Homily for Sunday, 5 January 2020– The Epiphany of the Lord

Readings of the day: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12

This homily was given at St. James and Our Lady of the Valley Churches, Vernon, BC, Canada.

This solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, that is, the “making known” of Jesus to the world brings us each year the Gospel account, unique to Matthew’s Gospel, of the visit to Jesus’ birthplace in Bethlehem of the wise men or magi. The story of the magi is familiar to us: Guided by a star, the magi journey from their home country to the east of Israel to Bethlehem. They bring gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

But what does this visit of the wise men to the scene of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem mean for us today? I am especially drawn to a homily by Pope Francis of a couple of years ago in which the pope points to three key actions of the magi that make these wise men from the East relatable to us; an example to us in our lives of faith in a special way. First, the wise men follow a star to the Nativity scene in Bethlehem; second, they set out from their home country; and, third, they bring gifts.

When the magi arrive in Jerusalem, they know already that a life-changing event, the birth of a child, has taken place. The magi ask: “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we have observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” Is this not already a bit unusual that the magi would ask about a child “born king of the Jews” in the first place? For the most part, scholars consider Matthew’s description of the wise men as “from the East” to mean that they were neither Jewish nor Roman, but possibly Zoroastrians, a people who considered changes in the movements of the stars as signs of the divine.

The spirituality; the religion of these wise men centered on looking toward the heavens. But another strange detail, at least according to astronomers who study what the sky might have looked like at specific points in history, is that the star the wise men saw around the time of Jesus’ birth probably was not too bright a star, nothing far out of the ordinary. The magi may have had to have quite the discerning eye to detect as subtle a change in the night sky, this “star at its rising” that would guide them to Bethlehem, a village as near-ordinary as the star they saw; Bethlehem, the ordinary village God chose in which to enter our world as one like us.

The magi saw and followed this star. Yet how many of us have ever done exactly what these “wise men from the East” did; how many of us have ever simply looked up at the sky? During the day, our sun gives us just enough light and warmth to provide life on this planet. But even the sun is fairly ordinary insofar as stars go. As one who is not specialized in what to look for when I look at the night sky—I may be able to find a few major constellations—I doubt I would have the discerning eye that the wise men of Jesus’ time must have had. Sure, from my Boy Scout days I would be able to find Polaris, the North Star at the end of the Little Dipper, Ursa Minor, to point myself straight north. Lately the planet Venus has been near the brightest it ever appears to us, so it is especially easy to spot. We speak of full moons, blue moons, blood moons, and hunter’s moons, meteor showers at their most intense in August and November... If I am especially fascinated or looking for a specific star in the sky, I have an application on my phone called SkyTracker Lite.

But, in the days of the magi, there was no app for that. The wise men simply looked up. When have we looked up and, even if we have had no idea what to look for that might be out of the ordinary, simply been in awe? Have any of us ever peered into those almost fourteen billion light years of space and simply thought, “Wow! What kind of being—whom we call God—could create such magnificence”?

We, like the magi of Jesus’ time, look up and, if looking up gives us a sense of awe, then this awe sets us on a journey. Have we ever looked up and been in awe at the expanse of the universe and then, with eyes of faith, deepened our wonder at how the creator of all that expanse could, or would want to, be born into our world as one like us, and would want to show himself first to “wise men from the East” who simply began by following a star; by doing what they were used to doing, looking up to the heavens for signs of the divine; being in awe even at a subtle change in that sky?

From that first feeling of awe at looking up and seeing a star, the wise men set out from their home country. Why? Were these wise men not  perhaps wealthy, or at least comfortable with their way of life in their own country? What would cause them to set out for a land unknown to them? How were they able to encounter Herod in Jerusalem and then, on their return home, to heed the warning “in a dream not to return to Herod”? For Herod, in our Gospel, represents the exact opposite of the wise men. Herod greets the news of this child born in Bethlehem with fear that leads him to act with great evil. Herod, wealthy and comfortable, was unwilling to set out from his comfort zone, whereas the wise men were. And the wise men, upon arriving at the place of the Lord’s birth, “were overwhelmed with joy” at what must still have been to them a challenge to their comfort; to their old way of life.

