Homily – One Catholic Life: Recent Episodes
Homily – One Catholic Life
As Catholic Schools Week begins this year,
today’s Gospel reminds us of a very important truth—
Jesus was a teacher:
“…on the sabbath Jesus entered the synagogue and taught.
The people were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”
Jesus was a teacher.
He taught in synagogues,
he taught in the temple,
he taught from hillsides,
and he taught from boats.
Jesus was a teacher.
Jesus taught in a way that was different from other teachers.
And the people recognized that.
In contrast to the scribes who merely recited laws,
Jesus’ teaching was marked by a connection
to the heart of the Law – love of God and love of neighbor.
His teaching had authority because he was authentic.
He lived what he taught.
And the people could see it,
even though he did not have the title the scribes had.
He was authentic,
even to giving his life on the cross to demonstrate the love he taught.
There was once a teacher named Sharon.
She, too, was an authentic teacher.
One day she became the most famous teacher in all the world,
and she ended up giving her life in the service of teaching.
She was born into a Catholic family and went to a Catholic high school.
Her mother was a substitute teacher
and when Sharon grew up
she became a 7th and 8th Grade teacher.
I was a junior high teacher for over 25 years,
and I can tell you that 7th and 8th graders are experts
in spotting what is false and phony.
To be an effective junior high teacher you have to know your stuff,
you have to be authentic.
Sharon was authentic.
She took her class on field trips,
she brought in guest speakers,
and she “emphasized the impact of ordinary people on history,
saying they were as important to the historical record
as kings, politicians, or generals.”
Her passion and knowledge of her subject matter
gave her the authenticity that she needed to be a great teacher.
I have seen many new teachers who thought that
just because their name was posted outside the classroom door,
or just because they wore a whistle or an ID badge,
the students would automatically listen to them
and do what they were told.
Well, it didn’t take them long to find out
that it takes more than an ID badge.
It starts with being authentic.
And that’s why it’s so important in a Catholic school,
where we teach the Good New of Jesus Christ,
to have an authentic relationship with Jesus.
We need our students to see that our relationship with Jesus is real,
so that there is no phoniness in what we teach.
And that is something that takes constant nourishment.
That’s why at SJV we begin each school year
with a day-long faculty retreat at Immaculate Heart Retreat Center,
focusing on our faith, our relationship with Jesus Christ.
It’s why the teachers gather for prayer every morning
right before school starts.
We read a passage of Scripture,
we meditate on it,
we share with each other what it means in our life,
we offer intentions for ourselves and for the world,
and we end by praying the Prayer of St. Francis.
We do this as a faculty each and every morning
because regular, sustained prayer
is essential in building our relationship with Jesus,
and we must have a real and authentic relationship with Jesus
if we are going to effectively teach about Jesus to our students.
But I’m not just sharing this with you
to explain how we do things at the school.
I share this with you because you are teachers, too.
The call to teach is not reserved for a select few,
but is a universal commission given to all followers of Christ.
Before Jesus ascended to heaven, he said,
“Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”
Jesus was a teacher.
And so, we that dare to call ourselves Christians,
“little Christs,”
are to be teachers, too.
We are all called to be teachers,
sharing the Good News
and instructing others in the ways of love.
It is not easy.
That’s why Catholic schools exist.
The Church recognizes both the importance and the immensity
of the task of teaching the Faith to our children,
and so Catholic schools were instituted to assist parents
in their role of educating children in the Faith.
That’s why we celebrate Catholic schools at this time time each year.
Catholic schools have an essential role in the life of the Church.
This is how the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops puts it:
It is the responsibility of the entire Catholic community—
bishops, priests, deacons, religious, and laity—
to continue to strive towards the goal
of making our Catholic elementary and secondary schools
available, accessible, and affordable
to all Catholic parents and their children,
including those who are poor and middle class.
We are convinced that Catholic schools continue to be
“the most effective means available to the Church
for the education of children and young people”
who are the future of the Church (To Teach as Jesus Did, no. 118).
That is why your parish school exists,
and why your support of the school is so important and appreciated.
St. John Vianney Catholic School and all Catholic schools
exist to assist you in fulfilling your call to teach as Jesus did.
Catholic schools play a crucial role in this mission,
but each one of us,
as baptized disciples of Jesus,
regardless of our profession,
regardless of our vocation,
is called to be a teacher.
Opportunities to teach the Gospel abound in our everyday lives.
In our families,
we teach the Gospel by the way we prioritize faith, prayer, and love.
In our workplaces,
we teach the Gospel by the integrity with which we conduct ourselves
and the respect we show to our colleagues.
In our communities,
we teach the Gospel by our acts of service and compassion toward those in need.
Sharon used her teaching abilities beyond just her classroom.
She became a catechist
and taught confirmation classes in her parish.
After all she was a teacher.
Jesus was a teacher.
Sharon was a teacher.
We are teachers.
And that means that each of us also has the responsibility
to teach with authenticity, like Jesus did,
and not like the scribes.
Just as a title or an ID badge is not enough
to be an effective classroom teacher,
so, too, our baptismal certificate is not enough
to be a teacher of the Gospel.
To be an authentic teacher for Christ,
we need to be authentic disciples of Christ,
and not disciples in name only.
We know that if we are not living the life we teach about,
we become like the scribes.
Sharon was not like the scribes.
She lived what she taught.
She had the opportunity to do something no teacher in history
ever had the chance to do,
something that she knew would make her an even better teacher.
She applied for the opportunity along with 11,000 applicants,
and she alone was chose by NASA to be the first teacher to fly into space.
She was born with the first name Sharon,
but she always went by her middle name Christa.
Christa McAuliffe.
She trained for an entire year to be a payload specialist
on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
She went on Good Morning America, CBS Morning News,
and the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.
Talk about an authentic teacher.
She taught the world.
Many of us remember what happened on this day 38 years ago.
Christa and the rest of the astronauts boarded the Challenger,
and after only 73 seconds in the air, the shuttle broke apart,
and no one survived.
Just as Jesus gave his life
to be an authentic teacher,
Christa gave her life to be an authentic teacher.
During this Catholic Schools Week,
we are challenged to renew our commitment
to our own vocation of teaching.
We are reminded that, in various ways,
we are all called to be teachers like Christ –
not just imparting knowledge
but embodying the transformative love of the Gospel.
As parents, as educators, as friends,
and as members of this faith community,
we share in the mission of making disciples.
Christa McAuliffe used to say,
“I touch the future, I teach.”
Our call is to be able to say,
“I touch eternity, I teach the Gospel.”
Today we heard the prophet Isaiah say,
“I rejoice heartily in the LORD, in my God is the joy of my soul.”
The word “rejoice” is repeated over and over in today’s Gaudete Sunday liturgy,
from that reading of Isaiah,
to the responsorial psalm,
“My soul rejoices in my God,”
and in Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians,
“Rejoice always.”
We’re only about a week away from Christmas,
and today we are reminded
that Christmas is a time of rejoicing.
