Solemnity

Dec 13 2024

Rise and Shine!

Early on in Tennessee William’s play The Glass Menagerie, the always pushing and prodding mother, Amanda, comes into the living room and awakens her sleeping son, Tom, by shouting at his stretched-out figure on the pull-out couch, “Rise and shine! Rise and shine!” An irritated Tom yells back, “I’ll rise, Mother, but I won’t shine.”

By the end of the Christmas season, many of us may have similar feelings. Winter doldrums, whether or not accompanied by freezing weather and power-threatening snowstorms, often motivate little more than a slow motion arising with little emanating radiance.

But the light of this crowning feast of the Christmas season does not depend on us. Light comes to us, as it did to the magi and to the shepherds in the fields, and as it did to Bethlehem, to Nazareth, and eventually to Jerusalem, Samaria, and from there out to the ends of the earth. The Light comes to us as gift, as grace. This Light enables Jews and Gentiles, men and women of North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East to look at each other and recognize brothers and sisters rather than strangers, aliens, even enemies.

The feast of the Epiphany expresses God’s will that all creation come to know the God revealed in Jesus Christ who continues to shine forth in light and love. The promise of the feast is that all of us are capable of absorbing and reflecting this light so that the whole earth may be delivered from its darkness.

Consider/Discuss

Do you see yourself as a reflector of God’s light, someone with a capacity to provide an epiphany for others?
What helps or hinders you from recognizing all men and women as your brothers and sisters, beloved of God?

Responding to the Word

Lord Jesus, you continue to come into the world as light that pushes back the darkness. Continue to enlighten our minds and hearts, opening them to receive you in whatever way you come to us. Help us to find you in our daily lives by removing whatever prevents our seeing your light.

Dec 13 2024

Scripture Study for

The city of Jerusalem is told to “Arise!” “Shine!” The illumination into which it emerges is the very light of God; it is the glory of the Lord. Jerusalem is not only delivered from its misfortune by God, it is re-established as a thriving city. Its dispersed inhabitants return, its destroyed reputation is restored, and its despoiled prosperity is reconstituted. This is not a promise to be fulfilled in the future; Jerusalem’s salvation is an accomplished fact. It is happening before its very eyes. The wealth from land and sea pours into the city. Such good fortune is evidence of God’s favor.

Paul tells the Ephesians that in Christ the Gentiles are co-heirs, co-members and co-partners with the Jews. Since what qualifies one as an heir is life in the Spirit of Christ and not natural generation into a particular national group, there is no obstacle in the path of Gentile incorporation. The body to which all belong is the body of Christ, not the bloodline of Abraham. The promise in Paul’s preaching is the promise of universal salvation through Christ, not that of descendants and prosperity in a particular land. This is a radical insight for a church with Jewish roots and traditions.

The three kings or wise men were probably astrologers who studied the heavenly bodies. Since they believed that astral marvels frequently accompanied the birth of great kings, it is understandable that they would go straight to the Judean king. Lest we think the story is a fanciful fabrication, the Gospel writer situates the events squarely in time and place: the reign of Herod, Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

The astrologers read the astral signs, they recognized the true identity of the child, and they understood a message in a dream that told them to return home another way. Their openness brought them to the child, and they did not go away disappointed. This child draws Jew and Gentile alike.

Dec 13 2024

God of Blessing

As a boy, I remember our parish priest would visit my grandparents’ house. Before he left, my grandmother would always ask his blessing and all of us would kneel to receive it. Another childhood memory sees my mother dipping her finger in a small holy water font that hung on the bedroom wall and sprinkling some of the water over my brothers and me in blessing every night.

We begin the New Year hearing an ancient blessing in today’s first reading. What a beautiful way to enter into the new year as we gather, calling on God to bless us, to keep us, to let the divine face shine on us, to look on us kindly and to give us peace. These words tell us who our God is and what God wishes to give us—blessing. In Mary, our mother, we see what it means to live out of God’s blessing and bring Christ to the world.

