sunday’s Gospel Reading, we hear three wise men arriving before the manger.  They are men willing to sacrifice of themselves in order to find a newborn King.  This is a sign of their wisdom:  their willingness to make profoundly personal sacrifices in addition to the material objects they offer in sacrifice.

Few persons don’t want to be rich.  However, there are many people who believe they’re rich, but who have become satisfied with riches that—in the end—aren’t going to do them real good.

Humility is what we see in the three wise kings, who were willing to leave the splendor and riches of their kingdoms and enter a grotto where animals lived, in order to prostrate themselves before a child born of a peasant girl.

Picture this:  these three wise kings fall to the ground in adoration before the newborn Jesus in a stable, where the hay of the animals was mixed with the animals’ waste.  Would you be humble enough to kneel in that hay?

Look at these three wise kings.  Look at their sacrifices.  Consider two parts of the sacrifices that the kings make.

The first part is their journey.  It is long and fraught with peril, much like the journey of discipleship.  These three leave behind the lands where they rule, where they are in control, in order to bow down before the Ruler of Heaven and Earth:  in order to follow Him wherever He asks them to journey for His sake.

The second part of their sacrifices are the objects that the three wise kings take from their treasuries and place before the new-born King.  These splendid objects reflect their human wealth.

Yet these gifts are given as a response to a greater Gift.  These gifts are more a reflection of the One to whom they’re given than of those who give them.  So also in the practice of stewardship, while one’s giving is in proportion to one’s means, it’s also meant to be given in proportion to the goodness of the One to whom we give.

The gifts the three wise men give to Jesus reflect the subject of their gift-giving.  The gold and frankincense reflect Jesus’ kingship and divinity.  These gifts are foretold in the First Reading from the Prophet Isaiah.

But Isaiah does not prophesy about the gift of myrrh.  Myrrh is a resin used to prepare corpses for burial.  What an odd gift for a newborn!  Can you imagine someone today showing up at a baby shower with a gift obtained from a mortuary?  Nonetheless, the gift of myrrh reflects the wisdom of the three wise men.

It’s often said that God is never outdone in generosity.  That truth is reflected in the gift of myrrh.  God the Father had given the Gift of His Son.  In response, the three wise men give three gifts to the Holy Family.  Yet Christmastide is only the start of the Gospel story, and a preparation for its climax during Holy Week.  On Mt. Calvary, God the Son will offer in sacrifice the Gift of His Body and Blood, soul and divinity.  The gift of Good Friday is the source and summit of the Christian life, the gift that gives infinite depth to the journey of discipleship.