OT XIV [B] Ez 2:2-5; II Cor 12:7-10; Mk 6:1-6 

 

In today’s second reading, from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, we heard that he was fighting what he called a thorn in the flesh. Three times he begged the Lord to remove this from him. But all he heard was the Lord saying, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” What was it that was upsetting Paul so much? People have speculated over the years, but we have no way of knowing exactly what it was. Whatever it was, it was significant for Paul. It could not have been something as minor as a speech impediment. It was something far more personal and more severe. Whatever it was, it probably kept him awake at night. It is troubling for us to think that the great St. Paul had a major personal problem. Even in our cynical age, we still want to turn our saints into perfect little plastic statues. But people are not perfect, and even the greatest of the saints were people like you and me, continually fighting the temptation to sin.

The voice of the Lord that Power is made perfect in weakness made it clear to Paul, that whatever success he had, in proclaiming the Gospel, only occurred because God was working through him. He went on to write in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

 

The people of Jesus’ hometown have known him since he was small. They remember when he was a little boy learning a bit at a time how to become a carpenter like his foster father, Joseph. They remember him playing with their children. They remember when he went through growth spurts. They remember when his voice changed and when he began to grow a beard. They were so bogged down in their knowledge of Jesus’ humanity, that they refused to listen to the Word of God that He was proclaiming,.. and that He was. They could not believe that God would work through Jesus. Their lack of faith resulted in Jesus not being able to perform any of the mighty deeds of God among them. Therefore, Jesus responded by saying, 'A prophet is not without honour, except in his hometown, and among his own kin, and in his own house.'"

In the Bible we see many instances of such an attitude.  Consider David, the youngest son of Jesse, who was overlooked by his own family when the prophet Samuel came to anoint the future king of Israel. His father didn't even consider him initially. Yet, God saw David's potential and anointed him as king (1 Sam 16:6-13). Similarly, Joseph was despised by his brothers and sold into slavery, only to rise to a position of power in Egypt and save his family (Gen 37). These stories remind us that those familiar to us can possess incredible potential.

In contemporary times, Thomas Edison, despite being labeled as "too stupid to learn anything" by his teachers, was nurtured by his mother's belief in him. Her faith transformed him into one of the greatest inventors.

Another notable example is Albert Einstein. Before he became renowned for his contributions to physics, Einstein experienced significant struggles. He faced many Academic Challenges: As a young student, Einstein was often perceived as a slow learner. His teachers described him as "mentally slow" and "unsociable," like Edison, and he experienced difficulty speaking fluently until a relatively late age. Eventually, he became a physicist. His works fundamentally transformed our understanding of physics and laid the groundwork for much of modern science.

Einstein’s story is a powerful testament to how someone who might be initially perceived as having little potential or utility can make extraordinary contributions when given the opportunity and space to pursue their interests.

These stories challenge us to recognize the value in those closest to us. The statement of Jesus: “A prophet is not without honour, except in his hometown, and among his own kin, and in his own house”, encapsulates a paradox that resonates deeply within our personal lives, our workplaces, and our communities. It speaks to the unfortunate tendency to overlook and undervalue the talents and contributions of those closest to us.

The gospel reading reminds us that God often comes to us through the ordinary and the everyday. The Lord can be present to us in and through those who live among us. He once said that he comes to us through our children, ‘Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me’. He also said that he comes to us through the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, sick, the imprisoned, ‘Just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me’. The Lord doesn’t come to us with trumpets blaring but in the most ordinary of ways. The Lord can even come to us through those painful experiences of failure and loss that we might think of as devoid of God. We can meet the Lord in our failures, because he became the ultimate failure for us, on the cross. Our human weaknesses can create a space for the Lord to come to us and touch our lives in a truly powerful way.

Let us pray for the eyes to see the extraordinary in the ordinary, and to celebrate the remarkable individuals who walk among us every day.

 

 OT XII [B]: Job 38:1, 8-11; II Cor 5:14-17; Mk 4:35-41

Our Old Testament reading and our Gospel today each pose, in their own way, the same question: who is in control? In the midst of his sufferings, Job curses the day of his birth, having found no meaning to his sufferings, and no cause for them in any unrighteousness on his part. But in Chapter 38 he is put in his place by the Lord who finally gives answer from the heart of the whirlwind. The Lord’s answer to Job comes in no uncertain terms: He, the Lord, is in control. Job must understand his own place within the created order, for he is a creature, not God. He was not present when the Lord created the world, he did not see the sea constrained in its place, or the dry land made. It is the Lord who controls all of these things, and not us.

It is in this context that we can understand the Lord’s actions in the boat as a proof of his divinity, for only the Lord could constrain the natural powers by a mere rebuke. From this powerful action comes their wondered confession: Who can this be? Even the wind and sea obey him. 

But we notice that their confession is not yet perfect for even as rebuking the wind and the waves, the Lord offers something of a rebuke to his disciples: Why are you frightened? How is it that you have no faith? The disciples must still, by slow steps, come to know not only that it is the Lord who is in control, but that the Lord stands before them. Witnessing the Lord calming the storm made the disciples' faith grow, though not strong enough.

 

If we are looking for a reason for Job’s suffering or ours, we may not find it. But this we do know: Job’s ordeal has given him an even greater appreciation for God’s goodness. Job’s relationship with God has deepened, his faith has grown stronger and he has become wiser as a result. The same could be said of us whenever we experience hardship or face adversity. It’s not always easy to trust in the Lord’s providence and wisdom. But we are assured by St Paul, “we know that in everything God works for good for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28). We may not see it clearly now, but it makes the hard times a little easier to bear, knowing that there is something to learn and that God will answer us “from the heart of the storm.

 

We need to remember that Jesus is always with us in the boat of our life. All of us are making a journey across the sea of time to the shore of eternity.  Hence, it is natural that, occasionally, we all experience different types of violent storms in our lives: physical storms, emotional storms, and spiritual storms.  We face storms of sorrow, doubt, anxiety, worry, temptation, and passion.  The storms we encounter in life are often what make us or break us; either they bring us closer to God and one another or they alienate us from God and others.  And it is only Jesus who can still these storms for us.  Jesus can give us real peace in the storm of sorrow.  When we are totally depressed with sorrow, Jesus assures us of the glory of the life to come.  At the loss of our dear ones, Jesus consoles us with the assurance of eternal life for them in the Heavenly home of God the Father where we, too, will live one day.  When the storms of doubt seek to uproot the very foundations of our Faith, Jesus is there to still that storm, revealing to us his Divinity and the authority behind the words of the Holy Scripture. 

When helplessly watching the sufferings of a loved one, or in the face of personal tragedy, or in times of depression or natural disaster, we might think that the Lord is sleeping in the boat of our life and he doesn’t care much about us. That is not true.