There are many people whose faces shine with that spirit of rejoicing,
and who are filled with Christmas joy.
But I’ve talked with many other people this year
who are struggling to rejoice right now.
They are tired, they are weary.
Some are weary of the situation the world is in:
violence and war, politics and division, natural disasters.
Other people I talk with are struggling to make ends meet,
worried about loved ones,
facing difficult health issues,
struggling with anxiety and depression.
Some people are simply weary from all the busyness of the season:
getting the house ready for guests,
trying to get all the shopping done or the presents wrapped,
tracking down that special gift that is out of stock everywhere.
For many right now, they are too weary to rejoice.
When I think of those who are weary and maybe just a bit beaten down,
I am reminded of one of our most beautiful Christmas carols—
more of Christmas hymn, really, it is so beautiful.
And whether you are struggling to rejoice,
or finding it easy to have a joyful spirit,
I think this Christmas hymn has a lot to offer all of us
as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ.
The Christmas hymn I’m talking about is “O Holy Night,”
and one line that really stands out,
when I think of all those who right now are struggling and tired,
is, “the weary world rejoices.”
If you are feeling weary right now,
then this Christmas hymn is for you.
Even if you already have that Christmas joy,
“O Holy Night” can only increase it,
and it make it that much more real.
“O Holy Night” was originally a poem,
written in French by Placide Cappeau,
and as many of you know,
it begins like this:
O holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth;
Even though Christmas is still a week away,
let’s visualize Christmas as it was in Bethlehem so many years ago,
the sky filled with stars.
Imagine what is was like in the long years before Christ was born:
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
The Israelites waited centuries for their savior, their Messiah.
They suffered through slavery,
they were exiled to Assyria and Babylon,
they were conquered by the Greeks and the Romans,
and still they longed for their deliverer.
To this day we pine for God
in sin and error.
In our selfishness and in our pain
we turn away from God.
And yet, in all that sin and error,
there is a seeking, a yearning,
a restlessness,
a pining for meaning, for purpose,
for God.
As St. Augustine put it so beautifully,
“Our hearts are restless, O God, until they rest in thee.”
And so the hymn proclaims,
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
That may be the most beautiful line in the entire hymn.
…he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
He appeared, Christ appeared.
And what happens next?
The soul feels its worth.
The coming of the Messiah makes our soul feel its worth.
The prophet Isaiah tells us today,
“in my God is the joy of my soul.”
With the coming of Christ,
the soul now feels how beloved it is.
Because of the birth of Christ,
we know who we are,
and we know that we are loved.
It is Christ who is the Good Shepherd,
who leaves the ninety-nine to go after the one who is lost.
It is Christ who fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah
we heard in the first reading,
when he stood up in the synagogue and read from the scroll:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me
to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free…”
He appeared, and the soul felt its worth.
And so I would invite you to ask yourself today,
Do you feel your worth?
It doesn’t matter if you are a slave to addiction, or if you are free;
it doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, broken or whole.
You have worth.
You belong.
You matter.
You are loved,
each one of you.
And each of the people sitting next to you, and across from you,
and each of the people who aren’t here,
for whatever reason.
They, too, are loved,
wherever they are on their spiritual journey.
They have worth.
They have dignity,
they are loved.
Because on Christmas night,
Jesus Christ was born,
and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;
Can you see it now, that new and glorious day?
Can you see beyond the weariness,
beyond the doubts and fears?
There is hope, a thrill of hope, and we can rejoice!
That’s what Gaudete Sunday is about.
It’s about giving us a glimpse,
an early experience of Christmas joy.
And so, in this remaining week before Christmas,
one thing you might do
is find yourself a beautiful rendition of “O Holy Night.”
There are versions for every musical taste: classical, country, pop, jazz,
by musicians as diverse as
Josh Groban, Martina McBride, Mariah Carey,
Ella Fitzgerald, Carrie Underwood, Kelly Clarkson, Faith Hill,
you name it,
there are over 1,000 recordings of this Christmas hymn.
Find a version on YouTube or Spotify or Apple Music,
and listen to it every day leading up to Christmas.
Or maybe you could listen to a different rendition each day.
And after prayerfully listening to it,
contemplate that line,
’Til he appeared, and the soul felt its worth,”
and try to feel your own worth.
It’s one thing to know it intellectually:
“Yes, I understand, I am a child of God,
God created me,
I know that.”
It’s one thing to know that in the mind.
It’s quite another things to feel it in our souls,
to be able to say with the prophet Isaiah,
“in my God is the joy of my soul.”
So maybe each day between now and Christmas,
you can take some time to pause in your day,
maybe five, ten, or even fifteen minutes,
close your eyes,
and feel God looking at you with the eyes of love.
A love so great that he became a little child,
that he walked this earth
bringing glad tidings to the poor,
healing the brokenhearted,
going to the outcasts and the oppressed,
and loving them.
Until finally he accepted the cross,
doing all of this so that our soul would feel its worth,
so that we would have a thrill of hope,
and a weary world could rejoice.
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees, Oh hear the angel voices!
O night divine! O night when Christ was born.
O night, O holy night, O night divine.
We are given very powerful readings today,
powerful individually and powerful collectively.
And at the heart of them all is a line by St. Paul
in his letter to the Romans:
“…be transformed by the renewal of your mind,
that you may discern what is the will of God,
what is good and pleasing and perfect.”
So today we’re given three challenges:
transformation, renewal, and discernment.
First Paul says, be transformed.
This is what Jesus is trying to help Peter do in today’s Gospel.
When Jesus explains what it means to be the Messiah
— that it means suffering, death, and resurrection —
Peter rebukes him.
The fisherman rebukes the Messiah!
Peter is stuck thinking as human beings do,
not as God does.
And Peter is arrogant enough to think
that he needs to correct Jesus, the Christ.
In reality, Peter is an obstacle to Jesus.
In that moment, in fact, he’s just as much an obstacle as Satan.
But Jesus is patient with Peter,
he wants Peter to be transformed.
He wants what’s best for him. He cares for him. He loves him.
Peter has been raised to believe certain things about the Messiah,
things that don’t match with what he is hearing from Jesus.
So Jesus wants Peter to grow in his understanding
of what it means to follow him.
Jesus wants us, too, to grow in our understanding
of what it means to be a disciple.
He wants what’s best for us. He cares for us. He loves us.
We can misunderstand and distort the gospel
because of how we were raised,
or because of what we read or see on social media,
across the spectrum of ideologies.
Like Peter, we can be tempted to arrogance ourselves,
thinking we have the correct answer,
that we know what God wants,
and that everyone else needs to conform
to our way of thinking about God — even the Pope!
But when we do that,
we become obstacles to to Jesus,
thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.
And we’re not only obstacles to Jesus,
but we’re obstacles to other people’s relationship with Jesus.
So the challenge for us is to let ourselves be transformed by Christ,
just as Peter was transformed.
Think of all those whose lives were transformed by Christ:
Mary Magdalene, Matthew the tax collector, Nicodemus the Pharisee, etc.
