2nd Sunday Year C, 2025

 

(Isaiah 62:1-5; 1st. Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11) 

On emerging from the waters of the Jordan after His baptism by John the Baptist, Jesus was greeted by God witnessing to His Personal divinity as Son, and being given the mission of saving God’s People from their thraldom to sin:

The Spirit immediately drove Him out into the wilderness (for) forty days, being tempted by Satan. (Mark 1: 12-13)

There, in the Judaean wilderness, Jesus’ holiness was confronted by the lying Serpent to begin a contest that would only be resolved when Satan’s apparently ultimate triumph – Jesus’ death on a Roman Cross – was transfigured by Jesus’ ‘Fiat’ of love and obedience to His Father into His ultimate saving work for our salvation. This initial confrontation, however, was ended after forty days, when the devil retired until a later time; whereupon Jesus – in the power of the Spirit, Luke tells us -- set out for Galilee with some committed disciples.

 On the way home to Galilee Jesus ‘dropped-in’ on a wedding feast where His mother was one of the guests invited along with Jesus and His disciples.   Mary seems to have thought that Jesus’  arrival was providential, for she immediately had something to ask of Him concerning the newly-wed couple:

The mother of Jesus said to Him, "They have no wine." 

Jesus did not think that was a matter to concern Him Personally: He had recently been manifested as Son of God and ‘installed’ as Israel’s Messiah at His baptism, and He had come to Galilee (with five newly-chosen disciples) to begin His Public Ministry  in accordance with His Father’s saving will, which was that He should reverse Satan’s original victory over Adam and Eve. Jesus most certainly did not want His Father’s commission to be immediately prejudiced by His mother’s emotional involvement with the married couple. His mind being centred on His Father’s ‘commission’, He did most clearly remember Eve’s close association with the original ‘garden’ wounding of His Father’s heart ….  and spineless Adam’s subsequent  words of blame against God:

The WOMAN whom YOU gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree.

Therefore Jesus, totally committed to His heavenly Father, said:

            WOMAN, what does this have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.

Mary apparently wanted Jesus to use His ‘mission power’ to accommodate her personal wishes first of all, therefore Jesus said:   WOMAN!

However, God the Father had a particular appreciation of Mary who had devoted herself totally to the welfare of her Child – His Word made flesh -- by nourishing and protecting Him, but above all, by teaching Him all she knew of God: opening up her own mind and heart to her Child in order that He might learn first how to pray and then how to respond to God in heaven as a true Israelite, indeed, as the Chosen One of a Chosen People.

Now Mary is about to be rewarded, acknowledged, for what she had done for God's Son throughout His childhood years: she is to be inspired to help her Son  define and make manifest the hidden nature and purpose of His work of salvation – a marriage of world-wide and eternal significance: the heavenly union of redeemed mankind with the God of their creation – by His, Jesus’, joyfully embracing and enabling the earthly, but now to be ‘heavenly-graced’ celebrations of this, most needy, newly-wedded couple.

How did Mary, under God's inspiration, do this? Very simply, as you would expect:

            His mother said to the servants, "Whatever He says to you, do it."

Jesus immediately, instinctively recognized His Father’s influence on, and gift to, His ‘strangely inconsistent’ mother, who now wanting not her own will, but whatever Jesus might want.

The heavenly Father was inspiring Mary to give her Son a mother’s blessing as He began His work of salvation: a work that would lead by way of the Cross to His most glorious Resurrection.  God would not take Mary's Son from her: He had not done that to Abraham, He would not do that to Mary.  Mary, however, being greater than Abraham, was uniquely privileged to bless her Son’s future mission by helping Him choose this most appropriate occasion of love, commitment, and joy for His first miracle.  Isaiah's prophecy was being fulfilled in Mary herself, the supreme member of new-born Mother-Church:

You (Zion) shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the Lord, a royal diadem in the hand of your God.  (Isaiah 62:3)

The gifts of God cannot be numbered, and no one is left un-gifted, such is St. Paul’s message today; and some of those gifts are, as might be expected, beyond our imagining:

People of God, all who are serious disciples of Jesus must be convinced that He does want to use and ultimately glorify each and every one of us in Himself.  We for our part, however, must -- first of all -- want Him to do this with our lives; and then we must learn to listen for His Spirit and respond without delay to His promptings; only in that way can Isaiah's prophecy come to greater fulfilment in us and in our days:

            Nations shall behold your vindication, and all kings your glory.

God can do anything with those who are humble, those who truly seek Him first and foremost in their lives and who are willing to trust Him in all things.  Ask Mary to pray for you; beg the Holy Spirit to guide you; thank God for His goodness to you in Mother Church and in your own personal, living and prayerful relationship with Him.  Do these things and the Holy Spirit will be with you to form you into an ever more close and true likeness of Jesus; let Him thus raise you, and all you may influence, to a closer proximity with Him Who is the Lord and Father of us all.  

Baptism of Our Lord Year C, 2025

 

(Isaiah 42:1-4, 6-7; Acts of the Apostles 10:34-38; Luke 3:15-16, 21-22) 

Jesus’ decision to leave Mary and His Nazareth home and go to be baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan, occasioned the most sublimely intimate event of Jesus’ life thus far, an event involving the most  Holy Trinity Itself:  the HOLY SPIRIT descended upon Jesus like a dove, and a VOICE came OUT OF HEAVEN saying:

YOU are MY BELOVED SON.