As a young Indian boy approached manhood it is the custom of his tribe, that he had to undergo several tests to prove his bravery, before acceptance into the fighting braves of the tribe. He was brought out into the middle of a jungle and left there alone all night. He was terrified. Every leaf that fell, every branch that creaked, every movement in the underground caused his heart to pound. He never knew a night could be so long. On several occasions, he would have run away, but where does one run in a jungle in the middle of the night? After what seemed an eternity, the light of dawn began to filter through the trees. In a relatively short time, his eyes got used to the growing light, and soon he was able to see clearly. He moved from where he was and as he approached the nearest tree, he was amazed to find his father standing there with a gun. He had stood there on guard all night long. The young lad’s instant response was to think, “If I had known that my father was watching over me like that, I would have slept soundly all night.” When going through the difficulties we think we are alone and God is far away from us. Only true faith and trust in our loving God can help us see the God who is present to us in the midst of suffering and difficulties. Today, if you are going through difficult times or pains, remember Jesus is there to calm them, but we need to first wake him up in the boat of our lives with our faith and continue to trust in his promise: “In the world, you will have tribulations. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16:33).

"So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41:10).

 OT XI (B) (June 16) Ez 17: 22-24; II Cor 5:6-10; Mk 4:26-34

In the Gospel of today, we have two parables concerning the growth of the Kingdom of God.  He uses the image of the seed and the plant indicating how the Kingdom that he is proclaiming would grow quietly as every farmer would experience. It is a call to belong to the kingdom of God, who calls us to put ourselves fully, consciously, and deliberately under the power of God, to experience that power, and be empowered by it.

When Mark put today’s two parables into writing, he had seen the death of two great apostles of Rome, Peter and Paul. The Parusia or the second coming of Jesus that they were expecting had not come as yet. Nero blamed the Christians for the great fire of Rome and the faith of the Christians was at a risk.  The parables of Jesus given today provide an insight into the Kingdom of Jesus to the early church, as it gives to us today and explains its growth.  

Having done the sowing, all that the farmer can do is to go about his other business, while the seed takes over and does its own work, producing first the shoot, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear, until the crop is ready for the harvest. In the parable, it is said of the farmer that ‘he does not know’ how all this happens. Between his actions of sowing the seed and harvesting the crop, a great deal of activity goes on, which is invisible to him and which he does not fully understand.

Jesus seems to be saying that if the farmer does not know the ways of the humble seed, how can any of us fully know the ways of God? If natural growth is mysterious, how much more mysterious must be the growth of God’s kingdom? The author of the book of Ecclesiastes expressed it well, “Just as you do not know the path of the wind, or how the body is formed in a mother's womb, so you cannot understand the work of God, the Maker of all things” (11:5).

There is a reassuring, hopeful message here for all of us who may be tempted to discouragement by the slow progress that the ways of God appear to be making in the world. The spreading of God’s reign is ultimately God’s work and that work is always underway, even when we do not see it or understand it.

The second parable in today’s gospel reading reminds us that God can be at work in situations and in places that seem very unpromising to us. There is a stark contrast between the tiny mustard seed, ‘the smallest of all the seeds on earth’, and the large shrub whose branches become homes for the birds of the air. Insignificant beginnings can lead to a wonderful result. Jesus says that the kingdom of God is like that; it often finds expression initially in what is small and seemingly insignificant. We can feel at times that our own faith is insignificant, as small as a mustard seed. The parable assures us that the Lord is working in and through such faith. Our hope can appear to diminish to the size of a mustard seed. The parable assures us that the Lord will see to it that the final harvest from those endeavours will be abundant. The parable comforted the people of the early Church in the face of discouragement when their efforts did not seem to be getting them anywhere. How surprised those early Christians would be to see the Church today. We can visualize how the mustard seed has grown in the world of today. 

 

The good news is that you don’t need to have all the answers. You don’t need to rescue yourself or others from a fix. You don’t need to be in control. You don’t need to be superman or superwoman. God has your back. God is the answer. God is always working even when nothing seems to be happening. God will always accomplish His purpose even when our efforts seem to fail, and every situation seems hopeless. This is the reason why in scripture, we often see God deliberately choosing men and women that culture overlooks to expose the hollow pretensions of the people who think they are something. God chooses what the world considers nonsense, weak, and ordinary to not only shame but also destroy all pretentious thinking and inflated pride. He does this so that the only thing that one can boast about is – Christ.

 

Many people who are reading this parable may be very upset because they did everything they could to raise their children in the faith. However, their children stopped practicing their faith when they left for college. Then they got married, outside of the Church, and now have grandchildren who haven't even been baptized. So they may ask, "Where did I go wrong?" Well, they did not go wrong. The world got to them. Such people need to continue to pray that their children will be open to the faith. That seed that they planted may spring into a marvelous tree, but only after a long period of time. God’s reign comes in power through the seemingly insignificant actions of each of one us. But it will bear fruit. This week I got a call for the last sacrament from someone living in our parish limit. The husband is dying of cancer. The doctor said there was only one week left. I haven’t seen either of them in this church all these years. The seed of faith is not dead, that is why they thought about the sacrament of the dying. The faith will start growing in its time, in God’s time.

The Kingdom of God is the growth of God’s rule in human hearts that occurs when man does the will of God and surrenders his life to God. The seed of Faith lies dormant within each of us. When we permit the Holy Spirit to nurture it with TLC (tender loving care), it grows miraculously into gigantic proportions. The growth is slow and microscopic in the beginning. But this seed grows by using the power of the Holy Spirit, given to us through the Word of God, the Mass, the Sacraments, and prayer. As we learn God’s will from His words and try to put these words into practice, we participate in the growth of God’s Kingdom on earth, a growth which will be completed in our Heavenly life. But since we need the special anointing of the Holy Spirit to be doers of the word of God, let us offer our lives before God every day, asking for this special anointing.

 

 OT X (B) Gen 3: 9-15; II Cor 4:13–5:1; Mk 3:20-35 (L/24)

On this tenth Sunday of ordinary time, the Church reminds us that as humans, we all have an existential struggle against evil. The early chapters of the Book of Genesis have much to teach us about why things are as they are today and why we are mostly surrounded by evil. The first reading tells us of the goings on immediately after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree. Is this a true account, exact in every detail? We don’t know as there were no witnesses there taking notes. What we do know is that all mankind is descended from Adam and Eve and that we all bear the stain of their first (the original) sin. We also know that the Holy Spirit guided the human author of this account thousands, if not millions, of years later to set down the theological truths that God wanted to be revealed.

The reading says after the Great Fall, The LORD God then called to the man: where are you? Isn’t God omnipotent? Yes, He is. Doesn’t He know everything? yes, He does. What He is doing is telling the man that He knows something is wrong, and He is inviting the man to tell Him about it. The question really is “Where are you in your relationship to me?” It is always God who issues the invitation to confess our sins to Him – He does it with a little nudge of the conscience. God knows all our sins, but He wants us to verbalize them so that we are sure that we know what they are.

