MARY, MOTHER OF GOD, JANUARY 1, 2019

Numbers 6:22-27, Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:16-21

A Catholic pastor in a small Alabama city of mostly Southern Baptist Christians decided to put up a Christmas crib in the town square. The priest with some of his prominent parishioners approached some rich people and businesses for donation. When they went to see the rich editor of the local newspaper the priest explained the project: “Many people, especially the children will be inspired to see Jesus, Mary and Joseph and animals right here in the center of the town.” The editor agreed to help on condition that Mary must be left out. Otherwise, it would be promoting your Catholic denomination. The priest said: “Tell you what. Tell me how you can show a birth without a mother, and I will agree to leave Mary out.” The editor had no answer and the Mother was with her Child in the town square.

Today’s Feast of Mary, the Mother of God is a very appropriate way to begin a new year. Based on the references in the New Testament and on the traditional belief of the early Church, the Council of Ephesus affirmed in AD 431 that Mary was truly the Mother of God (Theotokos), because “according to the flesh” she gave birth to Jesus, Who was truly God as well as truly man from the first moment of His conception by Mary. The Council defined Mary as the Mother of God both to honor her and to safeguard the dogma that Jesus Christ is not just truly God but also truly man.

The Church puts the feast of this solemnity on the first day of the New Year to emphasize the importance of Mary’s role in the life of Christ and of the Church. We commemorate the various saints on the different days of the year, but Mary is the most prominent of them all.  She has a special role and mission given to her by God. As Mother of our Redeemer and of the redeemed, she reigns as the Queen at the side of Christ the King. She is a powerful intercessor for all of our needs here on earth. In celebrating her special feast day, we acknowledge this great gift for the Church and world; we call on her to be actively involved in our daily life; we imitate her virtuous life as a great inspiration; and we cooperate with all the graces we get through her.

Today’s Gospel describes how the shepherds spread to all their neighbors the Good News surrounding the birth of Jesus which the angel had revealed to them.

We know that the Virgin Mary is the Mother of Jesus Christ and, consequently, the Mother of God. But she is also the Mother of the Church, which is the Body of Christ. Because of this, the mission of Mary is totally inseparable from the mission of the Church. And it should be clearly stated here that the role of Mary, as Mother of all humanity, in no way eclipses or diminishes Christ. On the contrary, her role can only help to clarify Christ’s role. This is one of the reasons that God decided to share his Mother with us.

All mothers want their children to inherit or acquire their good qualities. Our Heavenly Mother is no exception.  With Joseph, she succeeded in training the Child Jesus, so that He grew in holiness and in “favor before God and man.” Hence, our best way of celebrating this feast and honoring our Heavenly Mother would be to promise her that we will practice her virtues of Faith, obedience, purity and humble service. In this way, we will be trying to become the saintly sons and daughters of our heavenly Mother, the holy Mother of God.

We can honor Mary by cultivating an interior life like hers. Mary meditated on the events of her life in relation to God’s plan of salvation. We are participants in God’s plan of salvation, too. We are God’s instruments and fellow workers in God’s kingdom. Everything that happens to us has a good meaning and it is up to us to try, with God’s help, to discover and appreciate it. Mary’s words at the wedding feast of Cana reveal her basic orientation, which we can apply to ourselves: “Do whatever He tells you.”

Since we celebrate the Feast of Mary, the Mother of God, on New Year’s Day, I take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy and Peaceful New Year.  I pray that the Lord Jesus and His Mother Mary may enrich your lives during the New Year with an abundance of God’s blessings.

THE FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY [C] 

(1Sm 1:20-22, 24-28; 1Jn 3:1-2, 21-24; Lk 2:41-52)

Today’s feast reminds us that Jesus chose to live in an ordinary human family in order to reveal God’s plan to make all people live as one “holy family” in His Church. In today’s Responsorial Psalm (Ps 128), the psalmist reminds us that happy homes are the fruit of our faithfulness to the Lord.

 Today’s Gospel describes the fifth joyful mystery in the Holy Rosary. Only St Luke (2:41-50) reports the event of the child Jesus’ disappearing and then being found in the Temple. Jewish boys were made “sons of the Law” by presenting themselves in the Temple of Jerusalem when they become twelve years old.

After telling us how the boy Jesus disappeared on the journey home and was only found by his frantic parents three days later in the Temple, today’s Gospel explains how the Holy Family of Nazareth lived according to the will of God. They themselves obeyed all the Jewish laws and regulations and brought Jesus up in the same way, so that he grew in wisdom as well as in the favor of God and men. Jesus’ obedience to his earthly parents flows directly from His obedience to the will of his Heavenly Father.

