Third Sunday of the Year (C) 2016

 The Third Sunday of the Year(C)

(Nehemiah 8: 2-4, 5-6, 8-10; 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27; St. Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21)

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Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our Gospel passage today is difficult to interpret because of scholars who tell us that St. Luke has put this Gospel ‘pericope’ in the wrong place; this event didn’t really happen in the course of Jesus’ life and work at this stage where St. Luke has, they say, ‘inserted’ it, and where Mother Church offers it to us today: it is made up of various strands taken from other situations etc. etc.

Nevertheless here we have it on this third Sunday of the Year for our Gospel reading; apparently having occurred shortly after the marriage feast at Cana which itself followed hard on Jesus’ previous Baptism by John the Baptist in the Jordan.   And though I am in no way able to gainsay the learning of scholars, I must try my best, as a preacher of the Gospel, to make as good purposeful and saving sense as I can of what we have before us.  This, however, is not over difficult because Luke’s sequence of events is very satisfying: Jesus, having been acknowledged by the voice of His heavenly Father at John’s baptism on Jordan’s banks then, in the power of His Father’s heavenly Gift, outwitted and embarrassed the Devil in the desert; and shortly thereafter, on returning to Galilee, received His mother’s blessing and prayer (‘they have no wine’) for the fullness of the inauguration of His Messianic calling.

Here, in words spoken by Our Blessed Lord Himself, Saint Luke does most definitely intend to say, and wants us to understand that, all things having been fittingly prepared:

 TODAY, this (supremely important and Messianic) Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.

Why does the Evangelist insist so emphatically that Isaiah’s prophecy was brought to its fulfilment by Jesus reading the prophetic passage during that Sabbath assembly in the synagogue of Nazareth on this very day?

It seems to me that here St. Luke is doing something similar to what St. John did at the beginning of his Gospel:

A man named John was sent from God.  He came to testify to the lightisH so that all might believe through him; (for) the true light, which enlightens everyone, was in the world and the world came to be through Him but the world did not know Him.  He came to what was His own, but His own people did not accept Him. (1:6-11)

What John – considerably later in life -- expressed as a mature theologian, Luke earlier presents as an evangelist delighting to draw attention to Jesus’ loving humanity and Personal relationships; and in doing so he gives prominence to Mary’s intercession at the wedding feast in Cana as a divinely arranged and most humanly appropriate mother’s blessing for her Son setting out on His public mission as Christ and Saviour; a blessing which consequently transfigures her prayer at Cana -- ‘Son, they have no wine’ -- in such a way that it addresses not merely the temporary embarrassment of the newly-weds, but also the ancient hopes and expectations of God’s Chosen people, and even the whole of mankind’s historical suffering from original sin and ignorance.

Those words of Jesus:

Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing,

are also immensely important for all who read the Scriptures searching for hope in God, and above all for those who turn to the New Testament looking for eternal life with Jesus.  As He Himself once said to the Sadducees:

You are misled because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God; have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?  He is not the God of the dead but of the living (Matthew 22: 29-33);

Jesus thus assures us that Scripture is always capable of present-day fulfilment in the lives of those who are humble enough to patiently wait and prayerfully listen for Him in their constant and faithful attendance on God; and many are the saints of Mother Church whose lives were formed or transformed by such awareness and response to God speaking to them personally in the Scriptures, such a St. Anthony the Great whose memory we have just recently celebrated.

But there is also much else which is eminently appropriate for us today to be noted in our  ‘problematic’ Gospel reading.

Salvation, it tells us, begins ‘at home’, among those fellow citizens of Jesus at Nazareth and co-members of the Chosen People; likewise, any spiritual renewal for Mother Church today should penetrate first and foremost, deepest and most lovingly, into the hearts and minds of all her apparently faithful children standing as Catholics before our modern world.  For too long the awareness of individual responsibility before God and  to God among some commonly accepted as ‘devout’ Catholics has been downplayed in favour of the call for Church popularity in general and a humanistic welcoming of individuals, to the extent that now a closer and more accommodating relationship with others can be regarded as ample justification for a change in or break with God’s law or even the denial of God Himself: witness all the ramifications of gay marriage (I am not speaking in any way against same-sex friendships), sex and gene modification, abortion advice and contraception facilities, and the growing lobby for the comfortable procurement of death ‘on demand’.