Still, for the wise men to go beyond their comfort was their only way to utmost joy. The magi show us that the measure by which we are willing to set out from our comfort, from “this is the way we have always done it,” from our wealth if we have it, is the measure by which we will experience joy. It is the measure by which, in place of worldly comfort, wealth, and the way of life we know, our God is born among and within us. Our God lives among and within us in a way that, as I imagine it was for the wise men and certainly for the likes of Herod, was unnerving. But there can be no greater joy for us than this: God taking our human form and dwelling among us; God, beginning as a baby in Bethlehem, breaking down our comfort zones to take the place of greatest importance in our hearts, minds, and actions.

Yet if we are able to get so far as to look up and allow ourselves to be overtaken by awe, and then to let that awe impel us to set forth beyond our comfort, our wealth, our best-laid plans, or our existing way of life, still then, like the wise men, we are called to bring gifts.

The magi of Matthew’s Gospel brought three gifts to the newborn Jesus: Gold fit for a king; frankincense fit for God; and myrrh for the one who would die and rise to save us. What gifts will we bring to honour our king; to honour our Lord and God; to honour the one who has died and risen and will return at the end of time to save us; to bring us eternal life?

Might we begin by offering the gift of our worship, our presence in celebration here and now? We worship and we celebrate as the gifts God has already offered us, gifts of simple bread and wine, are changed and change us into the gift of Christ to our world. This urges us, then, to go forth from this celebration bearing intentional gifts of love and kindness especially toward the most abandoned, the most disadvantaged and vulnerable of our brothers and sisters: People not yet born; people of an advanced age; people who have few or no loved ones to care for them; people who are sick in mind, body, or spirit; people who are dying; people who flee violence, poverty, and persecution in their homelands for the safety of our country, and so on.

The gifts of love and kindness we bear especially to people who cannot repay us show to the world that we are, like the “wise men from the East” of Jesus’ time, a people who looks up and out at God’s world, God’s universe, with awe; that this awe impels us to set forth from our comfort, our best-laid plans, our wealth, into the unknown and the challenging.

We bring gifts freely because we have been given a gift, God’s own Son. This gift we have received and hand on, freely and without charge, is the gift that alone will overwhelm our world with joy because ours is the gift—the Epiphany, the “making known” of God’s dwelling among and within us—that we celebrate here and that will lead us to eternal life.

Homily for Wednesday, 1 January 2020– Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God

Octave Day of Christmas

Readings of the day: Numbers 6:22-27; Psalm 67:2-3, 4, 5, 6, 8; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

This homily was given at St. Joseph’s College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

The LORD bless you and keep you;

The LORD make his face to shine upon you

and be gracious to you,

The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

This prayer with which the LORD asks Aaron, through Moses, to bless the people of Israel in the Book of Numbers, in the reading we have heard today, is maybe one of the most recognizable blessings in the Jewish or Christian traditions; in our Bible. But what is peace? With what kind of peace was Aaron to bless his people as he and Moses led them through the desert back to their homeland, Israel?

The Hebrew word for “peace” in this Aaronic or “priestly blessing” of Numbers is, I am sure, a word many of us have heard before: Shalom. But is shalom not one of those notoriously difficult words from an ancient language to translate into a current language like English? Shalom may mean “peace,” in a sense, though, that is much richer than the absence of a dispute or of war. It may mean anything from wishing somebody wholeness or prosperity to a simple hello or even goodbye.