It’s challenging to be transformed,
because transformation means change,
and change is always frightening,
It means leaving our comfort zone.
It means temporary confusion and instability
as we hover between our old self and our transformed self.
And transformation is a lifelong process,
so that means being uncomfortable over and over again.
We would much rather stay where we are than risk transformation.
There’s security in remaining where we are,
but there is also stagnation and death.
It’s the difference between being a living lake or a stagnant pond.
Lakes benefit from water constantly coming in and going out,
a steady exchange that brings life.
Lakes are blue and fresh and filled with life.
Stagnant ponds, on the other hand,
have no life, no color, and they’re filled with the stench of decay.
That’s because there is no exchange of water,
the water just sits there still and unmoving.
There is no renewal.
And that’s our second challenge,
to be transformed by the renewal of our mind.
Renewal is walking in the newness of life in Christ.
It’s a constant exchange
between ourselves and the living water of Christ.
As we prayed in today’s psalm,
“My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.”
Our soul thirst for Jesus, the living water.
Renewal is a steady drinking of the living water of Christ,
and then allowing it to flow out of ourselves
to others in the world around us,
through conversation, generosity, kindness, genuine relationship.
It is a constant flow, back and forth,
that sustains us in the life of the Spirit.
Today we are challenged to ask ourselves,
How regularly are we drinking from the well of the living water of Christ?
How open are we to the flow of the Holy Spirit within us and through us?
Are we making time each day to be with and aware of God,
making sure we are listening and not just speaking?
Or have we become stagnant in our faith?
Renewal is a constant process,
a steady exchange between ourselves, the Holy Spirit,
and the world around us.
It is a lifelong task, as we can see from the life of St. Peter.
Peter was constantly in need of transformation and renewal.
We’ve already seen that in today’s gospel.
Later, in the Acts of the Apostles, after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension,
Peter needs transformation and renewal again.
The question comes up
about whether the Gentiles need to be circumcised
in order to be disciples.
Peter thinks that they do,
but through a gathering of Church leaders at the Council of Jerusalem,
by listening to St. Paul, and especially by listening to the Holy Spirit,
Peter comes to a renewed understanding of God’s will,
and he was better able to discern what was “good, pleasing, and perfect.”
We see this kind of renewal and transformation in the Church
through gatherings like the Second Vatican Council
and the current Synod gathering about to take place in October.
Gatherings like these open the Church to the working of the Holy Spirit,
and make transformation and renewal possible
so that, like St. Peter, the Church can discern God’s will.
And discernment is the third challenge we hear
from Paul’s letter to the Romans.
Peter was able to discern the will of God about the Gentiles
because he was transformed by the renewal of his mind.
Paul, too, underwent tremendous transformation and renewal
after encountering Christ on the road to Damascus.
Paul went from persecuting Christians
to becoming one of Christianity’s greatest evangelizers.
At first, Paul was an obstacle to faith
who thought he had it all figured out.
He needed transformation and renewal
in order to better discern God’s will for him and for God’s people.
So often we think we know what God wants
before we do the necessary work of transformation and renewal.
Peter rebuked Jesus, Paul persecuted Christians.
There is a lot of rebuking and persecuting going on today,
and precious little discernment.
We have become obstacles to Christ
by our lack of transformation and renewal.
Today we are challenged to examine our lives,
looking for those places where we are stagnant,
and where we think like human beings, rather than God.
We are blessed to have St. Peter as our parish patron.
Not only for the times he got things right,
but also for the times he got things wrong.
Like Peter, we don’t always get it right.
Like Peter, we are sometimes obstacles to Jesus.
But, like Peter, we can change.
We can be transformed and renewed.
Each time we enter this church,
we need to remember our need for renewal,
our call to be transformed.
And we can also remember
that Jesus is patient with us,
as he was with Peter.
Jesus offers us living water for our thirsty souls,
transforming us from stagnant ponds into living lakes,
and renewing us in mind,
so we can better discern God’s will,
what is good, pleasing and perfect.
It’s a sad fact of history
that the largest religious community
that ever lived together in the same place
in the history of the Catholic Church
was at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany during World War II.
Over 2,500 Catholic priests became prisoners in Dachau,
in Cellblock 26, known as the Priestblock.
They were from 144 dioceses and 25 countries,
and they made up about a third of Dachau’s total population.
While they were there at Dachau,
the priests ministered to the other prisoners the best they could,
and they tried to strengthen each other, and give each other hope.
As the days went by, they even held theological discussions
to try and make sense of what was happening,
not only to them, but to the world.
They talked about the holocaust that was happening before their eyes,
and the war raging across the world,
weapons of destruction worse than any other in history;
and all this coming after what had been called “The War to End All Wars.”
These 2500 priests considered all of this,
and as they pondered,
one question kept returning to them.
“How could this happen?”
But that was not the complete question they asked.
The complete question, the full question, included a key phrase at the end.
Their full question was,
“How could this happen in Christian nations?”
Germany was a Christian nation. Italy, France, Great Britain,
the United States; even Russia had its Christian roots.
And these priests asked themselves,
“How could this happen
among people who professed to be followers of Christ?
We must do better!” they said.
We must do better.
And that is what Jesus is telling his disciples in today’s gospel.
He says, “your righteousness must surpass that
of the scribes and Pharisees.”
In other words, “You must do better.”
The law is not simply to be observed,
it is to be lived.
It is not enough to merely avoid murdering someone, he says,
that’s not enough.
You must do better.
If you have conflict, resolve it.
Disciples are not to call people fools or other demeaning names.
These people you try to humiliate are my brothers and sisters.
Before you even approach the altar with a gift,
if you have a problem with someone,
go reconcile with them,
and then come back.
You must do better.
It is not enough to avoid committing adultery.
Don’t even look at someone with lust.
That’s exploitation,
using someone else for your own pleasure.
You must do better.
It is not enough to avoid false oaths.
Live a life of integrity,
be who you are at all times,
in public and in private,
so that your yes means yes
and your no means no.
You must do better.
This is what Jesus is telling his disciples.
It’s what Jesus is telling us.
When we look at the world today,
the escalation of conflicts between nations,
the out and out war taking place,
we must do better.
When we look at our nation,
the polarization, the name calling,
the attempts to utterly humiliate opponents,
we must do better.
Even when we look inside our Church,
we see infighting, bickering, lack of charity between fellow Christians,
even, sadly, among Church leaders.
Is this reconciling with our brother or sister before coming to the altar?
Is this living a life of integrity where our yes means yes
and our no means no?
We must do better!
The 2500 priests at Dachau who saw the need to do better
also had discussions about how to do better.
In the face of the great evil they were experiencing,
they had an insight,
perhaps even the grace of the Holy Spirit inspiring them.
They realized that in the ministries of the Church
there were images of Christ the King
and images of Christ the Priest,
but there was a need for images of Christ the Servant.
And this could help us do better.
Whenever we humble ourselves enough to serve others,
we encounter Christ in them
and they encounter Christ in us.