Luke, moreover, in our Gospel reading shows Jesus being murderously hated and rejected for reasons such as personal disdain and direct animosity:

                They asked, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” 

Jesus Himself saw most clearly in their attitude a strong jealousy and hidden antipathy, an unwillingness to accept Him as being worthy of the glowing reports accorded Him by others:

Surely, you will quote to Me this proverb, “Physician, cure yourself,” and say, “Do here in Your native place the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.”

They were all filled with fury.  They rose up, drove Him out of the town, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl Him down headlong.

The eventual rejection and even the crucifixion of the Messiah, and very Son of God, were thus revealed as having been most deeply and secretly hidden in the hearts and minds of those apparently devout members of that synagogue in Nazareth who had apparently known Jesus and lived and worked with Him for years.

People of God, in our responsibility before God and to God we must recognize the desperate state of Mother Church in our world today and indeed the desperate state of the world itself, as the celebrated physicist Stephen Hawking recently warned, saying that it was in danger of destroying itself in the next 100 years.  However such responsibility to God for ourselves and before God for our world is most definitely -- for all who will ultimately turn out to be true children of God, in Jesus, by the Holy Spirit -- an immense and most glorious privilege as well.

Nevertheless,  St. Luke’s ‘difficult and displaced pericope’,  tells us that no  one's sincerity and enduring fidelity can be presumed; humble and persistent personal prayer and sacramental worship, along with ever more sincere selflessness in our response to and promotion of Jesus’ Good News before men can, on the basis of absolute confidence and trust in God’s unfailing salvific presence in Mother Church, serve the blessings He is preparing for all who will ultimately and eternally find themselves sitting at the wedding feast of heaven.

2nd Sunday of the Year 2016 (C)

 

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2^nd. Sunday of Year 2022 (C)

(Isaiah 62:1-5; 1^st. Corinthians 12: 4-11; St. John’s Gospel 2:1-11)

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You will all, surely, remember one or several of the numerous passages in the Gospels where we read that Jesus chose to ‘take with Him Peter, James, and John the brother of James’ out of all the disciples. And it is not difficult to imagine why He chose two of those three disciples, because Peter was ultimately to become the most authoritative witness to Jesus, as leader of the Church Jesus would leave behind to spread, in His name, His saving teachings and to offer His divine grace to the whole of mankind; while James was to be the first of the Apostles to suffer martyrdom for the name of Jesus, as a notoriously prominent member of the new sect of Nazarenes, under the recent Roman-appointee, King Herod Antipas, early on in his tremulously violent search for security and popularity.

But what about John, the young boy in the midst of such pre-destined and mature men? Perhaps we may be allowed, just for the very joy and beauty of it, to try to gain some appreciation and possible understanding of the reason for and purpose of Jesus’ choice of John.

Mature men are – by definition -- already formed in their personality and manhood to a large measure, even though subsequently they become fully committed and truly loving disciples. John, however, was not fully mature in such ways: he was still receptive of and impressionable under human influence but, obviously, much more so when in close proximity with Jesus’ divinely human Personality. St. John’s Gospel offers us therefore -- quite uniquely – an intimacy of access to Jesus Himself whereby we are invited, to lose something of ourselves and experience Jesus as it were from the inside: to sympathetically intuit something of His Personality, and whole-heartedly love His very Self, along with John. And today’s Gospel reading is an excellent example of John’s opening up of Jesus for us in that way.

