(Isaiah 60:1-6; Ephesians 3:2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12)
Why are we drawn to some people more than others … because
of their kindness perhaps, their good looks; or might it be due to their understanding,
sympathy, wisdom, or courage? The
richness and variety of the human character is endless, but when we actually --
and truly – come to love someone, that is because of who they are,
because of their unique personality, as known to us and experienced by
us. We cannot love someone unknown to us.
Although we can admire, be grateful for,
what we hear of others, nevertheless, such
admiration through hearsay or ‘work experience’ only becomes love when, after
we have first of all met, and then gradually experienced them,
when we have learned to personally appreciate them because of
their complementarity to ourselves, that is, when we begin to ‘miss’ them, and find
ourselves less happy(?), less content(?), less confident(?), indeed less
fulfilled, without them.
Since that is true, isn’t it strange that so many Christian
and Catholic leaders speak so very little about the beauty, goodness, wisdom
and ‘loveableness’ they see, find, experience, in their relationship with God,
especially with Jesus? Is it that their understanding of a religious,
faith, relationship is exclusively a matter knowing teaching, obeying commands?
Would such speaking about the beauty, the ‘loveableness’ of God or of Jesus
especially, such as I have mentioned, be
considered outrageous presumption or merely personal emotion? Is the name of Jesus, or the word Faith, indeed
perhaps those other words Christian or even Catholic, taboo for them in their addresses
concerning the state of our world today?
However that may be, the fact is that the Christian
proclamation as we hear it today is so often nothing more than ethics: doing
good to the needy and underprivileged, loving one’s neighbour and especially
children, social involvement, anti-racism (which seems, somehow, to include
hating so-called racists!!) etc. etc., which
has lost all contact with its Christian
matrix, and has long become representative of mere ‘wokeness’ or humanism. Even international religious statements such as the
Pope’s Urbi et Orbi, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s seasonal exhortation, now
often say very little more than what is humanly expected of them.
There is, dear People of God, very little witnessing to the
pleroma of Christian, and above all Catholic, faith as a spiritual power
capable of bestowing on believers not merely firm purpose, deep patience, and loving
commitment, as a prelude to eternal salvation, but also as a unique source of
hope for the unity, peace, and fulfilment of mankind. ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive others’ – is a fundamental
Christian doctrine that invokes a uniquely personal experience capable of bestowing
a secret joy and profound peace -- ’Jesu joy of man’s desiring’-- in
anticipation of, and prelude to, our personal sharing in Jesus’ Own experience
of Divine Beatitude.
Whoever has My commandments
and observes them is the one who loves Me. And whoever loves Me will be loved
by my Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.” (John 14:21)
However, the heavenly reward to which we all aspire as
disciples of Jesus will not be given us because we have lived up to the world’s
‘politically correct’ expectations or requirements; not even just because we
have kept Church and Divine rules. The ultimate
criterion for the fully Christian and Catholic appreciation of our whole life
will be:
“Did you keep those
commandments, rules of life, because they were MY commandments? Did you love and commit yourself to the Lord your God in your mind and heart sincerely,
as best you could in your life-situation, or did you just follow what
others about you were doing, or just seek to earn a living?”
Without personal love for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
our Christian life can only be bleak and
formal, our Catholic witness to God only lifeless and uninspiring; all in stark
contrast to those words of the prophet Isaiah we heard in the first reading:
Arise, SHINE; for your light has
come! The glory of the LORD is risen
upon you.
Christians -- above all we who are privileged to be
Catholics -- should indeed shine out because we are called to reflect and make
known the glory of the Lord which has shone upon us through our faith in the
Good News of Jesus. We are not like our
brothers, the Jews and the Muslims (too many of whom alas are only pseudo-Muslims,
priding themselves on being such great haters!), who, as true servants
of the one God they know alike through Abraham: they can and do speak
good, holy, and beautiful things about God.
Indeed, the Jews speak of God in ways very close to our own hearts. Nevertheless, the Christian faith is so much
more glorious than either Judaism or Islam: for we speak not only of the glory
of God, but of the wondrous GOODNESS of the Father, the supreme and
unimaginable BEAUTY of His Son Who became one of us in order to save us, and
the MYSTERIOUS AND MOST INTIMATE WORKING of the Holy Spirit of both Father and
Son: not indeed as one-of-us, but always with us in Mother Church, and
always wanting to be Personally present to all of us who will follow His guidance
along the ways of Jesus.