“The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you shalom.” This blessing of Aaron has several echoes throughout our Scriptures and our Mass. In John’s Gospel, at the Last Supper, Jesus blesses his disciples with a prayer for them reminiscent of Aaron’s prayer for the people of Israel in Numbers: “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you.” And then, in the same Gospel, the risen Jesus greets the disciples three different times: “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

In a few moments here, we will echo these words of Jesus, which are in turn an echo of God’s voice through Aaron to his people: “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you… Shalom be with you.” In this way, we will exchange a sign of peace just before we receive communion, shalom given for us in the form of bread and wine. And then we will be sent forth from here at the end of this celebration: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you”… to be shalom to our world in profound need of our peace as a people of God.

Is it not appropriate, then, that each year, on January 1, New Year’s Day, in addition to this liturgical celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, as Church we also celebrate this day as the World Day of Peace? We have, I think, a lot to celebrate each year on this World Day of Peace, New Year’s Day, Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Our world becomes more peaceful year by year: Fewer wars; more respect for freedom of thought, freedom of religious faith, and other basic human rights and freedoms; more governments and forms of government that uphold these human rights.

Still, our world is far from perfectly at peace, much less at shalom that is so much more than the absence of conflict; shalom that is peace only possible for us through God. Parts of our world still remain mired in war; still send record numbers of people fleeing from violence and abuse, in search of peace. Households, families, marriages still experience brokenness; shalom still eludes us at this most foundational level of any healthy human society.

Yet still we (rightly) celebrate as we pray for shalom; for peace. And we connect this celebration of and prayer for peace with a celebration of Mary as Mother of God. So what might Mary, Mother of God, have to do with peace, in our world, among and within nations, or within households and families? Let me suggest that our celebration of this Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, has a lot to do with peace; I will go so far as to say that a healthy Christian devotion to Mary is essential for our peace; for shalom.

Our Gospel today, from Luke, shows us this essential connection between the Blessed Virgin Mary and peace; shalom. When the shepherds first arrive at the scene of our Lord’s birth, we might imagine their excitement and the excitement and amazement of everybody present with them. Luke’s Gospel says in fact that, as the shepherds “made known what had been told them about this child… all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them.”

All this excitement, activity, and even amazement is a good thing, especially this time of year, is it not? Yet (and maybe we can all relate to what I am about to say) is this Christmastime not one of the more exhausting times of the year? Amid all the activity, we need time to rest; to pray; to celebrate with joy, yet still to be at peace. So, after Luke describes the excited joy of the shepherds, everybody’s amazement “at what the shepherds” had to say “about this child,” Jesus, Luke turns our attention toward Mary. Luke says that “Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart.”

My sisters and brothers, let me suggest that these two verbs, “treasured” and “pondered,” are most essential to the Gospel we have just heard. They are essential for our peace, in its fullest sense of shalom. Amid the noise, the excitement, the activity, the words of the shepherds, her own probable exhaustion at having just brought a child into the world, of all the people in our Gospel account today, Mary is the most “at peace.” And she teaches us something central to our own being “at peace”: Treasuring and pondering.

But to treasure and ponder as Mary does is not to hold onto the joy of this celebration of the Lord’s birth as if it is ours to keep to ourselves in a selfish way. The joy of this celebration has been given to us by God through Mary, a young woman God chose and preserved from sin in order to bring God’s own Son, Jesus, into our world. Because this joy; this gift of God’s Son through Mary that we treasure and ponder, has been given to us, God calls us now to hand on this gift of shalom enveloped in our human flesh to the world around us. And how might we treasure and ponder while handing on this gift we have received?

Again, may we look to Mary as an example of treasuring and pondering while handing on. From the moment Mary conceived Jesus in her womb, through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension, and Mary’s own assumption into heaven, body and soul, Mary allowed the peace, the shalom of God to settle into her very depths. Shalom became the foundation of who Mary was, treasuring and pondering, such that then this shalom was able to flow from her. God calls us now to the same willingness to treasure and ponder, to allow shalom to take on our human flesh and become the essence of who we are, not only the historical event of the birth of a child in Bethlehem two thousand years ago.

