SOLEMNITY OF THE EPIPHANY OF THE LORD - 2021

 

INTRODUCTION

The readings show us the light and the darkness clashing, not in the sky we see with our eyes, but in our human heart.   

·       Darkness which prevents us to see and to adore God made a child, light that invites us to adore Him. 

·       Darkness that prevents us from discovering the presence of our incarnate God in every human being.  

·       Darkness that prevents us to acknowledge our injustices in the relationship with others.  

·       Darkness that blinds us and prevents us to truly believe that we are all brothers and sisters created , redeemed and loved equally.  

·       Darkness that prevents us to see the good in us and in every human being.   

·       This celebration is a good opportunity to look into our heart and discover in it our darkness and also our light, the light of God made a child.   

 

FIRST READING  – Is 60:1-6

« This passage is taken from the book of the Third Isaiah. It is filled with optimism, joy and light. 

« The theme of light dominates the scene; the glory of God is the light that illumines the city of Jerusalem.  

« The earth is covered with darkness, but the glory of God shines upon the earth.  

« This light is a lighthouse that leads the nations toward Jerusalem.  

« Look with joy, with overwhelming happiness all the nations come to you, the foreigners but also your children, those who were once dispersed, now return.   

« They will bring to you the wealth of the nations, caravans of camels bringing gold, incense and myrrh, and proclaiming the praises of God.   

« This invitation is addressed to each one of us  “Risa up, rise up…”

«  Look the light  is all around you in spite of the darkness

« All that is human in you, your ability to love and to give yourself for love of others will come back to you, if you know how to discover in your life the light of God.

 

RESPONSORIAL PSALM   Psalm 72   

 

R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and with your justice, the king's son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
Justice shall flower in his days,
and profound peace, till the moon be no more.
May he rule from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
The kings of Tarshish and the Isles shall offer gifts;
the kings of Arabia and Seba shall bring tribute.
All kings shall pay him homage,
all nations shall serve him.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
For he shall rescue the poor when he cries out,
and the afflicted when he has no one to help him.
He shall have pity for the lowly and the poor;
the lives of the poor he shall save.
R. Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.

 

     This psalm is a prayer for a king or for the crowned heir. 

     The theme of justice is present in the petitions for the king, so he will be able to govern with equity. 

     Like in the first reading the psalm mentions the kings of foreign nations who will come to bring gifts to the king. 

     The justice of this King will be to take care of the poor and marginalized, being like God whose justice is manifested through his compassion and mercy. 

 

SECOND READING  – LETTER TO THE EPHESIANS

Ø  The letter to the Ephesians, together with the letters to the Colossians, to the Philippians, and to Philemon, belongs to the group of the Captivity Letters. 

Ø  For those authors who believe that the letter was written by Paul himself, the date of the letter has to be before his death, before 67.

Ø  But for those who think it was written by another person, probably a disciple of Paul, the date may be around the 80’s. 

Ø  This letter has many themes that we find also in the letter to the Colossians. 

Ø  It is a doctrinal and theological letter.  

Ø  The first part (ch.1-3) is dedicated to the Church, which has been prepared from eternity by God. There has been a progressive revelation whose culminating point is the Incarnation of the Word of God.  

Ø  In the second part what has been said in the first about the Church is applied to the behavior of the individual Christian.

 

EPHESIANS 3:2-3a; 5-6

Ø  Paul says that the mystery hidden in God has been revealed to him, and he announces it to us through his preaching.   . 

Ø  This mystery has been revealed to the Apostles by the Spirit. 

Ø  The mystery hidden in God and revealed now is 

o   that through the Good News, the Gospel, the gentiles are coheirs, copartners   in Christ Jesus

o   and members of the same body.  

 

GOSPEL-  Matthew 2:1-12

ü  Chapters 1 and 2 of the Gospel of Matthew and of the Gospel of Luke are called the “The Infancy Narrative.” 

ü  They are, according to an author, the summary of Jesus’ life and of the evangelist’s theology. 

ü  The verses we will read on Sunday give us the synthesis of   Matthew’s theology: there is a conflict between two kingships: Herod and Jesus, between evil and good.  

ü  Who was Herod? He came from  Edom from  the  South of Judea and near the Dead Sea. He was an ambitious and bloodthirsty man. 

ü  We find at least 5 different scenes or settings in this gospel. 

o   The Magi have followed the star and arrive in Jerusalem where they hope to find directions to find the New Born King of the Jews. 

o   Herod, the High priests and the scribes know about the prophecy and look in the Scriptures to find the exact place, which is Bethlehem. 

o   Herod speaks to the Magi and he inquires from them about the exact time they had seen the star. He tells them that, according to the Scriptures, he has to be born in Bethlehem. He wants them to come back and tell the exact place so he can go and adore him too. 

o   The Magi continue their journey and they see again the star which they had lost when they arrived in Jerusalem. 

o   The Magi arrive to the place where the holy family lives, and find Jesus with his Mother. Full of joy they offer him gold, frankincense and myrrh. Afterwards they take another road to go back home as the angel had told them.  