A wedding was taking place in Cana to which Mary (and Jesus? and His new disciples??) had been invited. During the course of the celebrations we are told:

The wine ran short and the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”

Obviously -- judging from Jesus’ reply -- Mary was not just ‘concerned’ about the lack of wine, for she was expecting, or at least hoping, that Jesus might be able to do something about it.

As you can appreciate, Jesus was surprised at His mother’s concern; or perhaps better, quite puzzled at her attempt to involve Him in the matter.

Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.”

Mary, however, was not to be put off:

    His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever He tells you.”

That surely is moral pressure: for Mary – known to all as Jesus’ very mother – publicly, even though you might say, in a confidential way, advises the servants (who will most certainly talk!) to be ready to do whatever Jesus might tell them. Jesus had not intended to tell them to do anything, but now those servants were looking to Him, waiting for Him, to say something, to do something!! So there we are now ourselves, having been made aware of a dilemma Jesus was experiencing within His very own and very human Self!

When, as a young man having just been officially recognized as a male adult responsible before the Law with regard to its obligations and duties, Jesus had refused to apologize for what Mary thought had been a wrong done to Joseph and herself. Now, having been confessed before John by the voice of His Father from heaven, and having entered upon His public ministry by vanquishing the Devil in his desert lair, the bond of supremely cherished love and sovereign obedience between Jesus and His heavenly Father -- manifested and asserted as a very young man all those years ago -- was never at any risk of now being made contingent upon, or adapted to conform with, merely human standards or expectations, not even those of His mother Mary.

Let us therefore, most humbly watch and wait in order to appreciate and learn from every single word, even the very least, or from any of His gestures; above all indeed, let us allow for and learn from His silences and His perhaps, most intimate, prayer.

Jesus was not concerned about the couple’s shortage of wine, that is, He had no intention whatsoever of using powers given Him by His Father for anything but His Father’s purposes, Woman how does your concern affect Me?

However, though Jesus was not much embarrassed by Mary’s concern as such, He was nevertheless puzzled by her subsequent actions:

        His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever He tells you.”

How could she, preaching obedience to the servants ‘Do whatever He tells you’, herself be so wilfully insistent about what she wanted Him to do? She had never behaved in this way before, and that, as I said, was puzzling for Jesus. John tells us nothing, and that nothingness is one of those silences of Jesus I just mentioned that we should carefully attend to, for when Jesus was puzzled He would turn to but One, His Father.

Jesus was always, literally always and most intently, aware of and responsive to His Father’s will; and just as all those years ago, though in no way apologizing for remaining behind in Jerusalem, He had nevertheless returned home with Mary and Joseph and, through all the intervening years been obedient to them, so now, Jesus learned from His Father that, by embracing His mother Mary’s concern for the young couple and their guests, He, Jesus, was being offered the opportunity to use, most appropriately, divine power for truly divine purposes evoking the ultimate wedding feast of all in heaven.

The heavenly Father never forgot Mary’s Calvary-like self-sacrifice at the Annunciation and He always tempered any apparent ‘difficulties’ between His beloved Son’s supreme love for Himself and His supreme appreciation of His mother. Here Mary’s concerns for the couple were merely incidental to the truly divine conciliation the Father was about to work. The Father wanted His Son-made-Man, now about to set out on His Messianic work, to begin it with both His heavenly Father's and His earthly mother’s blessing; and so He made Mary’s ‘concern’ the apparent ‘cause’ of the blessing He planned: and because she, through such concern, would thus ‘cause’ her Son to work His first miracle as Messiah, that wonderful privilege would serve most fittingly as her blessing upon her Son’s subsequent life’s work. It would be totally divine, even symbolically, for there would be more wine, better wine, than Mary could ever have conceived of for the newly-wed’s; and it would be a miracle rejoicing Jesus’ most Sacred Heart to its fullest human extent while causing Him supreme and most sublime delight in His Father’s resultant glory as a foreshadowing of the divine and heavenly banquet of the family of God, gathered together by the Spirit in the name of Jesus at the table, and before the Person, of the Father of all.

Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.”

Dear People of God, you have not been taught any particular doctrine of Catholic divinity (as Pope Benedict did so beautifully) nor exhorted to any particular Catholic moral attitude or practice (as Pope Francis does so diligently) because ultimately, whatever we think, whatever we profess or do, will only bear fruit to the extent in which it is penetrated by our personal and humble experience of and response to Jesus Himself as revealed to us by His own Divine Words in the Scriptures and opened-up for us by His own Most Holy Spirit. Many disciples they too desirous to know facts, to have information, to be able to answer too many questions, ABOUT JESUS, especially with other people in view; whereas what is supremely necessary and uniquely fulfilling is personal knowledge OF, love FOR, intimacy and fullness of satisfaction WITH, adherence and commitment TO Jesus alone, our Lord and Saviour indeed, but also your and my Life,  my and your Love.

I do not tell you that I will ask the Father for you. For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have come to believe that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father. (John 16: 26-28)

Baptism of Our Lord Year C 2016

BAPTISM of Our Lord (C)

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

There was an atmosphere of tense expectancy among the crowds of devout Jews thronging to John by the banks of the Jordan: there was something about the man -- his solitary life-style, his ascetic demeanour and powerful words – all of which made him seem like one of the old-style prophets whom the present generation had only heard spoken of as belonging to what seemed a dim and distant past.   There was, however, something yet more fascinating about John the Baptist: an undeniably mysterious something which was causing many to think that he might possibly be the promised Messiah -- the Christ, as St. Luke puts it -- for whose coming devout Israelites had been praying for centuries.  Although John did his best to dampen such expectations of him, nevertheless, people who came crowding to him for baptism were so centred on his personality that they probably did not even notice the figure of one more young man quietly joining the queue moving forward for baptism.

However, with the approach of that young man John’s ministry was nearing its climactic fulfilment, and his true purpose and identity were about to be revealed: for that young man had once been brought (while still early in His mother’s womb) to John (himself then about to be born of his mother Elizabeth) for John’s pre-sanctification in view of his life’s work ahead and personal destiny.  And now that young man – Jesus of Nazareth – was appearing before John once again, being brought this time by the inspiration of His heavenly Father for both His own Personal commissioning and manifestation in Israel and for John’s fulfilment as supreme witness and faithful forerunner:

            He must increase, I must decrease.

Jesus, having long recognized and, since His ‘coming of age’ as a son-of-the-Law, openly declared God to be His most true and only Father, had come -- despite His youthful longing to be immediately doing His Father’s business -- to appreciate that His duty to Mary His mother, and to Joseph while still alive, required that He return with them to Nazareth: there, He grew in grace and favour before God and men to the fullness of His human maturity.  But His longing to be about His Father’s business was ever abiding and  increasing over the years as He waited and watched in all the circumstances of His daily life and professional work, above all, however, in His Personal prayer and participation in synagogue worship, for His Father’s call to Messianic work.

He had come to hear of John the Baptist’s prophetic activity and of its effect on many of Israel’s faithful, and He had begun to wonder if He should be there, where people were openly acknowledging their need of God, and where His Father was manifestly at work.  Oh, how He longed to seek out His Father’s traces and find out His will for Him!  And thus it came about: Jesus joined the crowd of God-seekers around John; listening and watching not so much for John -- His now publicly-acclaimed relative -- but for His own supremely beloved and, as yet publicly unknown, Father.

However, when that apparently indistinguishable young man was actually receiving John’s baptism a voice spoke from heaven and a dove descended upon Him: John saw the dove and perhaps heard the words spoken; the people however -- though they sensed the unique atmosphere of sacred presence -- saw and heard nothing humanly distinct, because the words from heaven were directed not to them but to the young man Himself:

When Jesus had been baptized and, (as He) was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove.  And a voice came from heaven, "You are My beloved Son; with You I am well pleased."

Jesus had indeed understood His Father’s inspirations aright!!

