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.

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.”