The man’s reply was: “I heard you in the garden. The King James Version says I heard your voice, but I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. He recognized that he was lacking something – it’s not clothing that he was lacking, it’s God’s grace.

Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?  Since they are the only two humans in all creation; God points out that it is his conscience that has pointed out his sin.

God says You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!” God now points out what the sin was – he has eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He is now able to recognize that they have done evil and have lost grace.

Then the blame game begins. Adam blames Eve for his state. She blames the serpent. This is so typical of evil. The person who does evil is always looking to implicate other people rather than accept his responsibility for the evil deed. In the Catholic Church we teach our children to take responsibility for their misdeeds as soon as they are able to distinguish right from wrong. That is why we have First Penance at 7 years old. By doing this, we are teaching our children to fight against evil.

Why does God approach the man first? After all, the woman was the first to eat the forbidden fruit (Gen 3:6).

Before God made the woman, He had put the man in the garden to work it and to keep it (Gen 2:15). The Hebrew word (shammar) translated as “keep” can also be translated as “guard” (keep safe). After this commission, then God commands the man not to eat of the tree. If he was to guard the garden, he must guard everything and everyone in it, including his companion; and there must be something to guard against. The man failed to keep the serpent from influencing his wife and himself – he had only one command to obey: Do not eat of the tree.

The command not to eat had been given to the man before the woman was created. The man had instructed the woman, but she did not heed his direction but chose instead to listen to the serpent. She had chosen the serpent over her husband – a form of adultery. Remember that the Bible is all about covenant – family. She ate with the serpent rather than with her husband. She had communion with him.

Then the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; On your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. The devil will not have influence over any of God’s creation except man (who was made from dirt). The only example we have in the Holy Scripture of demonic possession of animals is in Matthew 8:30-32 (Mark 5:11-13; Luke 8:32-33) where demons enter a herd of swine and then commit suicide rather than be possessed.

God cursed Satan saying, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” Have all women (or men, for that matter) had total separation/rejection between them and Satan? Obviously not, but “the woman” was sinless until this event, and her name is changed to Eve as a result (Gen 3:20). There has been sparring between the devil and mankind ever since. Total enmity occurred when another sinless woman came along; a woman whose own son referred to her as “woman” as a sign of respect, The Blessed Virgin Mary.

On this Sunday, the Church reminds us that as humans, we all have an existential struggle against evil. However, the good news is that, we are illuminated through the assurance of victory, through the seed of the woman (Mary).

In today’s Gospel Jesus is the victim of calumny by his opponents. The scribes say that Jesus has made a pact with the devil and that it’s by the devil's power that he casts out demons. The Lord defends himself by asking quite logically: “How can Satan cast out Satan?” “A household divided against itself cannot stand.”  Jesus points out to them the absurdity of their thinking that he uses the devil to cast out demons. In fact, it is Jesus who ties up the strong man, Beelzebub, and overcomes him. To any honest mind, these miracles proved that he was, at least, a friend of God.

Be sure of this: there is a war which is being waged. Paul says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:12). And we, as followers of Christ, have no choice but to be involved. There will be skirmishes in every one of our lives. There will be times when we might think we are losing. We are not losing. The outcome of the war is certain in God’s time, the Son of God will crush the head of the serpent. Trusting in God’s power God has granted us in our baptism, let’s have that confidence to fight the enemy of the human race, and keep him out of our homes and lives. 

 THE MOST HOLY BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST [B]: (Ex 24:3-8, Heb 9:11-15, Mk 14:12-16, 22-26)

Today, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ, popularly known as Corpus Christi. It was introduced in the late 13th century to encourage the faithful to give special adoration to the Holy Eucharist. Why was it necessary to institute a new feast? Doesn't the Church recall the institution of the Eucharist on Holy Thursday? Doesn't she celebrate it every Sunday and, more than that, every day of the year? In fact, Corpus Christi is the first feast whose object is not an event of the life of Christ, but a truth of faith: His real presence in the Eucharist.

Both our first and second readings talk about covenant, sacrifice, and blood. According to the first reading, the old covenant was sealed with the blood of animal sacrifice which Moses sprinkled on the people. On the contrary, the second reading reminds us that the new covenant was sealed with the blood of Christ. While in the first covenant blood was poured on the covenant parties, in the second covenant the sacrificial blood was consumed by the covenant parties. When we receive communion we reaffirm our acceptance of the New Covenant with God. This is more than just saying, “I agree.” Communion is an intimate sharing of the presence of Christ conquering evil on the Cross. We are not just stained with blood. We take the blood of the Lamb within us. We don’t just offer young bulls for sacrifice. We take the sacrifice within us. The sacrifice is the Body of Christ.

 

While the first covenant never guaranteed eternal life, the new one does because it was sealed with costly blood through a perfect sacrifice offered once and for all. In the gospel, Christ instituted the Holy Eucharist. Here he was both the priest and the victim.

There is a danger that believers face at present regarding the Eucharist which is to trivialize it. There was a time when it was not received so frequently, and fasting and confession had to precede it. Today, virtually everyone approaches it. It is normal that participation in Mass also implies Communion; that is why it exists. But all this entails a mortal risk. St. Paul says: Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, will be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord. Let each one examine himself and then eat the bread and drink the cup because he who eats and drinks without discerning eats and drinks judgment unto himself. We cannot receive God except as "God," that is, respecting all His holiness and majesty. Therefore, worthy reception is demanded from the recipients.  A worthy reception will enable us to communicate with Jesus on a deeper level. Every petition we make is heard by the Lord, particularly when he is within us.

Today’s gospel reading describes the moment when Jesus gave the gift of the Eucharist to his first disciples. It was Jesus’ last meal with them, on the evening before he was crucified. At this last supper, Jesus gave himself to his disciples in a way that was distinctive and memorable. The last supper may have been the last in a whole series of meals, but Jesus also intended it to be a beginning, the beginning of what we have come to call the Eucharist. This is why in the earliest account of the Last Supper in one of Paul’s letters, and also in Luke’s gospel, Jesus goes on to say, ‘Do this in memory of me’. In other words, ‘Repeat what I have just said and done’.

The Lord’s giving of himself in love to his disciples at the last supper looked ahead to the gift he would make of himself to them and to all humanity the following day. On the cross, he gave his body and his blood, his entire self, out of love for us all. The love that shone through Jesus on the cross was shining through him at the last supper and continues to shine through him at every Eucharist. That is why Saint Paul could write to the church in Corinth about twenty five years after the last supper, ‘As often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes’. At every Eucharist, we are proclaiming the Lord’s death, the Lord’s self-giving love on the cross, and that love becomes present to us in a powerful way. The Lord who gave himself on Calvary gives himself to us at every Eucharist. As at the last supper he called on his disciples to take his gift of himself, the gift of his love, so at every Eucharist he calls on us to take his gift of himself, to receive his love into our lives. The Lord’s love that we are invited to receive at every Eucharist is a costly love, it is the love of one who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life for all. We are sent from the Eucharist to share this costly love that we have received, so that the Lord can continue to serve others through us. The Lord comes to us in the Eucharist to catch us up into the rhythm of his own self-giving love. He comes to us so that he can live in and through us, so that his attitudes and values can take flesh in our daily lives. Because we receive the Eucharist so often, it is easy to overlook the huge commitment we are making to live and spread the Kingdom of God.

