Solemnity

Jan 13 2025

God’s Grace Draws Us Closer

I remember a young mother saying to me on Mother’s Day, “I hope you’re not going to preach to us about Mary. She makes us all feel so guilty. She never yelled or got angry. She was just perfect.”

The Immaculate Conception is often seen as a feast that puts Mary at a distance from us, since she was “free from all taint of sin.” But this feast is really a feast that should bring her closer.

God’s presence to and love for Mary surrounded and touched her life from its beginning. This was done because of the unique role she would play in God’s plan of salvation for all. Mary’s role was necessary to bring to fulfillment God’s desire that all be saved. So, her being graced in a unique way does not distance her from us, but places her even more at the heart of the human family.

As the Letter to the Ephesians reminds us today, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world “to be holy and without blemish before him” (Ephesians 1:4). God “destined us for adoption” and destined us to exist “for the praise of the glory of his grace” (Ephesians 1:5, 6). We all are destined to be drawn closer to God and each other through God’s grace.

Mary’s gracious response to God is a model of what God desires from each of us singly and as a community: our saying “Yes” to God’s plan, so that the world can know and love and serve the living God revealed in Jesus.

Consider/Discuss

Do I think of Mary as one removed from or uniquely close to the community of believers?
Do you see yourself as having been chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy?

Responding to the Word

Today we can praise God for revealing to us that what was done for Mary is a sign of God’s will for all of us, that we know ourselves as chosen by God and as existing to praise the glory of God’s grace. We ask Mary to lead us more deeply into the mystery of the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Jan 13 2025

Scripture Study for

The first reading was probably chosen for this feast because the traditional depiction of Mary as the Immaculate Conception has her foot on the head of the serpent. Actually, the text has “he will strike at your head” (Genesis 3:15), not she. However, the meaning of the passage continues to be important. Since there is no mention of a “fall” from grace, it is best to think of this story simply as an account of sin. After the sin, the woman and man are naked (spiritually exposed), and they refuse to take responsibility for their fault. Each blames another. The final words state that throughout their lives, human beings will have to battle temptation.

Paul insists that salvation in Christ was not an afterthought, but was in God’s plan from the beginning. Furthermore, believers are not chosen because they were holy and blameless, but that they might be made holy and blameless. In other words, salvation is the cause, not the consequence, of righteousness. Paul further states that we were destined for adoption through Christ, so we have been redeemed by his blood. Our redemption exacted a ransom, and that ransom was the shedding of Christ’s blood. All this was done so that God’s plan finally would be brought to fulfillment, the plan to bring all things together in Christ.

According to the passage from Matthew’s Gospel, the conception of Jesus took place within the broader picture of God’s plan of salvation. The angel’s words are both reassuring and perplexing. Mary, a virgin, will bear a son whose name indicates the role that he will play in God’s plan (Jesus means “God saves”). Her response does not question that all of this will happen according to God’s plan, but she wonders how it will happen. She is also a model of openness and receptivity, regardless of the apparent impossibility of what is being asked. The reading shows that the expectations of the past are now being fulfilled.

Jan 12 2025

Transformed by Glory

On this the last Sunday of the liturgical year, many tongues will sing, “Christ Jesus Victor, Christ Jesus Ruler, Christ Jesus Lord and Redeemer.” For the Son of Man is coming in his glory and all his angels will be with him. He will sit on his glorious throne, and all peoples will come before him. Let the trumpets sound!

On this day, we do not look at the little ways in which the Holy Spirit speaks—through the smell of popcorn, the labor of climbing a mountain, or the planting of onions. This feast lifts us to the majestic, toward the awesomeness of God. All those who await us in heaven have vibrated with this glory. They have seen Christ the King.

Have you gotten a taste of that glory—in a dream? On the edge of a song? In the radiance of a sunset? In the joy of a meal? We don’t believe based on nothing. God has spoken. God has spoken to us.

The One we celebrate was so tiny at the beginning of this adventure. Today, he is grand as Christ the King. It is as though the coo of a newborn baby has swelled into the Hallelujah Chorus; the silence of a grain of sand has become the roar of the Pacific Ocean; the whisper of a gentle breeze has become the rumble of an earthquake. Rejoice!

In gathering the nations, the King wants our wholehearted “yes!” Have we been so completely changed into the person of Christ that we act as he acts, forgive as he forgives, and reach out as he reaches out? Have we given a cup of water to a little one? Have we fed the hungry? These actions are not just a garment thrown over our grubbiness. The trumpet blasts to transform our whole being.