 Jesus was telling them that his earthly life involved an obedience to more than earthly parents. They did not then understand the full implications of what divine Sonship would entail, namely, that in terms of his mission, His relationship to God would necessarily take precedence over his relationship to them. One of a parent’s greatest sorrows afflicted Mary: not to understand her own child; this was one of the swords spoken of by Simeon (Luke 2:35). Jesus by his bewildered counter-question teaches us that over and above any human authority, even that of our parents, there is the primary duty to do the will of God. At this stage in Jesus life, “doing the will of his Heavenly Father” entailed obedience to Mary and Joseph, and Jesus willingly complied: “He went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.”

By the Sacrament of marriage, Jesus sanctifies not only the spouses but also the entire family. The husband and wife attain holiness when they discharge their duties faithfully, trusting in God, and drawing on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit through personal and family prayer, meditative reading of the Bible, and devout participation in Holy Mass.  Families become holy when Christ Jesus is present in them. Jesus becomes truly present in the parish Church through the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass.  

This is the quality Pope St. Paul VI found most inspiring in the Holy Family. They lived a hidden life, a quiet life, a life with lots of room for thinking. With TV, radio and the Internet clogging our minds and senses, we leave our families little room for thought or prayer. We need to do what it takes to bring silence home — move the TV so that it’s not the centerpiece of our household; turn it off when no one’s watching. This is guaranteed to reduce family stress levels.

We need to make our home a place of prayer. Our day needn’t be dominated by devotions, but we should have some regular, routine family prayers, just as the Holy Family did. They prayed and studied the Scriptures, but still managed to get their work done. 

The Little Flower used to ask an innocent question of her first grader classmates: “Have you ever seen a Saint praying?”  She would add: “If you haven’t, come to my house in the evening.  You will see my dad on his knees in his room with outstretched arms, praying for us, his children, every day.”  She states in one of her letters from the convent: “I have never seen or heard or experienced anything displeasing to Jesus in my family.”  St. Teresa of Avila was admitted against her will, by her father, to a boarding house conducted by nuns in the final year of her high school studies, as soon as he detected bad books and yellow magazines hidden in her box. They were supplied by her spoiled friend and classmate, Beatrice.   St. Teresa later wrote as the Mother Superior: “But for that daring and timely action of my father, I would have ended up in the streets, as a notorious woman.” The feast of the Holy Family challenges Christian fathers to be role models to their children.

Let us pray for the grace of caring for one another in our own families, for each member of the parish family, and for all families of the universal Church. May God bless all our families in the New Year.

Advent IV [C] Mi 5:1-4a; Heb 10:5-10;   Lk 1:39-45

Composer and performer Bradley James has set Mother Teresa of Calcutta’s teachings and prayers to music in the internationally acclaimed recording, Gift of Love. Bradley remembers her teaching: “Mother said we don’t have to go to Calcutta to help the poor; rather, we must help them right in front of us.” He applied this lesson when he encountered a homeless beggar on the streets of San Francisco.  Bradley placed some money in his metal cup, then reached out and shook the man’s hand.  The recipient gave him a big smile, and the two exchanged names and small talk. Bradley recalls: “Then he pulled me a little closer and said, ‘Thanks for the money, but what I really needed was a handshake”.  Indeed, what was remarkable in this incident was not the coin, but the gift of human dignity and the love of Christ that Bradley James brought to the beggar through the handshake and his fraternal presence.  In effect, Bradley replicated in his life and experience the joyful mystery of the Lord’s Visitation (Lk 1:39-45) described in today’s Gospel.

The readings suggest that we should not celebrate Christmas as just an occasion for nice feelings.  Instead, commemorating Jesus’ birth should inspire us to carry out God’s word as Mary and Jesus did, in perfect obedience to His will, in cheerful kindness and unselfish generosity, and thus to become true disciples.

We can make a real difference in the lives of others by carrying Jesus to them.   However, we cannot give what we do not possess.   Christmas is the ideal time for us to be filled with the spirit of Christ, allowing his rebirth within us.  Thus, he enables us to share his love with all whom we encounter by offering them humble and committed service, unconditional forgiveness and compassionate caring.  Sharing Jesus with others is the best Christmas gift we can give. 

The Visitation of Mary reminds us that, through his holy ministry, Christ continues to be present among his people.  The same Christ “dwells among us” in the Bible, in the Sacraments, and in the praying community.  The hill country of Judea is right here in our sanctuary.  The same Jesus who dwelt in Mary’s womb and who caused John to leap in Elizabeth’s womb now dwells among us in our liturgy and in the Holy Eucharist.  Jesus has come — he lives with us and in us through the Holy Spirit.  