In the fullness of time, God blessed creation with Jesus, our Savior, who came to call us to a freedom that is the true blessing of the adopted children of our Abba (Father)-God. Jesus continues to ask God’s blessing on us, standing with us, and blessing us with his peace. Today we ask God to bless our world with the peace that the world cannot achieve on its own. Today we ask Mary, the Holy Mother of God, to pray with us as we join her in reflecting on the One whom the angels named as our Savior.

Consider/Discuss

What blessing do you ask of God as this new year begins?
When have you last blessed someone (other than when someone sneezes)? Whose blessing would you ask?

Responding to the Word

God of blessing, look kindly upon our world as we begin this new year of grace. Bless all those who work for peace and drive out from the hearts of all your children any temptation to take up arms against another. Mary, our mother, bless us with peace.

Dec 13 2024

Scripture Study for

The blessing found in the reading from Numbers is one of the oldest pieces of poetry in the Bible. It is introduced by a statement that gives the content of the blessing both Mosaic and divine legitimacy. To know God’s personal name, YHWH, presumes a kind of intimacy. The blessing itself is crisp and direct. Each line invokes a personal divine action: that God bless with good fortune and keep from harm, look favorably toward and be gracious, look upon and grant peace. Though these invocations might be realized in different things for different people at different times, they all ask for peace.

According to Paul, the goal of Christ’s mission was to transform the Galatians from being slaves under the law to being adopted children of God. His attitude toward the law is not as negative as it appears at first glance. Here it is a necessary guardian that carefully watches over minors until they are mature enough to take care of themselves. Though the law is inferior to the Spirit of Christ, it is faithful and trustworthy. However, once the Spirit takes hold of the believer, dependence on the law ends and freedom in the Spirit, the rightful inheritance of the children of God, begins.

The Gospel reading is the same as that of the Christmas Mass at Dawn. However, the circumcision and naming of Jesus are included here. This slight difference shifts the focus of the passage away from the shepherds to the child and his parents. As observant Jews, Mary and Joseph fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law; the child was circumcised as custom dictated. Besides being circumcised, the child was given the name earlier told to Mary, the name Jesus, which means “savior.” Now almost everything that the angel had announced has come to pass. Mary will have to wait to see how he will acquire the throne of his father David and rule the house of Jacob forever.

Dec 13 2024

Jesus, Family Man

If you were to choose an adjective to accompany “family,” what would it be? Holy? Or is it more likely to be “dysfunctional”? If culture reflects reality, our greatest American playwrights hold up families falling apart as the norm: Eugene O’Neil’s Tyrone family, Tennessee Williams’ haunted Southern siblings, Arthur Miller’s Willie and Linda Loman and sons, and, most recently, the families of Tracy Lett’s August: Osage County and Jon Rabin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities. Behold, the American family!

And yet, granting that every family, like every person, is imperfect and on occasion wounds each other in both small and big ways, we do find holiness in families. It is the holiness that we see in Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, who cared for and respected each other, a holiness that witnesses to the power of God’s grace at work in hearts open to it.

In today’s Gospel we see this gracious care in the worry of parents who could not find their son. We hear it in Mary’s anxious words to Jesus, in Jesus’ fidelity to his dual parentage—earthly and heavenly—and in the simple statement that “he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.”

As members of the human family, imperfect and even sinful, we too are graced with a capacity for “advancing in wisdom and age and favor before God and one another.” Each of us is called to holiness, to a fullness of being made possible by being open to the loving touch of God’s grace made visible in the Incarnation.

Consider/Discuss

Do Mary, Joseph, and Jesus have anything to teach us about what it means to be family?
What does it mean to be a “holy family”? Is it a matter of doing “holy” actions, or saying “holy” words?

Responding to the Word

Loving Father, you have created all who have ever lived in your image and likeness. Help us to recognize all others as our brothers and sisters and to honor, respect, forgive, and love them as your children. Together, enable us to bring your peace and justice, healing and reconciliation to our world.