 Sharing in the Eucharist places several significant demands on us, calling us to live in ways that reflect the profound spiritual and communal significance of the sacrament.

Sharing in the Eucharist calls us to emulate Christ’s love and sacrifice by serving others. This includes acts of charity, justice, and compassion, particularly towards the poor, marginalized, and those in need. The sacrament strengthens and sends believers out to be Christ’s hands and feet in the world. As we are dismissed today at the end of the Mass, let’s recognize that we are going out with Christ’s hands and feet and heart and mind to reach out to other people as Christ would today.

 

 

 HOLY TRINITY: Dt 4:32-34, 39-40; Rom 8:14-17; Mt 28:16-20

There’s a story about a young boy who climbs up a mountain in India, and there he meets a guru who is half asleep; he wakes him up and says, “I want you to explain God to me.”

And the guru smiled and said, “A God that can be explained is not a God that you should worship.” And he smiled and went back to sleep.

A God that can be explained is not a God that you should worship because if you can explain Him, it means that you’ve reduced God, the Creator of the world, to be another one of us.

The mystery of the most Holy Trinity is a basic doctrine of Faith in Christianity, understandable not with our heads but with our hearts. It is not like the ideological monotheistic god of Islam, but a revelational and relational God.  The Trinity is not merely an abstract doctrine but a living reality that shapes our faith and practice. It teaches us that God is relational and communal, inviting us into a divine fellowship of love. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are in a perfect relationship of love, and we are called to reflect that love in our relationships with others.

The oldest doctrinal formulation of the Church’s belief in the Trinity is found in the Apostles’ Creed which has served both as the basis of instruction for catechumens and as the Baptismal confession of Faith since the second century.  Later, the Nicene Creed, originating at the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), stated the doctrine more explicitly.  

The Christian life develops completely in the sign and presence of the Trinity. At the dawn of life, we were baptized "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," and at the end, at the bedside, the words recited by the priest when giving the last sacrament are: "Go forth from this world, O Christian soul, in the name of God, the Almighty Father who created you, in the name of Jesus Christ who redeemed you, and in the name of the Holy Spirit who sanctifies you."

Christians believe that God is one and triune because they believe that God is love! The revelation of God as love, revealed by Jesus, has "obliged" one to admit the Trinity. It is not a human invention. If God is love, He has to love someone. There is no love "in the void," without an object. But, whom does God love to be defined as love? Men? But men have existed only for thousands of years, no more. The cosmos? The universe? The universe has existed only for billions of years. Before that, whom did God love, to be able to define himself as love? We cannot say that he loved himself, because this would not be love but egoism and narcissism.

This is the answer to Christian revelation: God is love because from eternity he has "in his bosom" a son, the Word, the one he loves with an infinite love, that is, with the Holy Spirit. In every love, there are always three realities or subjects: one who loves, one who is loved, and the love that unites them. The Christian God is one and triune because he is the communion of love. In love, unity and plurality are reconciled; love creates unity in diversity: unity of intentions, of thought, of will; diversity of subjects, of characteristics and, in the human realm, of sex. In this connection, the family is the least imperfect image of the Trinity. A husband and wife become one in their intimate expression of love, as the bible says, they shall become one flesh, and in that intimate expression of love, a child is born. A family is not just a father and mother but also includes a child/children. It was no accident that when creating the first human couple God said: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen 1:26-27).

When the Church describes something as a mystery, she is making the point that this truth cannot be known to us independently of such revelation from God. Our natural faculties including our intellect would not be able to arrive at this conclusion without God Himself having revealed or shown it to us. The Apostles, the monotheistic Jews, would never have come to know of God as a trinity had it not been revealed to them and they personally experienced it in their lives.

God is so far above us that we can never fully understand Him. We, mortals, would be incapable of knowing that God exists as One but in three distinct persons if this has not been revealed to us through Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition.

Speaking about mystery, isn’t a human person itself a mystery? Which wife or husband knows the other perfectly well? Doesn’t your wife or husband reveal to you as a mystery each day? Which parent knows his/her children well? Every day each one of us is revealed as a mystery. Who among us knows oneself fully well? I am a mystery to myself.

Although the word “mystery” implies a certain distance, it involves an intimate encounter. A relationship would remain shallow if the parties are not willing to open themselves to the other. All would agree that there should be no secrets between lovers. The reason why God would unlock and reveal a mystery to us is because He loves us and wishes to engage us and wants us to enter into a relationship with Him. Through this relationship, we come to know Him and by knowing Him more and more, we get to deepen our relationship with Him. This knowledge, admittedly, is not exhaustive but engaging. It draws us closer to the One who can never be fully known. It is a relationship of love. Just like the more you get to know someone you love, the more the person is revealed to be a mystery.

Now that we know His motivation is love, why would God bother to reveal Himself to us? That we might have Eternal Life. And what is eternal life? It is actually sharing in the supernatural life of the Blessed Trinity. How can we share in a life which we have no knowledge of? Impossible. That is why, the more we come to know God, the more we wish to enter into a deeper communion with Him.

Because God is love, we are able to truly love. Because God is unity, we are able to be united to Him. Because God is three Persons, we are able to have communion with Him. This is the reason why this dogma is the central mystery of faith.

May the Holy Trinity help us to know him better each day so that “we may love Him, serve Him, and be with Him in paradise forever.”

 

 

 

 

 

 Pentecost [B] Acts 2:1-11; I Cor 12:3b-7, 12-13; or Gal 5:16-25, Jn 20:19-23

When we look around our little church here, we will find that there is no shortage of images, mostly in the form of statues and paintings of Jesus, Mary, and the saints. There is a long tradition of images within the church, beginning with the paintings in the Catacombs in Rome. The Holy Spirit, whose feast we celebrate today, does not lend itself all that easily to imagery. The traditional image of the Holy Spirit is the dove. That is drawn from the gospel accounts of the baptism of Jesus. There are two other images of the Holy Spirit in this morning’s first reading from the Acts of the Apostles. Luke says that all who gathered in one room heard what sounded like a powerful wind from heaven; he goes on to say that something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire. Just as the evangelists do not say that there was an actual dove at the baptism of Jesus, Luke does not say that there was an actual wind and fire at Pentecost. There is something about the Holy Spirit that does not lend itself to any kind of concrete representation because the Holy Spirit cannot be seen as such. Yet, the Holy Spirit is profoundly real.