In the words of Pope Francis,
“The more we serve,
the more we are aware of God’s presence,
especially when we serve those who cannot give anything in return…”
And when we see Christ in those we serve,
we are more likely to treat them with dignity,
we are more likely to build friendships with them,
we are more likely to want to reconcile with them
in peaceful and loving ways.
Conflict and disagreement are always going to exist.
But the way we resolve those conflicts
and address those differences with others
ought to grow out of an understanding of their dignity as children of God.
When we serve others, we are less likely to call them fools,
humiliate them,
or exploit them for our own pleasure.
When we serve others,
we do better.
So as the priests in Dachau
continued thinking about the important of service,
they saw the need for more images of Christ the Servant.
But they weren’t thinking necessarily
of more icons or paintings of Christ the Servant
being put up in churches and homes around the world,
although that would be wonderful.
I’ve brought in this image of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet,
because that’s who Jesus was and is, a servant.
Contemplating icons like this one
can certainly help us remember Christ the Servant,
and our own call to serve others.
But the priests at Dachau intended something more.
They saw the need for living images of Christ of the Servant.
And so they began to think the time had come
to bring back permanent deacons.
In the 1940’s, and for centuries before,
there were no permanent deacons,
as there had been in the early years of the church —
deacons like St. Lawrence and St. Ephraim.
Permanent deacons existed in the Church for many centuries,
but for a lot of complicated reasons they declined in number
and eventually disappeared.
The priests in Cellblock 26 saw the need
for the return of permanent deacons,
permanent images of Christ the Servant,
who would animate the people to service.
That is what those 2500 priests concluded,
and they wrote their thoughts down in notes,
and those notes were eventually published in a book
that was one of the influences on Pope Paul VI
when he decided to re-establish the permanent diaconate in 1967,
after the Second Vatican Council.
That decision is what allows me to stand before you,
a permanent deacon,
talking to you about serving others.
God always knows how to make grace come out of any suffering.
That horrible experience of the 2500 priests in Cellblock 26
lead to the renewal of the permanent diaconate,
so that now there are almost 49,000 deacons in the world,
and the numbers are increasing each year.
But when we look at the current conflicts in our world,
the divisions in our nation,
and even in our Church,
I must do better,
you must do better,
we must do better!
So I ask you to find some individual or some group that you can serve;
someone who cannot give back,
someone you disagree with or have a conflict with;
or some individual or group that makes you feel uncomfortable.
Christ the Servant went to uncomfortable places
like Samaria and the Decapolis.
He ministered to people who made others uncomfortable,
people on the fringes of society,
like tax collectors, prostitutes, and those with leprosy.
Who would he minister to today, if he were here among us?
Those are the very people he is asking us to serve.
Today Jesus asks us to surpass the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees
and do better.
It is not easy;
but when has the Christian life ever been easy?
the Christian life is the way of the cross.
And through the grace of our baptism,
strengthened in confirmation
and nourished here at the Eucharistic table,
Christ gives us the strength to carry that cross.
Today I urge you to find a way to serve others,
for in doing so you will find Christ;
and others will find Christ in you.
With Lent approaching,
maybe this can be part of your Lenten sacrifice.
The world desperately needs to see Christ, the Prince of Peace.
Because what we Christians have done so far,
as good as it has been,
has not been enough.
We must do better.
The feast of the Epiphany commemorates the arrival of the magi,
and their journey to find Christ can inspire us
to reflect on our own journey to encounter Christ in our lives.
Each of our journeys is unique,
and no one finds Christ in the quite the same way as anyone else.
The magi in the Gospel of Matthew found Jesus in their own way.
The names and numbers of the magi are not given in Matthew’s gospel,
but we think of them as a group of three,
probably because of the three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Our tradition gives them the names Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior.
These three magi, or wise men, read and studied the signs,
and when they noticed a particular star at its rising,
they traveled far from their own land in the east
and they found Jesus in Bethlehem.
For some of us, our journey might be similar:
following clear signs, point A to point B.
For others of us, the path is different,
a more winding road.
Such was the case with the other wise man, Artaban.
You won’t find Artaban in the Bible.
His story is told by the author Henry van Dyke.
It seems that Artaban had studied the stars with his friends
Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior,
and he knew that a king was to be born among the Jews,
a King who would change the world.
So Artaban arranged to meet up with his three friends
and travel with them to visit this King,
once they saw his star.
In preparation, Artaban sold his possessions and bought three jewels –
a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl – to carry as gifts to the king.
One night, Artaban looked up and said,
“The star! The King is coming, and I will go to meet him.”
He had ten days to get to the rendezvous
and join his friends’ caravan,
so Artaban immediately got on his horse
and rode across fields of Concabar, past Selucia,
across the Tigris and Euphrates rivers,
and finally arrived at Babylon at nightfall on the tenth day,
his horse exhausted,
just three hours away from his friends.
But what was this?
There was a man lying across the road, a poor Hebrew exile, almost dead,
in the grip of a deadly fever.
Should he turn aside, if only for a moment, to help this poor man,
and risk missing the caravan?
He couldn’t leave the man to die,
so Artaban jumped from his horse, brought the man water
and cared for him until the man recovered.
But, alas, he missed the caravan and his three friends.
Sometimes we think we may have “missed the boat,”
and we look back on the choices we have made,
wondering if they were right.
But Artiban was persistent.
However, he couldn’t cross the desert with only a horse,
so he sold the sapphire
to buy the camels and supplies necessary for such a long trip.
Fortunately, the Hebrew man he had saved
told him that, according to the prophets,
the King of the Jews would not be born in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem.
So Artaban set off for Bethlehem, hoping to meet his friends there.
He crossed deserts, mountain ranges,
endured the fierce heat of day, and the bitter chill of night.
and finally arrived in Bethlehem.
As he walked through the village looking for his friends,
Artaban heard a woman’s voice through a doorway,
singing her baby boy to sleep.
When she noticed his foreign clothing,
she told Artaban of the three strangers from the far East
who had appeared in the village three days ago,
and how they said a star had guided them to the place
where a newborn child lay.
But the young mother also told Artaban
that the strangers had gone,
and the child and his family were gone too,
rumored to have fled to Egypt.
Artaban’s spirit was crushed.
He had missed his friends again, and the newborn King!
Sometimes our spirits are crushed.
And we feel unlucky or abandoned.
And then it gets worse.
For just then, soldiers arrived in the village,
and Artaban and the young mother heard shouts:
“The soldiers of Herod are killing our children!”
The young mother hugged her child tightly,
and crouched in the darkest corner of the room.
Artaban went quickly to the doorway and stood there, looking out.
A soldier came hurrying up the street
and saw Artaban in his foreign clothing, filling up the doorway.
Artaban said, “I’m all alone in this place,
and I am waiting to give this jewel to the prudent captain
who will leave me in peace.”
Artaban showed the ruby,
and the amazed captain pocketed the jewel and said to his men,
“March on, there is no child here, the house is empty.”