John, for his part, was not unprepared for such a vision, since God had told him that:

One mightier than (he was) coming, Who (would) baptize (the people) with the Holy Spirit and fire.

As a result, John was eager and able to recognize Jesus when he saw:

            the Holy Spirit descend in bodily form like a dove upon (Him).

John might even have been permitted to hear those words addressed to Jesus by the voice from heaven, but such personal words from the Father to His only-begotten Son may have been too intimate and too holy for even one so exalted as John the Baptist to be allowed to overhear.  Consequently, we in Mother Church should recognize that we are wonderfully privileged to know not only what the Jewish penitents surrounding John and Jesus by the Jordan certainly did not know, but also what perhaps even John the Baptist himself was not allowed to hear; and that, of course, would be in perfect accord with the words Jesus was to speak later concerning John (Matthew 11:11):

Amen I say to you, among those born of women there has been none greater than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

Nevertheless, whether or not he heard the words, John most certainly saw the Spirit descending like a dove on Jesus, and would have immediately recalled what the Scriptures told of Noah in the beginning (Genesis 8:10-12):

Noah again released the dove from the ark.  In the evening the dove came to him, and there in its bill was a plucked-off olive leaf!  So Noah knew that the waters had diminished on the earth. 

Likewise, when John saw the Spirit descend like a dove on Jesus it is quite possible that he was prophetically privileged to appreciate that mankind’s ancient servitude to sin was coming to its end and that they would be enabled to find, once again, acceptance and peace with God through this mysterious young relative of his, Jesus, now standing before him, dripping water and engrossed in prayer.  John knew well those words of Isaiah which we heard in our first reading:

Here is My servant whom I uphold, My chosen one with Whom I am pleased!  Upon Him I have put My Spirit; He shall bring forth justice to the nations.   He will not cry out nor shout, a dimly burning wick He will not quench, until He establishes justice on the earth; the coastlands will wait for His teaching.

Indeed, it was with such a One in mind that he himself had told the waiting people:

I am baptizing you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, I am not worthy to loosen the thongs of His sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

The Son, with Whom the voice of the heavenly Father declared Himself  well pleased, was One with the Spirit in the glory of His Father; He was therefore able, as the Messianic leader, to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit in His human nature and, indeed, would shortly ‘deploy’ that human fullness of Holiness and Power for the very first time by  means of a victorious encounter with mankind’s arch-enemy, the Devil, in the desert acknowledged to be the Devil’s very own dwelling-place, before entering upon His public ministry:

How can anyone enter a strong man’s house and steal his property unless He first ties up the strong man?  Then He can plunder his house.  (Matthew 12:29)

We learn from subsequent words of Jesus spoken shortly before His conclusive encounter with Satan on Calvary, with what dispositions He had received His baptismal endowment of the Spirit and had entered upon that initial contest against Sin-Personified at the beginning of His public mission (St. Luke 12:49):

I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! 

Jesus received in His own humanity the fullness of the Spirit so that subsequently He might pour out that Spirit over humankind as God’s Gift in and through His Church.  For the hearts and minds of those true disciples who would have faith in, and give obedience to, Jesus could only be cleansed of their native sinfulness by such a Gift, Who, in His cleansing activity would indeed show Himself to be a Spirit of divine fire: purging, purifying, and preparing a new People of God, able to witness in the power of the Spirit to the name of Jesus Christ Saviour for the eternal glory of the heavenly Father and the salvation of mankind.

That ardent longing of Jesus to ‘set the earth on fire’ was, indeed, the very purpose for which, having risen from the dead, He expressly equipped His Church, the very work for which He confirmed His Apostles and commanded them to spearhead:

When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together.  And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were.  Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. (Acts 2:1-3)

John the Baptist spoke of the work that Jesus’ baptism would accomplish when he declared:

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fan is in His hand to clear His threshing floor and to gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.