As we continue with this Mass, let’s thank God for creating us and giving each one of us a unique calling, a mission to share him with others. And let’s promise our Lord that this week, as Christmas arrives, we will live our lives with a renewed awareness of our calling to share Jesus to others as Mary did with Elizabeth.

Advent III-C: Zep 3:14-18a; Phil 4:4-7; Lk 3:10-18

Patricia Greenlee tells a story about her son who is a West Virginia state trooper. Once he stopped a woman for going 15 miles an hour over the speed limit. After he handed her a ticket, she asked him, “Don’t you give out warnings?” “Yes, ma’am,” he replied. “They’re all up and down the road. They say, ‘Speed Limit 55.’” People have a tendency to disregard the warning signs. Sometimes that has dire consequences. Today’s Gospel presents John the Baptist warning the Jews with prophetic courage of their need for repentance and conversion.

John preaches fervently, urging his listeners to make preparations for the coming of the Messiah. John advises people, not to be dreamers or planners only, but doers moved by sincerity and commitment.  Even though John’s preaching is characterized by scathing criticism, his call for reform is still described by Luke as "the Good News," because the arrival of the Messiah will initiate a new reign of forgiveness, healing and salvation.  The repentance which John preaches calls for a change in behavior and not just regret for the past. According to Scott Hahn “Repentance” translates a Greek word, metanoia (literally, “change of mind”). It means a radical life-change involving a two-fold “turning” - away from sin (see Ezekiel 3:19; 18:30) and toward God for His mercy (see Sirach 17:20-21; Hosea 6:1). It requires “good fruits as evidence of our repentance” (see Luke 3:8). That’s why John tells the crowds, soldiers and tax collector, and us as well, that we must prove our Faith through works of charity, honesty and social justice.  John demands that we share our goods with one another, emphasizing the principle of social justice that God will never absolve the man who is content to have too much while others have too little.  John also insists that a man should not leave his job to work out his own salvation.  Instead, he should do his job as it should be done.  He calls people to fidelity in the very circumstances of their lives.  Let the tax-collector be a good tax-collector and let the soldier be a good soldier.  In other words, it is a man's duty to serve God where God has set him.  “Bloom where you are planted,” St. Francis De Sales used to say.  We are expected to become transformational agents where we are.  And if the work environment is such that we are unable to deal honestly and fairly with other people, we should probably find a new job.

As we continue with this Mass, let's take an x-ray of our hearts, to see the state of our moral life. And when our Lord comes to heal and strengthen us in Holy Communion, let's renew our commitment to make his friendship, with all its moral consequences, the highest priority of our lives.

Advent I [C] Jer 33:14-16; 1Thes 3:12 – 4:2; Lk 21:25-28, 34-36

Several years ago a bus driver in Oklahoma reached an unusual record.  In 23 years he had driven a bus over 900,000 miles without a single accident.  When asked how he had done it, he gave this simple answer: “Watch the road.”  In today’s Gospel Jesus gives the same advice in several ways: “Be vigilant at all times,” “Stand erect,” “Raise your heads,” “Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy.”  This is not only a good spiritual advice for the Advent season but also a safe rule for daily life.  A good football player or basketball player should always concentrate his attention on the ball and the players.  A good student must be alert, awake and attentive, watching the teacher and listening to his or her words.  A good Catholic in the Church must be physically and mentally alert, watching the altar and actively participating in the prayers and songs.  Like the Roman god Janus, who had two faces, one looking at the past year and the other looking into future, Christians during the Advent season are to look at the past event of the first coming of Jesus into the world and expectantly look forward to his second coming in glory.

 Advent is a time of waiting and hoping, of renewing our trust in God’s merciful love and care, and of reflecting on the several comings (advents), of Christ into our lives.  Besides his first coming at his birth, we are asked to reflect on Christ’s coming as the risen Lord at Easter, in the Sacraments (especially the Eucharist), in our everyday lives, at the moment of death, and at the end of human history (the second coming). The word Advent comes from the Latin ‘advenio‘, which literally means “come to.” During this Advent season we should consider “coming to” Christ by “abounding in love… for all,” instead of waiting for Christ to come to us

 The Church reminds us that we are accountable for our lives before Christ the Judge.  Today’s readings invite us to assess our lives during Advent and to make the necessary alterations in the light of the approaching Christmas celebration. Advent is the time for an improvement of our lives and for deepening the sincerity of our religious commitment. 