From Bethlehem Artaban traveled on to Egypt,
seeking everywhere and finding nothing.
When he got to Alexandria a wise Hebrew rabbi told him,
“The Messiah will be despised and rejected by many,
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.
Those who seek him will do well to look among the poor and the lowly,
the sorrowful and the oppressed.”
And so Artaban traveled from place to place, visiting the oppressed.
Though he didn’t find the King, he did find many who needed help.
He fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and comforted the captive,
and his years passed swiftly by,
thirty-three years to be exact,
and still he sought the King of the Jews.
Artaban’s hair was now white, his face wrinkled, his body weary.
He had come for the last time to Jerusalem, still looking for the King.
It was the season of Passover and the city was filled with foreigners.
Artaban joined a group of people from his own country
and asked them where they were going.
They said, “We’re going to the place called Golgotha,
where there is to be an execution of two famous robbers,
and another, Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has done wonderful works,
but who has been sent to be crucified
because he said he was the King of the Jews.”
Nazareth? The King of the Jews!
Could it be?
Could it be that he had arisen but had been rejected,
and was now about to die?
And Artaban thought,
“Maybe I will at last find the King, in the hands of his enemies,
and will come in time to offer my pearl for his ransom before he dies.”
But just then a troop of Roman soldiers came down the street,
dragging a young girl.
She was the daughter of a merchant,
but her father was dead,
and she was being sold as a slave to pay his debts.
Artaban knew what he had to do.
He took the pearl and gave it to the slave.
“This is your ransom, daughter.
It is the last of my treasures which I have kept for the King.”
Suddenly there was a great earthquake,
and the walls of the houses shook to and fro.
A heavy tile fell from a nearby roof and struck Artaban on the temple.
He lay breathless and pale, in the lap of the young girl,
knowing that his quest was over
and that he had failed.
Sometimes we feel the same way, that we have failed.
We lose hope, we despair.
But we don’t always have the full picture.
In fact, we rarely do.
You see, then came a voice through the twilight, very small and still.
The young girl turned to see if someone had spoken from the window above them,
but she saw no one.
Then the old man’s lips began to move, as if to answer,
and she heard him say,
“Not so, my Lord, when did I see you hungry and feed you?
Or thirsty, and give you drink?
When did I see you a foreigner and take you in, or naked and clothe you?
Thirty-three years I have looked for you;
but I have never seen your face, or ministered to you, my King.”
The sweet voice came again, faint and far away,
but this time the young girl understood the words:
“Truly I say to you,
whatsoever you have done to one of the least of these,
you have done it to me.”
A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the face of Artaban
and a long breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips.
His journey was ended. His treasures were accepted.
The other wise man had found his King.
Not one of us travels the same road.
Some of us have led fairly straightforward lives of faith,
from point A to point B,
only to begin questioning in our old age.
Some of us were raised in the Faith,
and may have drifted away and then returned with new appreciation.
Some of us came to the Faith later in life,
after exploring many different paths,
or after suffering through difficult challenges.
We may have family or friends
who seem to be moving away from Bethlehem right now.
But even they are still on the journey,
and there is hope for them.
On this feast of the Epiphany,
each one of us is asked to reflect on our own search for Jesus.
What has your journey been like?
Where have you gotten lost or sidetracked?
Who has helped guide you back?
In what unexpected places or people have you found Jesus?
What treasures have you given him?
What has been your Epiphany?
[Click here to read the full version of “The Story of the Other Wise Man” by Henry van Dyke]
Once upon a time there were two towers.
Both towers began to be constructed about the same time,
in the late 1800s.
Both were constructed in Europe and designed by European architects,
and both of them were ambitious projects,
with plans for multiple levels, huge arches,
and decorative statues.
Each structure was designed to reach high into the sky,
and to be built of sturdy stone.
And both of these towers are unfinished to this day.
Both architects died during their construction,
and neither building was ever completed.
Today Jesus talks to the crowds about building a tower.
He compares building a tower
to being his disciple.
When you construct a tower, he tells the crowd,
you must count the cost beforehand.
In the same way, he says,
to be his disciple,
you must count the cost,
you must understand fully what it takes to follow him.
Otherwise you may find yourself unable to finish the work.
There is a cost to building a tower.
There is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus.
What is the cost of discipleship?
Jesus is very clear about this:
“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.”
The cost of discipleship is the cross.
The spiritual writer Dietrich Bonhoeffer explores this idea
in his book The Cost of Discipleship.
Bonhoeffer distinguishes between what he calls
cheap grace and costly grace:
“Cheap grace is grace without discipleship,
grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.
Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field;
for the sake of it, a man will gladly go and sell all that he has.”“Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow,
and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.
It is costly because it costs a [person] his life,
and it is grace because it gives a [person] the only true life…
Above all it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son…
and what has cost God so much cannot be cheap for us.”
“…what has cost God so much cannot be cheap for us.”
Jesus did not give up his life for us
so that we could “leave the world for an hour or so
every Sunday morning and go to church…”
He gave up his life so we could follow him 24/7:
carrying our own cross each day,
letting go of all that we possess, and all that possesses us.
Today we hear Jesus ask us if we have we factored that
into our calculations for building a spiritual life.
We often calculate costs in life.
How much do I need to save for a down payment for a mortgage?
How long will it take me to save it?
We calculate how much a vacation will cost us,
or what kind of car we can afford,
how much we’ll spend on gas or maintenance.
We calculate and estimate and predict.
Jesus is inviting us to do the same thing
with the spiritual life.
Jesus challenges us to calculate the cost of discipleship.
Because if we don’t,
we risk leaving the work of our spiritual lives unfinished,
like a building that is abandoned before it is done,
like a tower that is never completed.
Returning to the two unfinished towers we started with,
we saw that they had a lot in common.
Both were made of stone, both were started over 100 years ago,
both remain unfinished.
But there are also some significant differences between them.
The first one was designed in Scotland
by a man named John Stuart McCaig.
It was McCaig who commissioned the tower to be built,
and it was McCaig who designed it.
His purpose was to create a lasting monument to his family,
in the style of the Colosseum in Rome.
He designed it to be an elaborate structure,
with arches and arches, and a large central tower,
and a museum, and an art gallery.
Inside the central tower would be a large statue of himself,
and statues of his siblings and their parents.
But McCaig died before it was completed.
He did leave money in his will for the maintenance of the tower,
but his heirs contested the will and won their case,
and so the tower was never finished.
McCaig may have calculated
what he thought it would take to finish the tower,
but he miscalculated his family.
His tower was all about glorifying himself, glorifying his family,
and it sits in Scotland to this day, unfinished.
In fact, it’s even known today as “McCaig’s Folly.”
Jesus talks about the man who doesn’t finish his tower
who is made fun of by the onlookers.
McCaig’s Folly.
La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona
Now the second tower in our story
is actually more than a tower, to be honest, quite a bit more.
It was designed in Barcelona, Spain.
And it, too, like McCaig’s Folly,
was intended to honor a family,
but not the family of the designer.