Every time our prayerful celebration here, our treasuring and pondering before the altar of the Lord, allows and strengthens us to act in even small ways of kindness, mercy, and justice toward one another, shalom incarnate becomes a little more who we are and flows from us as it did from Mary into the world.

Let me go back (briefly but to some time ago) in history, to the Council of Ephesus of 431. There, at Ephesus, our Church’s bishops first encouraged all Christians to pray through Mary under the title of Theotokos, “God-bearer” or, as we Roman Catholics usually refer to Mary, “Mother of God.” Outside the place where the bishops of Ephesus assembled, the faithful chanted, as if as a prayer for the unity of the bishops and the Church, which was anything but assured in 431, “Mother of God”…

Here, now, on this first day of 2020, may we join in this prayer of Ephesus: “Mother of God,” Mother and Queen of Peace, through your Son Jesus Christ, give us, our Church and our world the gift of shalom. May we treasure and ponder, allow to become incarnate in our depths, and then hand on this gift as you did. Shalom chaverim, as our Hebrew-speaking sisters and brothers might pray: “Let us go forth in peace” into this New Year to bear to the world, enveloped in our human flesh, the peace we have received, pondered, treasured, and that we celebrate today.

Homily for Sunday, 29 December 2019– The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

Readings of the day: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Psalm 128:1-2, 3, 4-5; Colossians 3:12-21; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

This homily was given at St. Clare Church and St. Joseph’s College, Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Did we miss something? Our Gospel reading today begins as “the wise men” have already left the place of the Lord’s Nativity in Bethlehem. At least I thought we did not celebrate the Epiphany, the “making known” of the Lord through these wise men to the world, until the first Sunday after the New Year. At this point in our Christmas season, we would not yet have the wise men at the Nativity Scene in our house. When I was a child, my sister, brother, and I would simulate the journey and belated arrival of the wise men to Bethlehem by inching the wise men figurines, day by day, a little closer to the Nativity scene at home until they finally arrived there on the Epiphany. By this point in the Christmas season, the magi would still have most of the living room to cover before arriving at the Nativity scene!

Yet today, on this Solemnity of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Matthew’s Gospel says that the wise men had already arrived and left. Maybe they simply decided to arrive early this year, right? Maybe they braved those Boxing Day sales on gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Well, not really. We will still celebrate the Epiphany, when we will hear of the arrival of the magi at Bethlehem from the same Gospel of Matthew. So what is going on here?

First, let us be clear that our Church’s celebration of Advent and Christmastime is not play-acting, and it does not follow an orderly timeline of historical events. If our Church’s celebrations this time of year do not follow a precise order of historical events, then what is their purpose? What was Matthew’s purpose in giving us the Gospel we hear today and, more importantly, what might it mean for us today?

This part of the infancy narrative, as it is called, of Matthew’s Gospel, from Matthew’s telling of how Jesus came to be born of Mary and Joseph, to the arrival and parting of the wise men, to the Holy Family’s flight to and return from Egypt to escape the massacre by Herod, is particular to Matthew in many ways. Compared to the other Gospels in our Bible, Matthew devotes much more detail especially to Joseph, husband of Mary. Even then, though, we know little about this Joseph of Nazareth from our Gospels; of the man Matthew first introduces to us as “a righteous man,” concerned not to put Mary in danger after she conceives Jesus “by the Holy Spirit” before she and Joseph live together. Joseph never speaks a word in Matthew’s or any of the other Gospels. But those three words of Matthew’s to describe Joseph, “a righteous man,” speak volumes about the saintliness of Joseph; about his care for his family—the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—about his care for us, the Church, and about how we might be called to model our lives after that of St. Joseph and the Holy Family.