While Advent is set aside to commemorate Jesus’ coming in the flesh as well as his final coming in glory, it is also a time for us to open ourselves to the Lord’s coming into our lives and our world today. 

We need to prepare ourselves for Christ’s second coming by allowing him to be reborn daily in our lives.  This season is intended to fill us with great expectations of the coming of the Messiah just as parents expectantly wait for the birth of their child and make preparations for receiving the child into their family. 

Advent is the time for us to make this preparation by repenting for our sins, by renewing our lives through prayer and penance and by sharing our blessings with others.  Advent also provides an opportunity for us to check for what needs to be put right in our lives, to see how we have failed, and to assess the ways in which we can do better.  Let us remember the words of Alexander Pope: ‘What does it profit me if Jesus is reborn in thousands of cribs all over the world and not reborn in my heart?”  Jesus must be reborn in our hearts and lives, during this season of Advent and every day of our lives, in our love, kindness, mercy and forgiveness. 

“Advent is the perfect time to clear and prepare the Way.  By reflection and prayer, by reading and meditation, we can make our hearts a place where a blessing of peace would abide and where the birth of the Prince of Peace might take place.  Daily we can make an Advent examination.  Are there any feelings of discrimination toward [people because of] race, sex, or religion?  Is there a lingering resentment, an un-forgiven injury living in our hearts?  Do we look down upon others of lesser social standing or educational achievement?  Are we generous with the gifts that have been given to us, seeing ourselves as their stewards and not their owners?  Are we reverent of others, of their ideas and needs, and of creation?  These and other questions become Advent lights by which we may search the deep, dark corners of our hearts.  May this Advent season be a time for bringing hope, transformation, and fulfillment into the Advent of our lives.”

THANKSGIVING-2018

 “Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.”

Dalai Lama said: When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect towards others.

Thanksgiving day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow. (Edward Sandford Martin).

In 1 Thes.5:18 Paul says: Give thanks to God in all circumstances. To find God in ordinary situations is not easy for human beings, especially when one is going through tough times. People generally think that God is not with them when difficulties hit them. Only when people see light at the end of the tunnel they realize there was God with them when they were walking through the dark tunnel. So we need to thank God in every circumstance. Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. Half their number dead, men without a country, but still there was thanksgiving to God. Their gratitude was not for something but in something. It was that same sense of gratitude that led Abraham Lincoln to formally establish the first Thanksgiving Day in the midst of national civil war, when the butcher’s list of casualties seemed to have no end and the very nation struggled for survival.

Perhaps in our own life, right now we are in the midst of intense hardship. We are experiencing our own personal Great Depression. Why should we be thankful this day? Our forefathers were not so much thankful for something as they were thankful in something. In bounty or in want, they were thankful. In feast or in famine they were thankful. In joy or in misery they were thankful. There is a big difference between being thankful for things and being thankful in all things.

During a harvest festival in India, an old widow arrived at her church with an extraordinarily large offering of rice - far more than the poor woman could be expected to afford. The itinerant pastor of the church did not know the widow well. But he did know that she was very poor and so he asked her if she were making the offering in gratitude for some unusual blessing. "Yes," replied the woman. "My son was sick and I promised a large gift to God if he got well." "And your son has recovered?" asked the pastor. The widow paused. "No," she said. "He died last week. But I know that he is in God's care; for that I am especially thankful."

A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all the other virtues. Cicero.

Along with being thankful to God it is also important to be thankful to many others we take for granted every day; our parents who brought us up and educated us and took God’s place when we were young, siblings who supported us encouraged us and loved us, our neighbors who had influenced us in many ways, our teachers, and the list goes on. So, a day like this would remind us of our responsibilities towards them.

Someone suggested why we should be thankful:

1.We must learn to be thankful or we become bitter.
2. We must learn to be thankful or we will become discouraged.
3. We must learn to be thankful or we will grow arrogant and self-satisfied.

We know a lot of people in our life who after losing one of their loved ones don’t show respect for God or come to Church, thinking God did that on purpose to punish them for something….and they remain bitter. I wish they read the book of Job and take some inspiration from there.

This is a day we count our blessings. For many of us, our focus will be on our material blessings. Our warm house, the comfortable car, the stylish clothes, a table bountifully spread. And yet, in the long run of things, these are the least important of all our blessings. The first thing to be thankful for is our faith we are given to believe in a loving God, whom we can trust in any challenging situation. Jesus warned the people who followed him for material things. He said: “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. These mundane blessings are generally trivial and transitory.

Be thankful for what you enjoy and the rest of the world can only dream: life, liberty, and a chance to pursue happiness. Let’s develop an attitude of gratitude in all circumstances which will help us to develop a positive outlook on life and bring joy to dwell in our hearts.