This building is a massive church intended to honor the Holy Family,
La Sagrada Familia, in Spanish,
the Sacred Family, the Holy Family,
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Its chief architect was Antoni Gaudi,
and construction began on it in 1882.
And like McCaig’s Folly, it remains unfinished to this day.
But what’s different about La Sagrada Familia,
when compared to McCaig’s Folly,
is that construction has never stopped on La Sagrada Familia.
From 1882 to 2022, for 140 years,
it has been worked on and worked on.
And it is magnificent.
I’ve only seen it in pictures,
but it’s on my bucket list.
Our daughter Teresa saw it when she spent a semester abroad
a few years go,
and she raved about how awe-inspiring it is.
Eighteen towering spires of differing heights,
representing the twelve apostles, the Blessed Virgin Mary,
the four evangelists,
and the tallest spire of all, representing Jesus Christ.
It will have three grand facades,
representing the Nativity, the Passion, and the Glory;
massive columns depicting the the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit,
the seven deadly sins,
and the seven heavenly virtues;
five doors, with the central door having a triple entrance,
to represent the seven sacraments.
And that’s not even mentioning the interior of the church,
illuminated in all the colors of the rainbow,
designed to look organic,
like a living thing.
When Gaudi died in 1926,
less than a quarter of the project was complete.
But work continued under the direction of Gaudi’s main follower,
who handed it on to a group of architects
who have continued the work,
so the church is continually being worked on.
Pope Benedict consecrated the church in 2010
and proclaimed it a minor basilica.
It was projected to be finished in 2026,
but this has been delayed a bit due to the pandemic.
Maybe some of you here have seen it in person,
but if you haven’t, and you want to see something truly inspiring,
go online and look up La Sagrada Familia,
the church of the Holy Family in Barcelona Spain.
The construction of this church is a metaphor
for the construction of our spiritual lives,
for the building of our relationship with Christ.
Gaudi calculated correctly.
He knew the church would not be finished in his lifetime,
it was not even intended to be finished in his lifetime.
He built that into his calculations.
And now, it is very close to being finished.
And so that begs the question, where are we in our spiritual lives?
How are our calculations?
Are we, like McCaig’s Folly, focused on glorifying ourselves,
incomplete in our calculations?
Or are we, with our lives,
honoring the Holy Family,
taking Mary as our model of discipleship, of motherhood, of prayer;
taking Joseph as our model of fatherhood, of devotion?
Are we following Jesus, by taking up our cross daily,
refusing to settle for cheap grace, and seeking costly grace?
When we honor Jesus with our lives,
when we build that into our calculations,
We have a much better chance of finding fulfillment,
of being completed.
We know that we will not find complete fulfillment in this life.
That only happens in the next life.
But we also know that if we abandon the work
we will run the risk of living an unfinished, unfulfilled life
And so this week we’re invited to recalculate our spiritual life,
to factor in taking up our cross daily.
This is the cost of discipleship.
As we look at the spiritual life we are building,
is it looking more like McCaig’s Folly,
or La Sagrada Familia?
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The first few gospel readings of the Easter season focused on showing us that Jesus was raised from the dead. He eats with his disciples, he shows them his wounds, he assures them that it really is him, he is risen from the dead. Now as we enter the third week of Easter the scripture readings change their focus from the resurrection itself to show us the effect of the resurrection on the disciples. We see this first in the figure of Peter. The last time we saw...
We walk through the Doorway of Love, following the Thread of Love, imitating the Model of Love, sitting in the Garden of Love.
Today’s gospel is a story of baptism, and what baptism does for each of us. It’s a story of thirst and water, of longing and desire. It’s part one of a baptismal trilogy that continues next week and the week after. Three lessons about baptism, with three images: this week water, next week light, and the following week rising from the dead. But it all begins with being thirsty. Within each one of us is a deep yearning, what St. Augustine calls a restlessness, what some spiritual writers...
A few weeks ago we read how Jesus went up the mountain to teach his disciples. Just as Moses went up on Mount Sinai to receive the Law, Jesus, the new Moses, speaks his Sermon on the Mount to deepen our understanding of the Law. This week he is still on the mountain and his words are clear: “Offer no resistance to one who is evil.” “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.” The message is simple, the challenge is difficult: Jesus is telling us to...
There were many newsworthy events this past week and there are many more going on this weekend; but there’s one event that happened this past Wednesday that you probably didn’t hear about: one of the world’s best-selling authors passed away at the age of 92. They say that if a book sells more than 20,000 copies in a year, then it’s in the top one percent of all book sales. This author sold over 10 million copies of his books. And yet, despite being so successful, you probably...
Back in November, Brenda and I got to see our daughter Teresa perform in Gonzaga Prep’s production of The Sound of Music. I know some of you here are theater moms or dads, and your kids have been in shows too, shows like Ferris’ The Addams Family, Fiddler on the Roof, or Shrek. Or maybe some of you are theater kids and have seen your parents perform in Ham on Regal. So you know how it is that you end up seeing the same show multiple times. You...
A while back a friend shared a website with me that was a collection of the last words of famous people, and it was very interesting. Some of their final words were humble. For example, Leonard DaVinci said, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.” Some tried to be prophetic. Nostradamus, for instance said, “Tomorrow I will not be here.” He was right. And there were some who didn’t realize they were speaking their final words. The last...
The dramatic scene from the first reading, with Moses raising the staff of God during battle, and Joshua mowing down Amalek, almost feels like a scene from The Lord of the Rings. But it’s not Tolkien that I find most helpful in breaking open today’s scripture, but rather one of his best friends, C.S. Lewis. Lewis, as many of you know, was the author of the Narnia series, that wonderful set of books about Aslan, Prince Caspian, and the magical world on the other side of the wardrobe. Lewis...
Today’s gospel account of the dishonest steward reminds me of those con artist movies like Ocean’s Eleven or The Sting, you know, those movies featuring criminals who are trying to con people out of their money. They come up with these elaborate plans, like robbing three casinos at once, or tricking the rich man into betting all his money on a fake horse race. And despite the fact that they’re criminals, we find ourselves rooting for them, hoping that their plans succeed. And usually, somewhere in the middle...
Once upon a time there was a preacher who was worried about his congregation. They were good people, people who loved Jesus, people who had embraced the Christian way of life. But there came a time when they became exhausted. They were tired— tired of serving the world, tired of worship, tired of being seen as peculiar and whispered about in society, tired of the spiritual struggle, tired of trying to keep their prayer life going. Attendance at church was down, the people were losing confidence, and many...
Today’s readings offer us a contrast between two people visited by the Lord. The Lord comes to their homes, and we see two different reactions; I’m not speaking here of Martha and Mary, but of Martha and Abraham. Now, there are definitely differences between the way Martha responds to her encounter with Jesus, and the way Mary responds. But if we focus only on Martha and Mary, we may get the mistaken idea that Mary’s contemplation is superior to Martha’s service. But by comparing and contrasting Martha and...