 

There is a great deal in our universe that is real but is not visible to the naked eye. We may need a microscope or a powerful telescope to see it. What we see with our eyes is only a fraction of our physical world. The Holy Spirit is part of the spiritual world, and so it is not surprising that we cannot see the Spirit with our physical eyes.

 

In today’s second reading, for example, Saint Paul, uses an image drawn from nature; he speaks about the fruit of the Spirit. He is talking about the visible impact of the Spirit on someone’s life. We may not be able to see the Holy Spirit, but we can see the impact of the Spirit in someone’s life, just as we cannot see the wind, but we can see the impact of the wind on people and objects of various kinds. Paul is saying, ‘wherever you find love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control, the Spirit is there at work’. The Spirit becomes visible in and through these qualities, these virtues. The person who possessed those qualities in abundance was Jesus because he was full of the Holy Spirit, full of the life of God.

 

Paul gives a full list of works of the Spirit and their opposites, the works of the flesh, that is, the works of natural, unreformed, and selfish behaviour. Christ has sent His Spirit so that our behaviour may be completely changed, and we may live with His life. The works of the flesh are not merely the gross, ‘fleshly’ distortions of greed, avarice, and sexual license, but include also such failings as envy and quarrels. Paul’s list is a useful little checklist to apply to our own way of life. The desires of self-indulgence are always in opposition to the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are in opposition to self-indulgence: they are opposites, one against the other; that is how we are prevented from doing the things that we want to.

What is self-indulgence and why is it the greatest threat to a life in the Spirit? Self-indulgence, simply put, is the desire for pleasure. If we look carefully at people today and modern society in general, we see immediately that they are dominated by the passion of love of pleasure or self-indulgence. Human beings have a constant tendency towards this terrible passion, which destroys their whole life and deprives them of the possibility of communion with God. The passion of self-indulgence wrecks the work of salvation.

According to the Fathers of the Church, self-indulgence is one of the main causes of every abnormality in man’s spiritual and bodily organism. It is the source of all the vices and all the passions that assault both soul and body. St Theodore, Bishop of Edessa, teaches that there are three general passions that give rise to all the others: love of pleasure, love of money, and love of praise. Other evil originate from these three, and subsequently “from these arise a great swarm of passions and all manner of evil.”
The antidote and cure to this predilection to sin is living a vibrant life in the Spirit. St Paul assured us that “If you are guided by the Spirit you will be in no danger of yielding to self-indulgence, since self-indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit.” In the list of the fruits of the Spirit listed by Paul, self-control is listed last instead of first even though we may assume that self-control is the clearest antidote to self-indulgence. And yet, love is listed first. The reason is that love always seeks the well-being of the other rather than oneself, and if there is no love even in the ascetic practices of our faith, we are merely empty gongs, and everything we do, even if it has the appearance of a virtue, is self-serving.

It is precisely because we continue to struggle with self-indulgence that we have to constantly allow the Spirit to fortify us and strengthen our resolve to be holy and faithful to the Lord.

Today, we remember how the Risen Lord, breathed His Spirit on the apostles and on all of us, saying: “Receive the Holy Spirit!” The Spirit comes to each one of us as a gift but also as a challenge to the ongoing conversion of our hearts and minds. As the source and giver of all holiness, let’s implore the Holy Spirit to keep us in grace and remove those artificial obstacles, habits, and ways of thinking that prevent us from living fully in and for Christ. Let’s also listen to the exhortation of Paul:  “Walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.  If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16, 25).

 

 THE FEAST OF ASCENSION [B]  (Acts 1:1-11; Eph 1:17-23 or 4:1-13; Mk 16:15-20)

Today, we are celebrating the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord. The Ascension marks the completion of Jesus' earthly and bodily presence on earth.  Jesus had to return to his Father so that he could send the Holy Spirit to make his work continue in and through his disciples.

The feast of the Ascension is not about the departure of Jesus somewhere above us, but, rather, about the ways that the Lord is present among us, helping us to share in his work of proclaiming the gospel everywhere. How do we proclaim the gospel? We do so not so much by our words but by our lives.

 Rebecca Pippert, the author of Out of the Salt Shaker: Into the World, tells of a time she was sitting in her car at a traffic light with her window rolled down. As the light turned green a car drove by and its occupant threw something into her car hitting her on the cheek. It didn’t hurt but she was so startled that she pulled over immediately. When she unrolled the paper, she discovered it was a Gospel tract. She says she was the apparent victim of what she refers to as “torpedo evangelism.” —the torpedoer meant well. But he or she did the wrong thing for the right reason in the wrong way. We can engage people in conversation about their Faith and their relationship with God in a non-judgmental manner. We can encourage. We can invite. We can offer counsel. But we leave the hard work, the heart work, up to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

It is through the Holy Spirit that the risen Lord works among us and within us to enable us to become fully mature with the fullness of Christ himself. Today’s feast is very closely related to next Sunday’s feast, the feast of Pentecost, the feast of the Holy Spirit. The period after the resurrection, when the risen Lord was present to his first disciples in visible, bodily form, had to come to an end before he could be present to disciples of every generation, to us today, in and through the Holy Spirit.

In the first reading, it is said that the risen Lord was lifted up while the disciples looked on, and after he was lifted up, they were ‘staring into the sky’. It is as if they did not want the visual connection between themselves and the Lord to end. They peered after him, anxious to see him and to know that he saw them. After the crucifixion they thought they would never see him again; then he appeared to them in bodily form, although in a transformed state. Now, that period of his visible risen presence to them was coming to an end, he took his leave of them again. According to that first reading, while they were staring into the sky, two men in white put the question to them, ‘Why are you men from Galilee standing here looking into the sky?

The question that the two men ask in our first reading today suggests that the disciples were looking in the wrong direction if they wanted to see the Lord. They won’t see him standing there, looking into the sky. They will have to look elsewhere to see the Lord. The Lord remains visibly present to his disciples, although in a different way from how he was visibly present immediately after his resurrection. The second reading suggests where the disciples need to look to continue seeing the Lord. That reading makes reference to the Body of Christ, the church. According to that reading, when the Lord ascended, he gave gifts to his followers. ‘Each of us’ - in the words of Paul - ‘has been given his or her own share of grace, given as Christ has allotted it’. Because of the Lord’s return to God, we have each been greatly graced and gifted through the sending of the Spirit. The sending of the Spirit and the gifts that accompanied the Spirit’s sending brought into being the Body of Christ, of which we are all members through faith and baptism. It is above all in and through his Body, the Church, that the risen Lord is present and visible in the world. Rather than looking up into the sky to see and meet the risen Lord, we are invited to look towards the members of Christ’s body. We, the baptized, are all called to be the sacrament of Christ, the place where Christ is powerfully present in the world.