ü  There are many contrasts in these scenes,   

o   The Magi do not know the prophecies of Israel, but they know how to read the stars and seek with an open heart without ambition or power. 

o   Herod and the priests know the prophecies thus they fear, because they believe that this new born King is going to take away their power, to change their life style filled with hate and lies.    

o   The Magi found God without knowing him. The leaders of the Jewish people do not find or recognize him, in spite of having the information. 

One day, our Lord showed me the beauty of his most Holy Law. He showed me a beautiful scene of a vast and beautiful meadow full of the most beautiful flowers of all kind; they had the most varied and exquisite fragrance. I saw that they all had stain, some more than the others. Some had only a little stain but it disfigured the beauty that exquisite scenery. Our Lord told me: “do you see my daughter the beauty of the flowers are breaking of my holy law. I had nobody to observe it, because there is no one who keeps the precept of charity.

 Venerable María Antonia Paris, Foundress of the Religious of Mary Immaculate, Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 27-

Besides having a very good elementary teacher, which, as I have said, is no small gift from heaven, I also had good parents who cooperated with my teacher in molding my understanding in truth and nurturing my heart in the practice of religion and all the virtues. Every day after lunch, which we ate at a quarter past twelve, my father had me read a spiritual book, and at night we would sit for a while around the table, where he would always tell us something edifying and instructive until it was time for us to retire. St. Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 25

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CLARET, St. Anthony Ma. Claret.  Autobiography  

PARIS, Ma. Antonia. Autobiography

SCHÖKEL, Luis Alonso, La Biblia de nuestro Pueblo.

SAGRADA BIBLIA, Versión Oficial de la Conferencia Episcopal Española.

THE CATHOLIC STUDY BIBLE, Donald Senior and John J. Collins, Editors. Second edition

 

SOLEMNITY OF MARY, THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD

2021

INTRODUCTION

Liturgical evolution of this solemnity.  

« The solemnity of Mary Mother of God was celebrated in the Eastern Church before the Roman Church. 

« In the V century France and Spain began to celebrate it on the Sunday before Christmas.  

« In Rome before the VII century it was celebrated on January 1^st.  

« In the XIII and XIV centuries the solemnity of the Circumcision of the Lord replaced on January 1st the celebration of the Motherhood of Mary. 

« In the XX century the celebration of the Motherhood of Mary was transferred to October  11. 

« In the renewal of the liturgy promoted by Council Vatican II in 1974, Paul VI removed the celebration of the circumcision of the Lord on January 1^st, and put again the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on that day, and the circumcision of the Lord on January 2^nd.   

« The title Mother of God given to Mary in Greek is   “Theotokos”= bearer of God, title given in the First Council of Ephesus in 431.    

Eight days after the Solemnity of Christmas, the liturgy invites us to celebrate the Motherhood of Mary.  

     There are several different themes in this liturgy:   

o   The blessings     

o   The Spirit who makes us children of God  

o   Mary who kept all those things in her heart  

o   And holding together all these themes, PEACE. Since 1968 the Pope sends a Message of Peace to the Church and to the whole world. Pope Paul VI established the tradition.    

FIRST READING  –

The book of Numbers is the fourth book of the 5 books of the Pentateuch or Torah or Law. 

Ø  It comes after the Leviticus. 

Ø  It continues to narrate the story begun in the book of Exodus. Israel continues its journey toward the Promised Land. At the end of the book Israel sees the Promised Land in front of their eyes. 

Ø  There is a message of hope in this book:  

o   The punishment for the people’s sins is not the last word from God.

o   Punishment follows sin  

o   Repentance follows punishment  

o   And pardon and peace, and new life follows the punishment. It is manifested in the many different intervention of God in the life of his people. 

Numbers  6:22-27

We begin the civil year with a blessing, which according to the book of Numbers has been given to Aaron by God to bless the children of Israel. 

§  Let us see the elements of this blessing:  

o   May the Lord bless you, may he pronounce good words upon you, words of kindness, mercy, joy, peace. God always blesses us, he always says good things upon us. He gives us  his love, his favor and his gifts.  

o   May he keep you, may he count you among his possessions, may  he protect you and put you in a secure place. 

o   May he show you his face. To see the face of God is the longing manifested in different places and in different ways in the Old Testament.    

o   His radiant face, gives joy, peace and everything that is good, beautiful and able to fulfill the longing of our heart. 

o   May he have pity or compassion of you. Compassion is the love of God who bends over our lowliness. So many times we manifest this our lowliness by pride, desire of material goods, abuse of power….  

o   Again the author repeats “may God show you his face, and this will bring peace to you.  Peace is the sum of all good things  given by God. 

