God shines the light of the Word – Matt 4:12-17, Isa 8:23-9:3

3rd Sunday of OT, Year A, Sunday of the Word of God; Holy Infant parish.

Pope Francis has designated this the first annual celebration of Sunday of the Word of God. Each year, on this the third Sunday of Ordinary Time, is now marked as a time to marvel at the reality that God has given us the gift of scripture. Of course, we read scripture every week at Mass. We have three readings, many of our prayers contain bits of scripture. But, sometimes, we’re so concerned about the particular passages of scripture that the Church lifts up for us each week, that we don’t take a step back just to ponder and to marvel at the fact that God gives us scripture. God gives us the gift of words, words which reveal God in a special way, words which are worth holding high and processing around the church with, words which in a very real way are relics of Christ.

Jesus baptizes us – John 1:29-34

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A; Holy Infant parish.

When do we celebrate the baptism of Jesus? Well, that depends what “of” means. If we mean the baptism of Jesus in the sense of the event of Jesus being baptized, Jesus’ baptism in that sense, we celebrated it last week. This week, our gospel gives us another possibility for ‘of,’ though. This week, we celebrate the baptism of Jesus in this sense: the event of Jesus baptizing. In our gospel we hear John the Baptist report that he heard a message from God that this Jesus, whom he baptized, would one day baptize with the Holy Spirit. And he has.  The promise has been fulfilled.  Brothers and sisters, Christ has baptized us.  That’s what makes us sisters and brothers! There’s something amazing because each of us were baptized by someone else. Someone else poured the water and said the words, but it’s still true that Christ baptized us.

God grasps us by the hand – Isa 42:1-7; Matt 3:13-17

Baptism of Christ, Year A; Holy Infant parish.

As an undergrad, I was involved in student politics, and I once received some advice from someone who was much more successful than me in that area, and a generous mentor in a lot of ways, and she told, “Never run for anything, unless you truly believe that the job is important, and that you’re the best person to do it.” As grateful as I am for her generosity, I’ve come to conclude that this is terrible advice. The first part is OK as far as it goes, we should do things we think are important, though we also need to do things sometimes just because they’re fun, or relaxing, or sometimes we just need to trust that something might be important because others assure us it is, even if we can’t see that yet. But I want to concentrate more on the second half – the idea that you shouldn’t put yourself forward to do something unless you’re already convinced you’d be the best at it.

God reveals joy to us – Matt 2:1-12

Epiphany; St. Joe parish.

I don’t know if any of the rest of you had this experience this morning, but as I was driving along a tree-lined street, I looked at the bare tree branches each with their little white overline of snow, and stopped and thought, “Wow; isn’t this beautiful.” I remember one time in seminary, one Spring, walking round the lakes at Notre Dame and stopping by one of the trees outside Moreau seminary that was in full pink bloom. One of our priests was also stopped by it, looking at it, and commented (to God, but possibly conscious of my overhearing), “You didn’t have to give us this too.”