Though, the Lord was taken up, was taken away, yet he was working with them. The Lord did not ascend to distance himself from the church, but to be closer to the church. Again, St. Paul understood this very clearly as a result of his meeting with the risen Lord on the road to Damascus. After persecuting the church with great zeal, the risen Lord appeared to him and asked him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?’ In persecuting the church, Saul came to realize that he was persecuting the Lord because, as today’s gospel says, the Lord was working with those who were witnessing to him. Today’s feast then is more about presence than about absence. We celebrate the Lord’s presence in the church. His Spirit has been poured into our hearts and, together, we are his body.

We pray on this feast of the Ascension that we would be faithful to the task that the Lord has given us, and that we would come to recognise the ways the Lord is working with us as we seek to do that task.

 EASTER VI [B]: Acts 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48; I Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15: 9-17

One of the greatest gifts in life is friendship. The Book of Sirach in the Old Testament declares, ‘A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter: whoever has found one has found a treasure. For many married people, their best friend is their spouse. All of us, hopefully, whether married or not, have a faithful friend, someone who loves us as we are, who listens to us when we need someone to share with, who stands by us in good times and in dark times. It is difficult to get through life without the love of a friend.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus says to his disciples, ‘I call you friends.’ What Jesus says to them, he says to each one of us. He says that he reveals his friendship for us in two ways. Friends trust one another enough to share what is deepest in their hearts. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus says ‘I have made known to you, everything I have learned from my Father’. What was deepest in Jesus’ heart was his relationship with God, his Father, and he has shared that relationship with us. In the words of the second reading, he has revealed God to be Love. He hasn’t simply spoken to us about God’s love but has given expression to God’s unconditional love in his whole way of life and, especially, in his death. When we speak of God’s love as unconditional, we must understand that His love is not something that can be bought. It is not given to us as a quid pro quo, a reward for good behavior, or payment for some devotion or sacrifice which we have made to earn that love. St John asserts that God loved us while we were still sinners. His love for us is not dependent on us being righteous or worthy. No sacrifice or price we are willing to pay would be sufficient to purchase it. It is not fully true to say that God’s love makes no demands on us. In fact, a great deal is demanded of us. And here we have it in both the second reading and the gospel that God’s love challenges us to a new way of life that makes certain demands of us.

Firstly, we are required to obey and keep His commandments. His commandments are an expression of His will and our refusal to obey those commandments is rebellion against His will. To claim that we love God and yet oppose His will would be a lie.

Secondly, predominant among God’s commandments is the commandment to love others: “Love one another, as I have loved you.” This is the benchmark by which all love is to be measured. We do not just love those who have been good to us, who have treated us well, whom we are indebted to. Love extends even to those who have done nothing to deserve it, those outside our circle of friends and family, and even those whom we consider enemies. Of course, we are not commanded to “like”, as “liking” or “not liking” someone is purely subjective. True love is never subjective. To love, instead, is to intend the well-being of the other person. And this is something that can be accomplished and measured objectively. This is why St John can argue that “Anyone who fails to love can never have known God, because God is love.”


Jesus also says that he has befriended us in a complete way, ‘so that his own joy may be in us and our joy be complete’. The gift of true friendship is a blessing that always brings us joy. A faithful friend is one of the great joys of life. Jesus himself knew the joy of God his Father’s friendship. By befriending us, he wants us to share in his joy. By loving us as God loves him, he wants us to know a joy that nothing in this world can give us, a joy that is complete. We can seek happiness in all kinds of places, but true joy, a joy that is deeply rooted and lasting, is found when we open ourselves up to the gift of the Lord’s faithful friendship. We will only fully experience the joy Jesus speaks about in eternal life when we will be fully opened up to God’s love, but here and now Jesus wants us to begin to experience this joy by receiving the gift of his friendship.

 

The primary way we remain in Jesus’ loving friendship is by allowing his faithful love to flow through us and embrace the lives of others. We are to love one another as he loves us, to find ways of befriending one another as he has befriended us. Jesus poured out on us the love he received from God his Father, and we are to pour out on others the love we receive from Jesus. When this happens, then our joy will be complete. May the risen Lord who commanded his disciples to love one another as he had loved them give us the grace to love others as he loves us without counting the cost.

 

 

 

 EASTER V [B]:  Acts 9:26-31; 1Jn 3:18-24; Jn 15:1-8

 

We live in an age that tends to put a high value on independence. We like to feel that we have our destiny in our own hands. One of the aspects of reaching old age that can trouble us is the prospect of losing our independence. We want to be as independent as possible for as long as possible. Yet, we are also aware that independence is a relative thing. We know that we depend on each other in all kinds of ways all through life. We are totally dependent on others at the beginning of life, and, probably, for many of us, at the end of life as well. In between the beginning and end of life, we never escape fully from that dependency on others.

The gospel strongly proclaims our ultimate dependence on God, and also our dependence on each other, because one of the primary ways that God is present to us is through each other. The first Christians had a stronger sense of this than we do of their dependence on one another, if they were to become all that God was calling them to be. In today’s first reading, Luke describes a moment in Paul’s early life as a Christian when he was very dependent on one person in particular, Barnabas. Paul had only recently changed from being one of the most zealous persecutors of the church to being one of its most enthusiastic missionaries. He very much wanted to join the community of disciples in Jerusalem but, given his former reputation, they were all afraid of him and kept him at a distance. It took Barnabas to convince everyone that Paul was a changed person. Paul would go on to be a much more significant person in the early church than Barnabas. Yet, he was completely dependent on Barnabas to create that initial opening for him.

When Jesus says, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches’, he is addressing all the baptized. He is speaking about the very deep communion that he wants to have with each one of us, in virtue of our baptism. When we look at a fully grown vine, it can be hard to know where the stem ends and where the branches begin. Jesus was very familiar with vines; there were plenty of them in Galilee. He saw in the intimate relationship between the stem of the vine and its branches an image of the relationship he wanted to have with each of us and wanted each of us to have with him. He doesn’t say, ‘I am the vine and now you must become the branches’, but rather, ‘I am the vine and you are the branches’. He has taken the initiative to enter into this relationship with us and he will never take back his initiative. Our calling is to remain in that relationship which he has initiated with us. In the gospel reading, he calls on us to remain in him, as branches need to remain on the vine. Another way Jesus expresses this call in the gospel reading is, ‘Make your home in me, as I make mine in you’. The Lord has chosen to make his home in us, through the Holy Spirit, and now he calls on us to make our home in him.

What Jesus is doing in today’s gospel reading is reminding us that what is essential in our faith is nurturing our relationship with him, so that we can live off the sap that flows from him, just as the branches of the vine live off the sap that flows from the roots of the vine up into the stem. We might be tempted to think that a close union with Jesus is only for saints and mystics. It is a privilege that is granted to us all. Jesus knew that only our close communion with him would make it possible for us to live his life, which is a life of loving service to others. This is the fruit that Jesus speaks about in the gospel reading. ‘Whoever remains in me, with me in them, bears fruit in plenty’. Only a branch united to the vine can produce grapes and only if we are united to the Lord through faith can our lives bear the fruit of the Lord’s love.