Consider/Discuss

Teresa of Ávila called her beloved in prayer “Your Majesty.” Try using that invocation as you enter into a moment of silence and contemplate the grandeur of God. Have you seen God’s glory? Tasted it? Heard it? Felt it? Share the story of that glory with a fellow traveler on the pilgrim road.
As we ponder the sovereignty of Christ, it is an act of our will to obey and follow, to serve as he serves, to love as he loves, and to give as he gives. What one grace can I ask for today to solidify my will to serve my King?

Living and Praying with the Word

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, thank you that we are not alone. Thank you for the fellow pilgrims who have walked with us this year. Thank you that we walk with the saints on earth and the hosts of heaven. Secure in that solidarity, we turn ourselves toward the light of the new liturgical year. We do not know what lies ahead. We do not know what will be. But we do know that the alleluias of the heavens will hold us, for with them, we too will to glorify you with our lives.

Jan 12 2025

Scripture Study for

The reading from Ezekiel comes from a passage that focuses on the failure of Israel’s leaders, who have not shown solicitude for the socially and spiritually vulnerable but instead have been negligent or even taken advantage of God’s flock for their own gain. Now, God says, I will do myself what you did not do. In God’s care, the neglected, abused, or those who were allowed to “go astray” will be cared for properly; “the sleek and the strong” who took advantage of them will receive their judgment. Yet even among the flock will be found the faithless, whom God will seek out. But some of them will resist, proving themselves not part of God’s flock, but goats and rams.

At least some of the Corinthian Christians denied the resurrection of the dead, yet had apparently accepted Paul’s teaching on Christ’s role in God’s redemption. Paul points out that if there is no resurrection, and Christ was not raised from the dead, the gospel message is meaningless and false because they are still in their sins and have no hope beyond this life. The gospel is that Christ was raised from the dead, and because of this the baptized have received life in and through him and will be resurrected too at his second coming. Christ alone will be sovereign, the only authority, and all powers will be subject to him, including and especially the power of death.

The final judgment scene must be understood against the background of Jesus’ consistent teaching, found throughout Matthew’s Gospel, on the great difficulty of entering “the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” One must completely reform one’s life, starting at the level of thought, attitude, and interpretation of reality. Thus the sheep have not made their way easily into the kingdom simply by a few “works of mercy.” Their actions represent a fundamental disposition toward God that is manifested in their actions on behalf of others. These are the members of the flock who denied themselves, took up their crosses, and thus became followers of Christ. The goats represent those who never did deny themselves or take up their crosses, and thus never really lived for anyone but themselves.

Jan 12 2025

The Aroma of the Heavenly Feast

The last time I made popcorn the smell reminded me of my mom. The kernels exploded out of the hot-air popper into her green and white mixing bowl. I melted butter as she had. I sprinkled the buttered kernels with salt and stirred it all up. I popped three kernels into my mouth. Delicious! (She ate her popcorn one kernel at a time, so she was a bit more proper than I was.) It may make me old fashioned, but I don’t microwave popcorn in a bag. Why? It does not evoke memories. It does not smell right. It does not bring my mom back to life.

On this feast of All Saints, we celebrate the dead and bring their memory back to life. Yet, when we think about those who have departed, those who have gone to heaven before us . . . well, I think that we have it backwards. But, really, truly, they are the living. We are the dying. From the flash when we were conceived, through our first whiff of lilacs, until that moment when our breathing stops, we are dying for the aroma of eternity. Something heavenly awaits us.

Can you sense that? My mom is alive! My grandma is alive! Your mom or brother or child or sister or aunt or dad is alive! Within the limits of our earthly snuffling, we only sense barrenness where we used to inhale their fragrance. We cannot perceive them. That hollowness can hurt. But they are partaking of the feast of heaven—the most sweet-smelling chocolate cake on earth cannot compare. They have gone before us into the banquet of life. The God of glory is the Fragrance of fragrances, the Delight of delights. Today, with all the church, militant and glorified, may we get a whiff of that glory!

Consider/Discuss

What is your initial reaction when you read that we are the dying and those who have gone before us are the living? Does that feel morbid or glorious? How does it change your worldview when you shift that perspective?
Who do you most want to celebrate today on All Saints Day? Which of the Beatitudes does he or she best exemplify?

Living and Praying with the Word

God of glory, you give us so many heroes and heroines of the faith! They toiled for what was right. They fought for justice. Thank you for giving us so many examples of people of holy virtue. They lived and died for you. They knew you and loved you. We want to be saints, too. Lift us higher! Empower our faith! Take us with you to the banquet! Ah, the joy of All Saints!