We Christians know God through the Old Testament Scriptures,
but above all we know Him through the fulfilment of those Scriptures contained in
the Gospel ‘Good News’ of Jesus, interpreted for us through Apostolic Traditions
which are the rock-like foundation of the Catholic Church (no Synodality
there!). We confess, love and worship
God, as Father, Son and Spirit: the Father Who created us and Who is become,
really and truly, our own Father in Jesus; the Son Who took our flesh
and became our Brother before showing Himself to be our Saviour, and Who, to
this very day, continues to give Himself as flesh and blood for you and me to eat
and drink, thereby enabling us to live with His life, by His Spirit; and the
Holy Spirit Whom we love and praise, in Whom we trust and rejoice, since He
is ever with us as our Advocate, our strength and support, our light and our guide,
our sure hope and our deep, deep, joy.
People of God, today's great solemnity of the Epiphany, the
shining forth of God's glory, invites us most compellingly to glory in the
Father, Son and Holy Spirit, by telling us, in the words of the prophet Isaiah,
to:
Lift up your eyes all round (that is, appreciate the Faith you profess
and the Church in which you live); then
you shall see and become radiant, and your heart shall swell with joy.
Jesus came to teach each of us to recognize with Him, and
in Him to appreciate, the Father as a Person: His Father, and now
-- in Jesus -- our Father; and He has given us His own most Holy Spirit, to
inflame our hearts, enlighten our minds, and give us strength: that He might
form in us Jesus’ Own filial likeness, for the glory of the Father:
The Spirit helps our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we should.
But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for
words. (Rom. 8:26)
The Father is so Personally committed to us that, having
given His only Son for us, He now wants to speak to each of us personally, by
His Spirit, that we might turn to Jesus and find our salvation in Him:
No one can come to Me unless the
Father Who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:44)
The Father looks for, and expects in return, a similarly
personal and whole-hearted response and commitment from us. Jesus assures us that the Father wants to be
our most perfect Father (Matthew 10:20):
It is
not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father Who speaks in you.
And, as the only true Father, He wants to be recognized and
loved by children who will confidently turn to Him, in Jesus, saying:
"Abba, Father"
Our Lord Jesus is indeed the Messiah foretold by the
prophets; proclaimed by angels and manifested by a star at His birth; revealed
by the Father at His baptism in the Jordan; He Personally died on Calvary for
our sins, yours and mine; and rose on the third day for our salvation. We now live in Him by His Spirit bestowed
on each of us by Mother Church at our baptism, and continually renewed in us by
our faithful living in her, above all by our reception of the Eucharist at Holy
Mass. And this Holy Spirit -- relating
to each and every one of us individually – works His divine purposes in the
secret depths of our minds and hearts to the extent that we are attuned to His
presence and willing to respond to His inspirations. Indeed, He is so personal to us that it is
His task to lead each of us to our own individual and personal fulfilment and
perfection in Jesus, for the Father.
People of God, Christians and even Catholics today are
often ‘shy’ of the wonders of our faith.
Jesus, however, came to lift His disciples up to heavenly glory to
share with Him in the glory of divine charity where Father, Son and Holy
Spirit are eternally and indivisibly One. For we belong to Jesus -- as St. Paul tells
us (1 Corinthians 3:21-4:1) -- just as Jesus belongs to God, our relationship
with God is that personal:
All things are yours, whether
(the Church), the world or life or death, or things present or things to come;
all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
There, in the Son and by the Holy Spirit, you and I are called to join in the songs of
myriads of angels; to participate with our whole being in the great and eternal
ecstasy of heavenly praise to the glory
of Him Who is, as Jesus and His most faithful disciple St. Paul, tell us, our Father
Call
no one on earth your father; you have but one Father in heaven. (Mt.
23:9)
One God and Father of all, Who is over all,
through all, and in all. (Ephesians 4:6)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, let us on this most
solemn feast of the Epiphany 2024 revive our ability to whole-heartedly rejoice
in God and, with quiet sincerity and deep confidence, to stand ever more firm
and sure on the rock and foundation of our God-given Catholic and Christian Faith.