And that was how John, the greatest of Old Testament prophets, understood the image of fire.  However, that is an understanding we can and should appreciate more fully in the light of the subsequent work of Jesus here on earth and of His Holy Spirit in the life of the Church.   The Spirit would indeed ‘burn the chaff’, but first of all in the hearts of His chosen ones; and the greater their obedience and docility, the more they would allow Him a free hand in their lives, the greater would be the blaze of purifying love He would kindle and stoke up within them.  For the world at large, however -- for those stumbling and hurting themselves in the darkness of sin -- He would first of all show Himself to be the Spirit of Love and of Truth, a tongue of fire enabling the Apostles and prophets of Mother Church to tell forth the love of God and proclaim His Good News of peace for all men and women of good will (Matthew 10:20):

It is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father Who speaks in you.

People of God, let us learn from the baptism of Our Lord something of the nature of our vocation.

If the Spirit of Jesus is to be heard by the world around us, a deeply sinful world delighting in its own disfigurement … if He is to be heard and appreciated by them in the manner of that beautiful word-picture painted by the great prophet Isaiah (52:7) who said:

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the One bringing good news, Announcing peace, bearing good news, announcing salvation and saying to Zion, “Your God is King”;

if, dear People of God, we are to help our world encounter Jesus as He Himself wanted (Luke 4:18) to be found by them:

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;

then we must implore the Spirit of Jesus to work in us as fire, as  purifying fire in our very deepest selves, purging us ever more and more from our personal sinfulness, and enabling us to commit ourselves ever more whole-heartedly to Our Lord and His work.  That is the only spirit of sacrifice, the only testimony of fraternal love, that can make us true disciples of Him Who sacrificed Himself for the sins of the world.

We cannot trust in our own presumed zeal and good intentions as does the proud, post-Christian, society around us; for what is needed most of all today is not that we – whether as individuals or as a social body -- pass off ourselves as good people doing good things we have thought up for ourselves without needing to acknowledge any help from a supposedly authoritative and guiding God, but that the Spirit of Jesus is able to find a welcome in the hearts of humble men and women of our day, thanks to Mother Church’s authentic proclamation of the Good News of Jesus, and our own deepest prayers and most sincere endeavours to allow the Spirit of Jesus -- the ‘Gift’ of God and of Mother Church -- to work fully and freely in us, leading us along the ways of Jesus: ways of authentic self-sacrifice for the good of our brethren, and of humble gratitude and praise for the glory of our Father in heaven.                          

The Epiphany 2016

                       The Epiphany                                                             

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

In the Eastern Church today’s solemnity of the Epiphany of Our Lord has precedence over Christmas, whereas for us in the West, Christmas Day is the greater celebration; and the reason for this diversity is that these two solemn celebrations are complementary

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At Christmas we celebrate God’s inconceivable humility and wondrous goodness whereby His only-begotten Son puts on human flesh, becoming Himself fully and truly human in His divine Sonship, in order to involve Himself with us totally – sin alone excepted -- for a right understanding and resolving of the mess into which we had got ourselves and our world by deliberate and wilful sinning against God and against our own humanity.   And that Christmas awareness of such amazing humility and goodness on God’s part batters at the foundations of modern pride by inviting and provoking us to humble gratitude and childlike trust. On Christmas Day we recalled the words of Elizabeth to Mary our Mother (Luke 1:45);

Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled 

and we too, as her true children, likewise renewed at Christmas the sincerity of our belief in Jesus the Lord and our Redeemer,  and the simplicity of our trust in all God’s promises for our salvation.

At the Epiphany, however, we rejoice in the divine glory manifested in the earthly life and being of Him Who, though coming as Saviour, deigns to be like us:

As an Infant, Who, like some uniquely wondrous lodestone, draws the heavens (planetary movements of those times being apparently confirmed by modern computer simulation) and the Magi (men guided by their learning in science and philosophy and deeply motivated by their sincere religious commitment) from lands afar, to His crib in Bethlehem;

At His baptism, when His humility before John opened the very heavens, calling forth a divine witness as the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove, and the Father proclaimed Him to be His own beloved  Son;

At the wedding in Cana, where as a passing guest He changed, at His mother’s instigation (!), water into rich and copious new wine; His power there being manifested and matched by His divine awareness, human generosity, and filial compliance. 