Jesus was then about 30 years of age and had been living under the tutelage of Mary first of all -- as her child, to be guided by her into His Jewish faith and spirituality, and also shown how to live an appropriate social life with its personal relationships.  Only later was He to be taught by Joseph for guidance on how to learn a life-sustaining, trade skill, with himself as a joiner.  Mary and Joseph were thus the chosen guides for Jesus’ growing-up into a perfect Man before His being manifested later as perfect God.

Jesus had always realized spiritually that Joseph was not His father: His ever-growing love for, His intimacy in prayer with, the God of Israel culminated during their twelfth family pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  At the end of that pilgrimage -- during which Jesus had officially accepted a full-grown man’s obligations for His observance of the Law -- their caravan set-off back to Nazareth.  Mary and Joseph, however, could not find Jesus in the caravan with them nor with their friends.  It was only after returning to Jerusalem and searching for three days that Mary and Joseph did eventually find Him in the Temple, where He simply answered Mary’s chastising words by saying, ‘Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?’

However,  even then in the Temple Jesus had only been talking with the learned doctors about God.  But now, after humbly taking up the last position in the queue for John’s baptism, God spoke to Him, as He rose from the waters, with sublime intimacy:

            You are My beloved Son with Whom I am well-pleased!

Now indeed, after 30 years of astounding humility and most patient trust in His ‘distant’ Father, Jesus had become  His Father’s perfect instrument, His Chosen One, to be sent (as the Son ‘proudly’ referred to His mission) as

PERFECT GOD AND PERFECT MAN for mankind’s redemption.

It is, however,  the very moment, the very instant, of Jesus’ baptism, the most joyful, crowning and consecrating, moment of His whole life thus far, which is also the whole point of our celebration in this Mass today.   Jesus was transformed by those divine words still echoing in His mind, and causing His heart to pulsate so serenely and sublimely, yet with such promise of more than human strength.

            You are My beloved Son with Whom I am well-pleased! 

Dear People of God, surely we -- who try to celebrate this Mass in spirit and in truth – must, as disciples of Jesus our friend, our brother, and our Saviour, long to hear such words ourselves on our appearance before the Lord, Maker and Master of all things, Who originally called us to faith in Jesus that He might – by the grace of  His own most Holy Spirit -- make of us guests fit to sit at the table bearing all the blessings for the Father’s heavenly feast, blessings prepared to form us, ultimately, for the eternal praise and glory of the Lord and Father of us all.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we should most whole-heartedly REJOICE with Jesus on this unique day of His supreme delight as Son of Man, here on earth, yet so lovingly  embraced by His heavenly Father and most faithful-abiding Spirit.

Epiphany of The Lord Year C, 2025

 

(Isaiah 60;1-6; Ephesians 3;2-3, 5-6; Matthew 2:1-12) 

The Epiphany is a very big feast telling us of some very obscure men … ‘Magi’ sounds to us a bit like magic, but they were really what we might call astrologers, learned men of those ancient times looking to the heavens for guidance in their understanding of worldly facts and divine providence.   How many were they?  Probably three because of the three distinct presents they bore with them for the Child.  They were not ‘kings’ so far as we know, but they were considered to be wise men who knew where to look for important truth, and after noticing a new, wonderful star in the east, they decided to call it the King’s star, and they followed it. 

Their journey led them to the territory of the murderous Herod, then called King of the Jews, who, having interrogated them about the mysterious King’s star, encouraged them on their way asking that they ‘keep in touch’ with him and his men.  The Magi finally arrived at Bethlehem where the star indicated to them their final destination.  They found the Child with Mary His mother, and Joseph her, God-given, guide and protector.

So the great feast of the Epiphany is something of a concoction, commemorating  the manifestation of Christ to the Magi for the Western Church, and the baptism of Christ for the Eastern Church.

The Magi were not God’s spokesmen like the prophets of Israel, they left gifts for the Child, but no words for us; subsequently they simply disappeared into the vagaries of history, and we have no further reason for commemorating them, other than the fact that having followed a heavenly phenomenon, they were the first significant people to have found the infant Christ Whom they ‘worshipped’, as best they knew how.

So what we are really gathered here to celebrate on this great Church  festival is the revelation that: CHRIST CHOSE TO BE INITIALLY MADE MANIFEST, not to the powerful and mighty, but to HUMBLE shepherds and the POOR of Bethany;

He chose to make Himself known to those WILLING TO FOLLOW GOD’S  CALL WHEREVER IT MIGHT LEAD;

to those who REVERENCE MARY, THE MOTHER OF THIS GOD-GIVEN CHILD, and work -- ultimately with blessed JOSEPH -- for the MOTHER AND  CHILD’S, good and well-being.

Surely, dear People of God here at Mass, you can see, that  YOU are potentially included those blessed ones there!!

People of God, let us understand aright the essence of this divine celebration and manifestation which is the Epiphany:

Our God is unique, infinite, and transcendent in His perfections; and yet all His perfections are able to be summed up by these three words of St. John: GOD IS LOVE.  Words which we only we, who believe in Jesus  on earth can appreciate;  because the mutual embrace of love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is LIFE ETERNAL, which supports the total grandeur of cosmic creation,  which, above all -- through Jesus born of Mary -- inspires all beautiful human love, spiritual aspirations, heavenly hopes, all Godly experience here on earth, and ultimately, all divine Family expectations thanks to God-given promises.

Divine love alone embraces all that Mother Church teaches, all that the Scriptures contain, and all that the human mind can learn from Jesus and -- under the gift and grace of His most Holy Spirit – all that we can become, for the glory of Him Who is the God and Father of us all.