Jesus quenches our thirst – John 4:5-15, 19b-26, 39a, 40-42

Third Sunday of Lent, Year A, with a reception into the catechumenate; Holy Infant parish.

Why was this woman going to the well on her own at noon? Let’s start with the easier part of that question. Why was she going to the well? Presumably, she was going to the well because she wanted water. Or, probably, because she needed water. It seems that this well was some ways out from the village. She must have needed water badly enough that she was prepared to walk through the noon day heat to go to the well. She was thirsty. Why did she go on her own, and why did she go at noon? Noon in a hot climate is not the best time to do your well run. And leaving the village alone is not a normal safe thing to do. Maybe, and we’re left with guesses about this woman, maybe she chose noon precisely because it was not a popular time to go to the well. Maybe she was not just lacking in water, but in community, not just having no one to go with, but really preferring not to be around others.

Christ brings the heavenly down the mountain for us – Matt 17:1-9; Gen 12:1-4a

Second Sunday of Lent, Year A; Holy Infant parish.

“Luke, I am your father;” the de-masking at the close of the Marriage of Figaro; the transformation of the Beast into Belle’s prince; the quite frankly bizarre moment in more than one Shakespeare play when a woman lets down her hair and only then do the rest of the dramatis personae realize she’s not a boy: we’re fascinated by these kinds of scenes, where a character’s true identity, hidden from other characters or even from the reader, gets made visible, when the dramatic x-ray machine cuts through flesh and marrow and discloses bone.  This is the vision God granted these three disciples, a disclosure of the glorious light Christ was in their midst, in contrast to the hiddenness and homelessness with which he was more normally clothed.  But this is not just a revelation about Jesus with no relevance for the rest of humanity; this is a preview of the glory of resurrection that awaits us. It’s a re-echoing of the heavenly voice from Christ’s baptism, the unwavering assertion of his beloved sonship, and another invitation to hear that voice speaking to us.

Christ raises us to be who were created to be – Gen 2:7-9, Rom 5:1219, Matt 4:1-11

First Sunday of Lent, Year A; Holy Infant.

I have to admit that whenever I’m bored, one of my go-to “this’ll-distract-me” instincts is to pull out my phone. Of course, it doesn’t always work, and I have at times caught myself looking at something on my phone, still being bored at it, or frustrated at how slowly something’s loading, and realizing that my left hand is instinctively reaching down to my pocket to take out… my phone. Forgetting what I’m doing makes me think that something’s going to satisfy me that isn’t, in this case that isn’t even there. We so often reach for what is ultimately unsatisfying when we forget what we’re doing, forget who we are.

God loves us disproportionately – Matt 5:38-48

7th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A; Holy Infant parish.

The sun produces energy at a rate of 400 Yotta-Watts, that’s 400 Yotta Joules each second, and that’s 4 with 26 zeroes after it.  That’s the equivalent of this: if every man, woman and child on God’s green earth had their own nuclear power plant, and ran it for fifteen years, the total amount of energy produced would be the same as what the sun produces each second. That’s powerful.  That’s energetic.  God makes the sun rise. That’s a tiny fraction of God’s action in the world, of God’s love, of God’s grace.  And God makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good.

God has changed the world that we might love like Him – Matt 5:17-48, Sir 15:15-20

6th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A; Holy Infant parish.

Suppose we were all good law-observant Jews. Like Sirach in our first reading, we read the law of Moses, and we find it refreshing as water when there’s fire all around, and reach out to it and try to follow it. Then we hear these words of Jesus’ and they’re compelling and we decide to follow them. The next day I have to go out of town, and I ask you if can look after my ox while I’m gone. You’re a decent sort, and pretty well set up for ox-tending, so you say, “sure!” Unfortunately, while I’m away, the ox catches what you think is a nasty cold. But then, it gets sicker and sicker and finally dies. I come back, and I’m pretty upset about my dead ox, who wasn’t a cute pet, but really essential to my ability to provide for my family (let’s say we’re all subsistence farmers here too). I demand you pay me the price of an ox, something you definitely do not have the resources to do, not without ruining yourself. “Hold on,” you say, “that’s not fair, it wasn’t my fault, the ox just got sick and died.” You remember that the law of Moses actually deals explicitly with this situation, and you’d just heard Jesus say that he hadn’t come to abolish the law. The law says that in this exact situation, all you have to do is swear an oath that the ox’s death wasn’t your fault, and I would have no claim against you. But, Jesus just said no oaths. None at all. And the law of Moses doesn’t say you can swear an oath if you like, it says, Exod 22:10-11, in this situation, you must. The debt-collectors are at your door, and they’re telling you, “follow the law, the law God gave on Sinai, if what you’re saying about the illness is true, and swear the oath. If not, cough up.”

Christ offers himself for our embrace – Luke 2:22-40

Feast of the Presentation; Holy Infant parish.

A recent Taylor Swift song opens with the defiant statement: “We could leave the Christmas lights up ‘til January // This is our place; we make the rules.” Only, I’m not really sure quite what she thinks she’s defying. Of course you can, Taylor, it’s still Christmas in early January. While Christmas Day being on December 25^th has been pretty consistent throughout Christian history, quite when the Christmas season ends has varied a little. Currently, in the Roman Catholic Calendar, as reformed in 1970, the Christmas Season ends with the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which is normally the early side of mid-January. We celebrated that on the twelfth this year. For a long time before that, about four hundred years prior to 1970, the Christmas season ended on Epiphany which was always twelve days after Christmas. I went to a great twelfth night party just under a month ago, where we had a King Cake and a rosca de reyes, which are really variants of each other, but both great ways to celebrate Epiphany. Anyway, before the reforms that followed the council of Trent that standardized Epiphany as the last day of the Christmas season, in some places, including parts of England, the last day of the Christmas Season was today, or rather, tomorrow, February 2^nd, the Feast of the Presentation, or Candlemas as it’s also known. So, if somebody could let Taylor know… if she becomes a super-old-fashioned pre-Tridentine Catholic, she can leave the Christmas lights up ‘til February!

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.