Joseph may not speak a word in our Gospels, but he is a master communicator, especially with God but with us, too. Joseph communicates with God through an angel in three dreams in Matthew’s infancy narrative, the last two of them in today’s Gospel reading: First, when the angel says to Joseph not to fear and to take the pregnant Mary into his home as his wife; second, before the Holy Family’s escape to Egypt; and, third, when Joseph hears from the angel that Herod is dead and it is safe to return with Mary and Jesus from Egypt home to Israel.

In many ways Matthew’s presentation of Joseph of Nazareth parallels, deliberately or not on Matthew’s part, how another Joseph famous for dreaming and interpreting dreams is presented in the Old Testament Book of Genesis. God reveals his favour toward the Joseph of Genesis through dreams; God favours Joseph over his brothers in a way that angers Joseph’s brothers and leads them to leave Joseph in a cistern in Egypt to die. The Joseph of Genesis, of course, survives and goes on to be a prominent figure (and dream interpreter) in prison and then in Pharaoh’s court.

The parallels between Joseph of the Book of Genesis and Joseph of our Gospels are not perfect: The New Testament Joseph does not speak a word recorded in our Bible, whereas the Old Testament Joseph speaks plenty, interprets his dreams vocally, and would go on to have the story of his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (loosely) told in a famous Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera. Joseph of Nazareth is more of a humble behind-the-scenes dreamer, although he, like his Old Testament name counterpart, is a prophetic figure. Joseph of Nazareth plays a critical role in the fulfillment of “the law and the prophets” in Jesus Christ according to Matthew’s Gospel.

Joseph of Nazareth is a master communicator; an obedient communicator with God, not so much in the sense of blindly following what God’s angel tells him to do in his dreams as in the sense of attentive listening to what God reveals to him through these dreams. Joseph is, first and foremost, “a righteous man”; these are Matthew’s first words to describe Joseph.

Joseph of Nazareth is a model and a prophet from God to us; a master communicator to us in his faithfulness to and his care for Mary and Jesus. Joseph of Nazareth is a model and a prophet to us of solidarity with the most vulnerable among us. Without hesitation, Joseph the Righteous welcomes Mary into his home as his wife. Without hesitation, Joseph flees Herod’s tyranny, placing himself along with Mary and Jesus in solidarity with everybody through the ages who are unwelcome or subject to violence, even in their own homelands; people who continue to encounter not welcome but walls, literal and figurative, in the lands to which they flee desperately for safety; all people who, as Pope Francis reminded us on Christmas Day, continue to be subject to injustices that make them “cross seas and deserts that become cemeteries.”

Today, on this Solemnity of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we remember and we celebrate St. Joseph of Nazareth, who never hesitates to place himself within our human realities, from the joyful to the tragic. The obedience, faithfulness, and attentiveness of Joseph of Nazareth to God shows us the immaculate purity of Mary, Mother of God; mother of the Church; our mother. This, in turn, shows us the way to God and to God’s Son, Jesus Christ; the way to our salvation.

The Holy Family of Jesus our Lord and Saviour, Mary our Mother, and the righteous dreamer, Joseph, exemplifies a truth expressed so beautifully nearer to our time, in the opening lines of Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes: “The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the people of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these are the joys and hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the followers of Christ… United in Christ, [we] are led by the Holy Spirit in [our] journey to the Kingdom of [our] Father and [we welcome] the news of salvation that is meant for every person. That is why this community [the Church] realizes that it is truly linked with humankind and its history by the deepest of bonds.”

Our “joys and hopes,” and if I dare say dreams, were the “joys and hopes” of the Holy Family. They were central to the dreams of Joseph the Righteous of Nazareth, Joseph’s silent yet prophetic communication and intercession between God and us. They are the “joys and hopes”; the dreams of our Church, of one another, for one another here at a most essential level. These are “the joys and the hopes”; the most essential dream of God for us: That, through Jesus Christ, through the intercession of the Holy Family and all the saints, our journeys; our lives, our experiences from the joyful to the tragic, will lead us home to God himself, to eternal life.