Yesterday I had the great honor to officiate the wedding of my son, Ryan, and his wife Teresa. Here is the homily from that ceremony: Brenda and I have had the best time watching Ryan and Teresa get ready for this day, and we’ve enjoyed getting ready for it ourselves. One of the things I had to do for the wedding was pick up the dry cleaning a few days ago from a place out in the valley, off Pines near Broadway. After I picked it up, instead...
One of the most dreaded phrases in classrooms everywhere is “in your own words.” “Explain the causes of the Civil War in your own words.” “Describe the process of photosynthesis in your own words.” Teachers love the phrase because it requires students to do deep thinking; and students dread the phrase, because it requires them to do deep thinking. It may seem cruel of me to be talking about school so soon after summer vacation has begun, but I only bring it up because of what happens in...
Not long ago we celebrated the Ascension, and this was the first year we could celebrate that feast with the beautiful icon of the Ascension greeting us as we walked into the Church. On this Solemnity of the Holy Trinity I am reminded of another icon, perhaps the most famous icon of them all, the icon of the Holy Trinity by Andrei Rublev. Rublev painted, or wrote, this icon in 1425 for the church of St. Sergius near Moscow, Russia, and it’s regarded as one of the highest...
Suppose we had a time machine and we traveled back in time to talk to Simon Peter before he met Jesus. And what if we asked him, “What would a peaceful life look like to you?” I wonder what he might say. Maybe he’d say, “Well, a peaceful life would be one where my fishing business would continue to thrive. I would catch lots of fish each day, sell them all, and support my family comfortably. My wife and I would live in harmony and raise our children...
The world is full of great love stories. We see them in literature and film and in history: stories like Casablanca, Pride and Prejudice, and Titanic. Lovers like Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester, even Matthew Crawley and Lady Mary. We all relate to a good love story. What makes them so powerful are the obstacles that the lovers try to overcome. Sometimes they’re successful and their story ends in joy; and sometimes they’re not and the story ends in tragedy. But they remain great stories...
One of the greatest speeches in all of literature
is the St. Crispin’s Day Speech by William Shakespeare
from his play, Henry V.
It’s October 25, in the year 1415,
and King Henry of England and his men are about to fight the French
in what will come to be known as the Battle of Agincourt.
Henry’s men are exhausted and sick.
They’ve been fighting for months,
and they’ve just finished a long and grueling siege of Harfleur castle.
As they move across the French countryside
trying to find a place to rest
the French army discovers them.
The English are outnumbered five to one,
and the French send a herald to receive their surrender.
But rather than surrender to the superior forces,
Henry chooses to fight.
When Henry’s cousin Westmoreland wishes they had
ten thousand more soldiers with them,
Henry begins his famous speech.
“No,” he says, “if we are to die, we are enough.
But if we are to live, the fewer the men the greater share of honor.”
He calls the men his “band of brothers,”
and says years from now survivors in their old age
will gladly bare their scars
to show that they were there on St. Crispin’s Day.
It’s a rousing, stirring speech,
especially when delivered by Kenneth Branagh,
in the 1989 movie version of Henry V.
On YouTube the speech has well over a million views:
And that’s what we have in today’s readings.
They are meant to inspire us, to motivate us
in this season of Lent.
We’re a week and a half into Lent,
and we’re trying to overcome not physical enemies like the French,
but the ancient enemies sloth, envy, gluttony, greed, lust, anger, and pride,
those deadly sins that enslave us.
During these forty days we intensify our efforts to overcome sin in our lives,
to reconnect with God and with each other.
And we may feel exhausted, we may feel outnumbered,
we may feel intimidated by the prospect of trying to change our lives,
or we may just not want to be bothered.
We may just want to be left alone.
Like Henry V, we are faced with a choice.
Do we surrender to those hostile forces that we struggle with?
Do we give in to our vices?
The readings of today’s liturgy encourage us to stand firm
in our Lenten commitments.
Like Shakespeare’s St. Crispin’s Day speech,
today’s readings ask, “Who’s with me?”
“Who’s willing to stay faithful to God?”
And the first answer to that question is Abraham.
Abraham trusts in the Lord even though he’s old,
even though it seems unbelievable
that he and Sarah in their old age
could have descendants as numerous as the stars.
But God promises that, and even more, saying
“I will give you this land.”
And when Abraham asks for a sign
God performs an ancient covenant ceremony
to seal his promise.
Abraham brings the sacrificial animals, splits them in two
and places the halves opposite each other.
Usually at this time in a covenant ceremony,
both parties would walk between the dead animals
as if to say,
“If either of us breaks the covenant,
this is what’s going to happen to us.”
But in this situation God alone passes between those pieces
as if to say to Abraham,
“You don’t need to guarantee this, I guarantee it.”
God is a God of promises, and a God who keeps his promises.
And Abraham trusts and the promise is fulfilled.
So as we go through Lent,
we can be assured
that God has promised and it will be done.
And what is God’s promise to us?
The answer to that is made visible in today’s gospel.
We see Jesus,
who has been teaching, preaching and healing,
very successfully.
But the gospel is about to take a turn.
In the remaining chapters of Luke’s gospel,
Jesus sets his face toward Jerusalem,
the city that kills prophets.
Jesus knows what’s coming,
he’s told his disciples what’s coming—
his suffering and death.
He goes up on the mountain to pray
and when he’s there his disciples get a glimpse of what is to come,
a vision that will give them hope when things get bleak.
A promise of eternal life.
Jesus is about to go to Jerusalem
and experience humiliation, suffering, and death
And before that happens, the disciples get a view of what comes after.
It’s like Henry V’s speech,
when he tells his soldiers
“In the future, the survivors will bare their arms and show their scars,
they will tell the story of St. Crispin’s Day, of the Battle of Agincourt,
to their children and grandchildren.
Everyone will know your names.”
Henry is appealing to his men’s sense of honor.
The whole play is about honor.
But in the Transfiguration it’s not honor but eternal life that’s on display.
We see eternity, we see our eternal destiny.
It’s much greater than the honor.
Jesus is not going to Jerusalem to be honored.
He is going to be humiliated.
He is going to suffer a shameful death.
But, after that, comes resurrection.
The disciples can see it in his face.
That is the vision that gives his disciples hope.
That is the vision that gives us hope.
That is the vision to keep before our eyes this Lenten season.
When we want to remain where we are,
when we would surrender to our vices,
when we would rather not go through the difficulty of Lent,
the glory in Jesus’ face encourages us onward.
That is God’s promise to us:
the face of Jesus.
Eternal life, eternal joy.
This is what Paul means
when he says,
“…our citizenship is in heaven…
the Lord Jesus Christ…will change our lowly body
to conform with his glorified body…”
He says,
“Stand firm in the Lord.”
Stand firm, hold fast.
It’s worth it.
These readings are to inspire us
to stay true to the commitments we made for Lent.
Whatever it is we’ve given up,
whatever it is we’ve committed to doing,
keep it up.
Because if we stand firm in the Lord,
Easter is just around the corner.
The resurrection will happen.
