Year A

Jan 13 2025

Arise and Shine Like a Star

They were men in love with the lights of night—astrologers, star-gazers, meaning-makers tuned in to the signs in the heavens, as Matthew tells it. A strange star moving across the sky led them into Israel. Arriving in Jerusalem, they asked where the newborn king of the Jews was, so they could offer homage.

Herod was less than delighted, indeed “greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him,” at hearing of a new king on the block (Matthew 2:3). But he assembled the chief priests and the scribes, who remembered that the prophet Micah had proclaimed that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

So they set out again, with Herod’s duplicitous request whispered into their ears. The star reappeared and led them to the house where the child and his mother were. Falling down in worship, they offered gifts, and went back home. End of story—as we like to remember it.

Of course, that is not the end. Receiving no word, Herod is enraged and orders the death of all children under the age of two. Joseph, Mary, and the child flee to Egypt. Power does not welcome competition, even in the form of a child.

But God wills all people to know salvation. Jesus came to draw all into the reign of God and to empower them to live the God-life that is the Father’s gift. The darkness of evil continues to threaten but it will not overcome as long as there are those who seek the light, follow it, and allow it to lead them to the child.

Consider/Discuss

When has the light that is Christ come into your darkness?
How are you being called to arise and shine like a star, leading others to Christ?

Responding to the Word

We pray that the light of God’s love, shown to us in Jesus Christ and placed within us with the gift of faith, may lead others to this same faith. We also pray that we may continue our own journey into the mystery of God and find Christ waiting for us at journey’s end.

Jan 13 2025

Scripture Study for

The reading from Isaiah opens with a twofold summons addressed to the city of Jerusalem: Arise! Shine! Although it had been downtrodden and enshrouded in darkness, it is now called out of this desperate state. The illumination into which it emerges is not merely the light of a new day, a new era of peace and prosperity. It is the very light of God. 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 primary message to the Ephesians, that in Christ the Gentiles are co-heirs, co-members, and co-partners with the Jews, had been revealed to Paul by God. 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 at the heart of gospel preaching is the promise of universal salvation through Christ.

As we near the end of the Christmas season we read another popular Christmas story: the Three Kings or Three Wise Men. Actually, they were astrologers, men who studied the heavenly bodies and sought to discover the meaning of human life on earth. These anonymous men come out of obscurity and they return to obscurity. All we know about them is that they were not Israelite, and this is the whole point of the story. It illustrates that people of good will, regardless of their ethnic or religious background, are responsive to the revelation of God. The openness of these astrologers brought them to the child, and they did not go away disappointed. This child draws Jew and Gentile alike.

Jan 13 2025

A New Year’s Blessing

We return once again to Bethlehem, accompanying the shepherds, to see the One announced by the angel as the Savior of the world. With them, we stand before the mother and contemplate the child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn. We are told that “Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Mary invites us to ponder in our hearts the mystery of her Son Jesus, truly God and truly human. He came for us and for our salvation, and so we ask him to banish any darkness from our hearts and to send us out to bring his light into the world.

The light that Christ brings is the blessing of God’s peace, all that makes life full, and transforms the world into a place that cherishes and preserves, rather than neglecting and destroying life. Christ’s gift of blessing is to let us know the Father and the Father’s plan: that all be one, united as family, able to recognize in each other the dignity of God’s adopted children, alive with the life of grace, destined to share in divinity.

Christ’s blessing calls us to grow into maturity, keeping God’s law of love, just as Jesus himself grew up, living a life that brought the law to its fulfillment. We don’t do this on our own, as the name given to the child reminds us: Jesus, which means “God saves.”

Consider/Discuss

What blessing do you ask from God for the coming year, for yourself, for your loved ones, for your country, for the world?
Jesus came to save, to bring God’s salvation. What do you need to be saved from?

Responding to the Word

We pray that God will bless us with peace, with fullness of life, by drawing us ever more deeply into the life of the Trinity. We ask that the Holy Spirit will come upon us and transform us more completely into people the world can recognize as adopted children of God.

Jan 13 2025

Scripture Study for

The blessing found in today’s Numbers reading may be one of the oldest pieces of poetry in the Bible. Although it is the priests who ultimately bless the people, it is Moses who receives the blessing from God and who delivers it to Aaron and his sons. The blessing itself is quite crisp and direct. Each line invokes a personal action from God: to bless with good fortune and to keep from harm; to look favorably toward and to be gracious to; to look upon and to grant peace. Actually, all the petitions ask for the same reality, namely, the blessings that make life worth living. Peace is the fundamental characteristic of Jewish blessing, the condition of absolute well-being.

According to Paul, the goal of Christ’s mission was the transformation of the Galatians from slaves under the law to adopted children of God. He uses a social custom of the day to illustrate the contrast between servitude under the law and freedom in Christ. An heir too young to claim inheritance was appointed a legal guardian until he came of age. Paul compares the believers to underage minors who, until “the fullness of time had come,” could not claim what might be right fully theirs (Galatians 4:4). The law acted as legal guardian. All of this changes with the coming of Christ. Christians are no longer minors bound to the tutelage of the law.

The Gospel is essentially the same as that of the Christmas Mass at Dawn. However, this passage also speaks of the circumcision and the naming of Jesus. This slight addition shifts the focus of the passage from the shepherds to the child and his parents. As observant Jews, Mary and Joseph fulfilled all of the prescriptions of the law, seeing that the child was circumcised as custom dictated. Just as the angel had foretold, the child is named Jesus, which means savior. Now almost everything that the angel had announced has come to pass.

Jan 13 2025

Becoming a Holy Family

Today’s Gospel story reveals that God’s Son was born into a dangerous world. From the beginning, those in power saw the child as a threat. Herod was a ruthless king. Because Joseph listened to his dream, the child was saved from Herod’s murderous rage. The parents of Jesus played a crucial role in God’s plan from the beginning.

The Christmas season is traditionally a time for families getting together and enjoy each other’s company. But this doesn’t always happen because divisions occur even within families. Today’s feast invites us to reflect on what holds a family together and what loosens and even destroys the family bond. How does the mystery of the Incarnation, of Christ being born in us in our own day, enter into the dynamics of family life? The first two readings provide a focus on the family.

While Sirach focuses on the honor and respect that children owe their parents, Colossians also urges fathers—and mothers—not to discourage their children. And the relationship between husbands and wives is to be marked by mutual love and respect. The call for wives to be “subordinate” is an unfortunate choice of words, given today’s reality of spousal abuse.

At the heart of the mystery of the Incarnation is that all our relationships should bring the presence of Christ to the world. We do this when we put on the virtues of compassion, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and, above all, love. When these are found in family life, then Christ once again is born in our family.

Consider/Discuss

Do you think that the Holy Family was a perfect family?
What makes for a holy family in our day?

Responding to the Word

We can pray for all families in our world, families of blood and families of choice. We pray for the family of nations, especially where division has resulted in hatred and violence. We pray for the virtues that will draw us closer together in the Church so the world may see us clearly as part of God’s family.