All these resplendent signs of His human majesty, glory, power, and compassion, give us unshakeable confidence that what He has promised, He can and will fulfil in and for His Church throughout the succeeding ages of her public proclamation and witness, and for all His true disciples as they try to live their personal lives according to His teaching and for the praise and glory of His most holy Name. 

For us, therefore, who are disciples of Jesus, there should be a more than worldly, human, joy when we celebrate the birth, the majesty and power, of Jesus, because His Kingdom is not of this world, as He Himself said.   As you all are well aware, though human joy appears most desirable, experience does -- at times -- show it to be equally unreliable; again, worldly joy can change some people into louts and hooligans even more easily than it makes others into happy and generous companions; and when circumstances change, such joy can quickly disappear, leaving behind it corrosive complaint rather than grateful and calm peace. 

Jesus the Lord triumphed for us by destroying sin and death in our flesh, and His renewed coming this Christmas season is a confirmation of His promise that He will share His triumph with all who put their faith, and find their joy, in Him, becoming one with Him through baptism and the Eucharist.  His victories are eternally valid; for, in His Resurrection human flesh has once again been restored to heaven and is now, indeed, at  the right hand of the Father in glory; and He, the Risen Son of Man, is both willing and able to triumph over the darkness of sin and ignorance, not only in the world around us, as was shown by His bringing to naught the schemes of that cunning and murderous tyrant, Herod.

Arise, shine; for your light has come, the glory of the LORD has dawned upon you. Though darkness covers the earth and thick clouds the peoples, upon you the LORD will dawn and over you His glory will be seen;

but also in our own very intimate, complicated, and shadowy, minds and hearts.

Just as at Christmas we rejoiced and renewed our humble and grateful trust in the promises made to us in Christ, in accordance with the teaching of St. Paul who most emphatically teaches us (2 Corinthians 1:20) that:

However many are the promises of God, their "Yes" (is) in Him; therefore the Amen from us also goes to God for glory;

even so now, on this feast of the Epiphany – a word which means the shining-forth, manifestation, of the glory of Christ – we should exultantly rejoice and stir up anew the confidence which heaven alone gives, as the prophet Isaiah proclaimed:

Then you shall see and be radiant, your heart shall throb and overflow.  For the riches of the sea shall be poured out before you, the wealth of nations shall come to you.

Grateful trust and sure confidence, humility and power, patience and vigour, joy and peace, each is so necessary for, and all are so beautifully complementary in, the fulfilment of our Christian vocation and personal calling, just as Christmas and Epiphany are equally essential for the fullness of our liturgical celebration and appreciation of Jesus, perfect God and perfect Man, coming to serve us as our total and unique Saviour.

And so, though the deep darkness of human sin is so evident in the world around, and even though our own souls may know something of its oppressive shadow at times, nevertheless, His glory will appear for those who firmly believe His promises and confidently commit their lives to His most loving, and supremely powerful, Providence.

Therefore, People of God, I urge you in this holy season to discover deeper peace by confirming your trust in Jesus’ promises, and to renew your confidence by stirring up your joy, as you celebrate His glory and power; for such are the signs given and the blessings offered us in this sublime culmination of the Christmas season which is today’s Epiphany. The multitude of angels sang:

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to those on whom His favour rests! 

And the shepherds, having told their good tidings to all gathered around the Infant Christ, returned to their sheep in the fields:

Glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, just as it had been told to them.

Let all of us, too, dear People of God, sincerely pray that our celebration of the Epiphany today may give glory to God and further the exaltation of Holy Mother Church, through the comforting and strengthening of all those who are her true children.  Amen.