OT. XXXII (B) I Kgs 17:10-16; Heb 9:24-28; Mk 12:38-44

Dr. Karl Menninger, the famous psychiatrist, once gave a lecture on mental health and afterward answered questions from the audience. “What would you advise a person do to,” asked one man, “if that person felt a nervous breakdown coming on?” Most people expected the doctor to reply, “Consult a psychiatrist.” To their astonishment, he replied, “Lock up your house, go across the highway, find someone in need and do something to help that person.” The Gospel message for this Sunday is about giving. Christ praises the poor widow who drops only two small coins in the coffer of the Temple, unlike the others who “put in their surplus money’” (v. 43). The poor widow received the praise of Jesus because she put her last money, though she was poor. As Jesus said: “she gave all she had to live on.” The message of Jesus is very clear: Every person is capable of sharing no matter how poor or needy he is.

As Jesus points out, it is not the amount that is contributed that counts before God but the totality of personal trust and self-giving that the amount represents. For some it was just what they had left over after making good allowance for their comfortable lifestyle. For the widow, it was absolutely everything: keeping nothing for herself, she could rely now only on the providence of God to whom she had surrendered all.

St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) of Calcutta said, “If you give what you don’t need, it isn’t giving.” She used to tell a story of how one day she was walking down the street when a beggar came up to her and said, “Mother Teresa everybody is giving to you, I also want to give to you. Today for the whole day I got only fifteen rupees (thirty cents). I want to give it to you.” Mother Teresa thought for a moment: “If I take the thirty cents, he will have nothing to eat tonight, and if I don’t take it I will hurt his feelings. So I put out my hands and took the money. I have never seen such joy on anybody’s face as I saw on the face of that beggar at the thought that he too could give to Mother Teresa.” She said that gift meant more to her than winning the Nobel Prize. Mother Teresa went on: “It was a big sacrifice for that poor man, who had sat in the sun the whole day long and received only thirty cents. Thirty cents is such a small amount and I can get nothing with it, but as he gave it up and I took it, it became like thousands because it was given with so much love. God looks not at the greatness of the work, but at the love with which it is performed.”

Gifts from ordinary people support many projects and causes in the Catholic Church, just as they kept the Jerusalem temple going in Jesus’ day. It is a strange, but at the same time common truth, that generosity is more widespread among those who have little to spare than among those who have lots of money and property. This story of the Widow’s Mite invites us to examine the quality of giving in our lives — not just to Church collections, but to whatever worthy cause attracts our attention and our sympathy. More than once, Jesus spoke about this subject. Not only should the gift be made with a generous heart, but so far as possible in an anonymous, non-fussy way, so that “the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing.” The thing should be done because it is right, with the intention of pleasing God rather than winning credit or praise from others. And the more it costs us in personal terms — giving up some of our time, or our comfort, for something worthwhile — the more it is part of the one great sacrifice of Christ, who gave himself totally for us.

Saint Paul coined the phrase “God loves a cheerful giver” (2 Cor 9:6-7.) And there can be no doubt that the cheerful gift is more acceptable even among people on an everyday level. And it has been well said that, from the perspective of our death-bed, we will be happier to think of what we have freely given away during our life-time than of what we have simply stored away for the rainy day.

We often judge people by what they possess.  We give weight to their position in society, to their educational qualifications, or to their celebrity status.  But Jesus measures us in a totally different way – on the basis of our inner motives and intentions hidden behind our actions.  He evaluates us on the basis of the sacrifices we make for others and on the degree of our surrender to God’s holy will.  The offering God wants from us is not our material possessions, but our hearts and lives.  What is hardest to give is ourselves in love and concern, because that gift costs us more than reaching for our purses.

Walking along a street in Russia during a famine, the great writer Leo Tolstoy met a beggar. Tolstoy searched in his pockets to look for something he could give. But there was none. He had earlier given away all his money. In his pity, he reached out, took the beggar in his arms, embraced him, kissed him on his hollow checks and said: “Don’t be angry with me, my brother, I have nothing to give.” The beggar’s face lit up. Tears flowed from his eyes, as he said: “But you embraced me and kissed me. You called me brother – you have given me yourself – that is a great gift.”

On this day let’s pray the short prayer St. Ignatius of Loyola composed seeking to get a heart-felt generosity:

Dear Lord, teach me to be generous;

Teach me to serve you as you deserve;

To give and not to count the cost;

To fight and not to heed the wounds;

To toil, and not to seek for rest;

To labor, and not to ask for any reward -

except that of knowing that I am doing your holy will. Amen.