 

It is normal for a vine to be pruned. There is nothing exceptional about the work of pruning. It is part and parcel of the life of a healthy vine, because there is always some part of the vine that needs pruning. Similarly, with our own lives, there is always a sense in which something in us needs to be pruned if we are to become all that God is calling us to be. One day, Michelangelo walking through a garden in Florence saw a block of marble in a corner protruding from the earth, half covered by grass and mud. He stopped suddenly, as if he had seen someone, and turning to friends, who were with him, exclaimed: "An angel is imprisoned in that marble; I must get him out." And, armed with a chisel, he began to work on that block until the figure of a beautiful angel emerged. God also looks at us and sees us this way: as shapeless blocks of stone. He then says to himself: "Therein is hidden a new and beautiful creature that waits to come out to the light; more than that, the image of my own son Jesus Christ is hidden there, I want to bring it out!" We are predestined to "be conformed to the image of his son" (Romans 8:29).

For the branches to bear fruit, being attached to the vine is not the only essential prerequisite, pruning is just as essential as well. A gardener understands that he needs to prune in order to help the plant realize its full potential. Through pruning, growth that is dead or dying is removed, the size and quality of the fruit are improved, and new fruit is encouraged to develop. Recognizing that unless we allow ourselves to be pruned, we may end up being barren or stagnant, let’s pray for the grace to receive and accept pruning without grumbling and stay united with the vine producing the expected fruit.  

 EASTER IV [B] SUNDAY: Acts 4:8-12; I Jn 3:1-2; Jn 10:11-18 

The fourth Sunday of Easter is known as Good Shepherd Sunday. It is also the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. Each year on this Sunday we reflect on the image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, devotedly taking care of his flock.   In the past, we tended to restrict the term ‘vocation’ to the priesthood and the religious life. Yet, everyone in the church has a vocation, and, today, we are invited to reflect a little on the different ways in which we have each been given a vocation. Each of us is called by God. We all find ourselves standing before the call of God.

The particular way the Lord calls us and works through us will be unique to each one of us. I can do something for the Lord that only I can do. Each one of us has a unique contribution to make to the work of the Lord in the church and in the world, and that contribution is just as important as anyone else’s contribution. We each have a unique vocation and each vocation is equally significant. When we each respond to our own unique vocation, we are supporting others in their response to the unique call of the good shepherd to them.

The theme that the Pope has chosen for this Vocation Sunday is ‘vocation to service’. Each one of us, in different ways, has been given the vocation to service. In his message for this Vocations Sunday the Pope reminds us that Jesus is the perfect model of the ‘servant’. He is the one who came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. In the words of today’s gospel reading, he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his flock. All that he received from God he gave to others, he gave for others. This is at the heart of our own vocation to service too. All that we have and all that we are we have received from God, and we are called to place what we have received at the service of others.

The Pope in his message for this Vocations Sunday states that service is possible for everyone, through gestures that seem small, but, are, in reality, great, if they are animated by sincere love. The ways in which we live out our vocation to service can often be small and hidden. We give something of ourselves in service to someone. What we give may seem insignificant – a listening ear, a word of encouragement, a small gesture of some kind, what the gospel calls in one place a ‘cup of cold water’. We don’t have to think of service in terms only of the big commitment, the huge undertaking, or the absorbing task. It is in that relatively small space that most of our vocation to service is to be lived. The way we live out our vocation to service in that space will not make headlines, and may never become known beyond a small circle. Yet, as the Pope says in his message, when interpersonal relationships are inspired by mutual service a new world is created.  

In the gospel reading Jesus says that he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. Perhaps one of the reasons why the image appealed to Christians from earliest times is because it conveyed something of the personal nature of the relationship between Jesus and his followers. The image of the good shepherd carrying the straying sheep on his shoulders conveys a sense of the close personal connection that the shepherd has with his individual sheep. He declares that he knows his own and his own know him, just as the Father knows him and he knows the Father. It is an extraordinary statement to make. Jesus is saying that the relationship that he has with each one of us is as intimate as the very personal relationship that he has with his heavenly Father. Jesus knows us as intimately as the Father knows him. When it comes to the Lord we are not just one of a crowd, lost in a sea of faces. In a way that we will never fully understand, the Lord knows each one of us by name. We only really know those we love. It is because the Lord loves each of us so completely that he knows each of us so fully. Saint Paul expresses this conviction in his letter to the Galatians saying, ‘I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me’. We can each make our own those words of Saint Paul.

 

The first reading declares that the stone that was rejected by the builders proved to be the keystone. There is a clear reference there to Jesus himself. He was the rejected one who became the keystone of a new family, the church. There is a sense in which the Lord sees each of us as the keystone for some aspect of his mission. We are all key to the Lord’s work, and he calls each of us by name from the first moment of our conception to share in that work. On this Vocations Sunday let’s commit ourselves anew to hearing and responding to the call of the good shepherd. With trust and confidence, let’s join the psalmist in praying: The Lord is my Shepherd, there is nothing I shall want.

 

 

 OT II [B] I Sam 3:3b-10, 19; I Cor 6:13c-15a, 17-20; Jn 1:35-42

A stranger once asked a teacher, “What’s your profession?” The teacher replied, “Christian,” The stranger continued, “No, that’s not what I mean. What’s your job?” The teacher asserted, once again, “I’m a Christian!” Puzzled, the stranger clarified, “Perhaps I should ask, what do you do for a living?” The teacher replied, “Well, I’ve a full-time job as a Christian. But, to support my sick husband and children, I teach in a school.” — That teacher had certainly understood the meaning of discipleship summarised by today’s Responsorial Psalm (40): “Here I am, Lord, I come to do Your will.”  What is that God wants us to do? The characters in the Scripture reading will help us to find out.

John the Baptist recognized himself as someone called to prepare the way for the Greater one coming after him. He saw the Spirit coming down on Jesus and revealed to him that Jesus was the chosen Son of God. Far from keeping that discovery to himself, he shared it with his own disciples, even though he knew that in doing so, he was going to lose them to Jesus. He pointed two of his disciples in the direction of Jesus. A short while later, one of those two disciples, Andrew, did for his brother, Peter, what John the Baptist had done for him. He led his brother to Jesus. In the first reading, Eli did something similar for Samuel, helping him to hear God’s call. The readings this Sunday put before us three people, John the Baptist, Andrew and Eli, each of whom, in different ways, led others to the one who is the source of life. They all lived to do God’s will.