We know this because God has promised,
and what God has promised, God does.
Henry V’s St. Crispin’s Day speech was effective.
The English, though outnumbered five to one,
defeated the French that day at the Battle of Agincourt.
God’s word to Abraham and Sarah was effective.
Though old and childless,
their descendants are as numerous as the stars,
and their people inherited the promised land.
And Jesus’ words and deeds were effective.
Though seemingly defeated by crucifixion and death,
he rose again on the third day,
opening the way to eternal life for us all.
It is now for us to stand firm in the Lord this Lent
and hold fast to the promises of God
and the vision of Christ transfigured.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the new Star Wars movie,
The Force Awakens.
It’s breaking all box office records,
and I’ve seen it myself a couple of times.
One of the things I find interesting about this new Star Wars trilogy
is that it begins in the same way as the original trilogy with Luke Skywalker.
If you haven’t seen it yet, I’m not giving much away
by saying that the main character starts the story on a desert planet
feeling forsaken, feeling abandoned,
just like Luke Skywalker alone on the planet Tatooine
feeling left out of things,
feeling abandoned by his friends who have gone off to fight in the rebellion.
Now this is not unique, of course, to Star Wars.
Many, many stories begin wth the main character
being abandoned or forsaken.
Harry Potter, for instance, is left on the Dursley doorstep as a baby
where he grows up in a tiny room under the stairs, abandoned, seemingly, by any friends he might have had.
There’s also Robinson Crusoe, shipwrecked on an island,
young Pip in Great Expectations and Jane Eyre,
orphans who are raised by distant family members,
and Cinderella who is left abandoned when her father passes away
and is forsaken, ignored, persecuted by her stepmother and stepsisters.
These stories resonate with us
because we can feel abandoned at times,
we can feel forsaken,
that we’re living as the prophet Isaiah says in a desolate land.
This is especially true this time of year in January,
with its grey skies and frigid temperatures.
We’ve just come out of the long holiday season.
The celebrating began at Thanksgiving
and lasted all through November and December.
And then suddenly life returns to normal.
The mail has turned from Christmas cards to credit card bills.
Now we’re back at work,
the kids are back in school, and so life continues.
It’s a bit of a let down,
this time of year called Ordinary Time.
It’s not meant to be humdrum, but that’s sometimes how we feel.
The word Ordinary itself simply comes from the word Ordinal
which means counted, it’s counted time,
we count the weeks of the Church year.
But maybe sometimes we feel instead
that we’re counting down the days to our next vacation.
And the culture around us doesn’t help, either.
Sometimes we feel abandoned by the culture,
abandoned by people who call us ignorant for our beliefs,
or who say that we’re outdated,
that the values we believe in are old-fashioned.
We’re “out of touch with reality.”
Sometimes this even happens on a national scale
when a group is mocked or persecuted.
Certainly the Jews during the Holocaust
must have felt abandoned,
like they were living in desolate times.
In today’s world Christian Syrians
and other Christians in the Middle East feel abandoned, forsaken.
And so in some way we can all relate to being abandoned,
of being left on our own,
like Rey or Luke Skywalker in Star Wars,
or Harry Potter, or Jane Eyre.
That’s why the Wedding Feast of Cana is so important today, right now.
For the rest of this year we will be reading from the gospel of Luke,
but before we get to Luke,
the Church chooses this reading from John’s Gospel
to help us transition from the Christmas season to Ordinary Time.
The Wedding feast of Cana reminds us
that we are not forsaken,
that we are not abandoned,
that we are not living in desolation.
This is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry in John’s gospel.
At Christmas we celebrated Jesus’ birth,
last week we recalled Jesus’ baptism,
and now we have the beginning of his public ministry.
And so at the very beginning, at the outset,
we’re given a reminder
that though we may at times feel abandoned,
though we may at times feel left out,
this gospel tells us not to let that get us down,
not to let that overcome us.
Jesus is at a wedding with his mother,
and as one spiritual writer puts it,
We don’t know the couple was whose wedding Jesus celebrated.
Maybe that’s because it wasn’t just their wedding,
but the marriage between God and the people of God.
…Isaiah had dreamed about the day when
“as a bridegroom rejoices in his bride,
so shall your God rejoice in you.”
For John, Jesus is not just a guest at the wedding,
he is the bridegroom who has come to make a loving and lasting
commitment with God’s people.
And at this wedding in Cana,
the celebration is maybe beginning to die down,
just as in a marriage the excitement can die down,
the couple can settle into a routine,
the family can get in a rut.
At this wedding in Cana the wine is running out.
In our lives, it can feel like the wine is running out.
And it takes someone like Mary to recognize it.
It takes someone like Mary to point out that the wine is running out,
that the celebration is about to fall apart,
and that Jesus is the one who can bring it back to life.
And so Mary goes to Jesus
and then she goes to the servers and says,
“Do whatever he tells you to do.”
And Jesus changes the water into wine.
As we begin Ordinary Time it is good for us to hear
that as we continue in January and move into February,
Jesus turns the water of our lives into wine.
The story of Cana is all about newness:
new wine,
new grace,
new beginnings.
When we invite Jesus into our lives,
just as the couple invited him to their wedding,
then he takes the ordinary moments and fills them with grace.
Our getting up in the morning for breakfast,
our commute to work,
the daily grind,
are full of graces
now that Jesus has come into the world.
And just as Mary noticed that the wine was running out,
we can look at the world around us and notice the wine running out,
the celebration starting to die down,
the feelings of abandonment and desolation starting to grow.
It’s at those times most of all that we turn to Jesus
and tell him, “We have no wine.”
And then we listen to him, and we “Do whatever he tells us.”
This is why we have each been given the spiritual gifts we heard today
in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians
Some of us are asked to express wisdom,
some of us to heal.
We have all been given different gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Each of us are servants at the wedding
and Mary says to each one of us,
“Do whatever he tells you.”
Just as the servants at the wedding assisted Jesus
in turning water into wine,
we are to place our spiritual gifts before Jesus
and assist him
in turning the water of our lives into the wine of salvation.
The prophecy of Isaiah has come true:
We are a glorious crown in the hand of the LORD,
a royal diadem held by our God.
No more shall people call us “Forsaken,” or our land “Desolate,”
but we shall be called “My Delight,” and our land “Espoused.”
When we feel abandoned and forsaken,
this scripture gives us new hope.
You know, that’s the title of the original Star Wars movie
with Luke Skywalker,
A New Hope.
And the new Star Wars movie is called The Force Awakens.
Today we are reminded that Jesus is the source of our real hope.
Jesus is our new hope each day and always.
And we see in today’s gospel what happens
when the real force awakens,
we see what happens when the Son of God begins his public ministry
and works the first of his miraculous signs.
That’s why we come here to celebrate the Eucharist.
We come to receive the consecrated wine, the Blood of Christ,
and the consecrated bread, the Body of Christ,
that transforms us week by week,
transforms the water of our lives into the wine of salvation
and banishes all feelings of abandonment and desolation.