We could probably all identify a John the Baptist or an Andrew or an Eli in our own lives, people who, in some way or another, brought us to the Lord, or helped us to recognize and receive the Lord who was present to us. We might think first of our own parents who brought us to the baptismal font. As early as possible into our lives they wanted to say to us what John the Baptist said to his disciples, ‘Look, there is the lamb of God’. Then, as we began to grow, they helped us to know the Lord whose followers we had become in baptism, bringing us to the church, praying with us, reading stories from the gospels to us, taking us to see the crib at Christmas, placing an image of the Lord or of one of the saints in our room, helping us to prepare for the sacraments of the Eucharist and Confirmation. If we were fortunate, we might have had a good religion teacher at school who took us a step further in our relationship with the Lord, who enabled us to ‘come and see’, in the words of the gospel reading today.

Samuel, who was led to the Lord by Eli, is described in the first reading as a boy. However, the two disciples who were led to the Lord by John the Baptist and Peter, who was led there by Andrew, were all adults. It was as adults that they allowed themselves to be directed towards the person of Jesus. In our adult years, we too may have met people who helped us to grow in our relationship with the Lord.

At any time in our adult life we can meet a John the Baptist who says to us, ‘Look, there is the Lamb of God’, and that can happen to us over and over again, right up to the very end of our lives. The Lord never ceases to call us through others. At no point does he say, this person no longer needs a John the Baptist. There may indeed come a time when the Lord asks any one of us to be a John the Baptist or an Andrew or an Eli for somebody else. We hear the call to share our faith in some way, to open a door to the Lord for others. Our response to such a call can take many different forms. For Eli it took the very simple form of saying the right word to Samuel when it was needed.

Today is a day to give thanks for all those who introduced us to the Lord, who played the role in our lives that Eli played in the life of Samuel, that Andrew played in the life of Peter, that Peter played in the life of many others, and that, later on in John’s gospel, the Samaritan woman played in the life of her townspeople, and that Mary Magdalene played in the life of the other disciples on East Sunday morning. Both these women played a significant role in bringing others to the Lord. Each of us is called to bring others to the Lord, perhaps just one person. We don’t have to be great missionaries to introduce someone to the Lord. Very often, our own quiet and faithful witness to the Lord and his way of life will, in time, bear that rich fruit for others.

But let’s realize the fact that before bearing witness, we should know the one we are going to bear witness, to know Christ, the lamb of God. Knowing Jesus is a matter of personal and first-hand experience of Jesus, which is obtained through the meditative reading and study of the Bible, through personal and family prayers, and through the Sacraments, especially by participation in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, and primarily in the Eucharistic celebration.

Once we have experienced the personal presence of Jesus in our daily lives, we will start sharing with others the Good News of the love, peace, justice, tolerance, mercy, and forgiveness that Jesus preached. May the Lord help us to have a dynamic and living experience of Jesus, which will enable us to invite and encourage people to come and participate in our Church activities.

 EPIPHANY OF THE LORD: Is 60:1-6; Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6; Mt 2:1-12 

 

The feast of the Epiphany is the celebration of the Lord’s manifestation to all peoples, represented by the Magi, who came from the East to adore the King of the Jews.  The adoration of the Magi fulfils the oracle of Isaiah in the first reading, prophesying that the nations of the world would travel to the Holy City following a brilliant light and would bring gold and incense to contribute to the worship of God.

 

In the ancient world, the appearance of a new star or a comet was often associated with the birth or death of a great ruler. According to our gospel reading, when these magi from the east noticed a new star rising, they associated it with the birth of the long-awaited King of the Jews, and so they set out in search of this child. Their fascination with the wonders of creation launched them on a spiritual journey, a pilgrimage. They left their home and set out on a long journey, guided by the new star they had seen rising. There is something of the searcher, the seeker, in each one of us. There is always some restlessness within us, a restlessness of the spirit and of the heart. Saint Augustine said that our hearts are restless until they rest in God. That spiritual restlessness often sends us forth on pilgrimages to places that have been touched by God in some special way. We leave home, if only for a few days or weeks, and we set out to a holy place where we sense we will meet the Lord or the Lord will meet us. Even if we never set out on a physical pilgrimage, like the magi, we will always be giving expression to this spiritual restlessness within us, this deep-rooted desire to come closer to God. It is this restlessness which inspires us to pray, brings us to Mass and to the sacraments.

 

As well as being aware of our searching spirit, we can also be aware of being drawn by the one for whom we search. Jesus says of himself that he came to seek out the lost. His search for us is prior to our search for him, and our search for him is ultimately in response to his search of us, his searching love. The Lord drew the magi to himself through a star. The Lord drew them to himself from within the world with which they were familiar, astrology, the world of the night sky. The Lord often draws us to himself from within the world that is familiar to us.

 

The magi came to a point on their journey when they needed more than the signs of nature to find the child whom they were seeking. When they came to Jerusalem, they had to ask, ‘Where is the infant king of the Jews?’ To make the last short step on their long journey, they needed more than the light of a star. They needed the light of the Scriptures. The chief priests and the scribes who knew the Scriptures were able to point them in the direction of Bethlehem. On our own journey towards the Lord, we too need the light of the Scriptures as well as the light of nature. The Scriptures are a fuller revelation of God than the natural world. It is in and through the Scriptures that we meet God and his Son in a special way. Through the Scriptures, God speaks to us in a privileged way. God asks us to listen to his word and to allow our lives to be shaped by what we hear. The wise men allowed themselves to be guided by the Scriptures, as well as by the star. They displayed the kind of responsiveness to God’s word to which we are all called.

 

Having been moved by the presence of God in nature and in the Scriptures, the wise men came face to face with God in the form of a child newly born to a young couple. The wise men did not worship the star; they did not even worship the Scriptures. But they did worship the child, because they recognized that here in these simple surroundings was Emmanuel, God-with-us. We too worship Emmanuel, and we do so in a special way every time we celebrate the Eucharist. The wise men expressed their worship by offering the child their precious gifts. They gave generously. We too express our own worship of the Lord in the Eucharist by offering him gifts, and the most precious gift we can offer is the gift of ourselves. In the Eucharist we are invited to give ourselves to the Lord, in response to the Lord’s giving of himself to us as bread of life. We say, ‘Here I am. I want to do your will’, in response to his saying to us, ‘This is my body. Take and eat’.

 

After worshipping the child, the wise men returned home by a different way. Their meeting with the infant king of the Jews somehow changed them. Their journey away from Bethlehem was different to their journey to Bethlehem. Our own worship of the Lord in the Eucharist will often prompt us to take a different path too. We come to the Eucharist open to being changed in some way by our meeting with the Lord. We are sent out from the Eucharist to follow the way of the Lord more closely.

The magi only came to Bethlehem once. We come to the Eucharist often. We do so because, like the magi, we are seekers. We come to the Eucharist to seek the Lord. In the words of a modern hymn, we want to know him more clearly, to love him more dearly and to follow him more nearly. Our seeking of the Lord is a response to his seeking of us, his calling out to us. We pray on this feast of the Epiphany that we would be as responsive to the Lord’s call as the wise men from the East were.