§  The Church puts this beautiful blessing in the liturgy of the first day of the civil year, in the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God.   

RESPONSORIAL PSALM – Psalm  67

R/   May God bless us in his mercy.

May God have pity on us and bless us;
   may he let his face shine upon us.
So may your way be known upon earth;
   among all nations, your salvation.

R/ May God bless us in his mercy.

May the nations be glad and exult
   because you rule the peoples in equity;
   the nations on the earth you guide.

R/ May God bless us in his mercy.

May the peoples praise you, O God;
   may all the peoples praise you!
May God bless us,
   and may all the ends of the earth fear him!

R/ May God bless us in his mercy. 

o   Psalm 67 is a psalm of praise and  petition of God’s mercy upon us. 

o   This psalm has a theme very much alike the message of the first Reading. 

SECOND READING   – LETTER OF PAUL TO THE GALATIANS  

An author says that the letter to the Galatians is one of the most strong and polemic documents among Paul’s writings.  

It is a letter addressed to the communities of Galatia in Asia Minor (Turkey today)

Ø  Paul writes it to confront the statements made by some of the community who wanted to conform to Jewish teachings, who put first the Sinai Law to the Law of Jesus.  .

Ø  Paul says in this letter that the works of the Law will not save us, that we are justified only  by faith in Jesus.  

Ø  But this does not excuse us to live according to the Law of Christ, that impels us to fight against evil in all its manifestations. 

Ø  Paul will take again many of these ideas about law, salvation, freedom in his letter to the Romans, but in a more systematic and less polemic way. 

Letter to the Galatians  4:4-7

ü  The fullness of time announced by the prophets, the time of the Messiah has come.

ü  The Messiah came born of a woman 

o   This is the only time that Paul mentions Jesus’ mother, he does not say her name, but he says that he was born of a woman. 

o   This is another way to say what John writes in the prologue “the Word was made flesh…” 

ü  Born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the Law  

ü  So that we might receive adoption as children, and be no longer slaves under the Law of Mount Sinai. 

ü  In so doing he will give us the possibility to speak to God in the same way Jesus does, calling him “Abba” Father. 

ü  Paul continues saying, if we are children we are also heirs, because God has wanted it so. It does not depend on our will, it is gift.  Our only answer to the gift is to accept it with love and to try to respond to this surprising love of our God, which has been manifested to us in the Word made man.    

GOSPEL – Luke  2:16-21

 In this gospel we have several scenes: 

« The shepherds

o   Who go in haste because they are happy, they want to see what has been told to them 

o   They found the Holy Family  

o   And they tell Mary and Joseph what the Angels had told them about the baby  

o   Afterwards they returned filled with joy, glorifying God and telling everyone what they had seen and heard.  

« Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.  

o   She has many things to remember and to meditate in her heart  

§  Things about the baby 

§  Things about herself, about  God, the annunciation with her joys and her fears. 

§  Things about Joseph, his doubts about her, his decision to leave her, his willingness to take her into his home.  

§  Her conversations with Elizabeth about the blessings that each one had received from God.

§  Her conversations with Joseph about the child, and how to fulfill the mission that God had given them and communicated through the Angel. 

« The Circumcision of Jesus 

o   The rite prescribed to Abraham (Gn 17)

o   Through this rite Jesus was officially incorporated into the people of Israel, the people of the promises, the people of God. 

o   And he is given the name of Jesus as the Angel had told them.  

o   This rite is another way to say what Paul says in the letter to the Galatians “born of a woman”, member of the human family. 

S

 

CHRISTMAS 2020

Today we want to read in silent prayer and contemplation the Gospels of the birth of Jesus which are read at Christmas.   

Christmas invites us to let the mystery of God, made vulnerable, surprise us. 

Christmas invites us to be silent and to allow the Presence of our Creator and Redeemer fill us.    

Christmas invites us to discover His presence in each human face, especially in the children and in the most vulnerable.  

There three Masses for Christmas. One at Midnight, another at dawn and the third one during the day.  Gospel of the Midnight Mass – Luke 2:1-14

This Gospel has two different scenes. Let us contemplate each one of them:  

The first scene is the birth of Jesus:  

v Luke puts the birth of Jesus in the context of the history of his time. He gives names and events which we can find in any historical book. Luke wants to tell us that Jesus is a real human being, not a figment of our imagination.   

v There is a census, something that all of us are familiar with, because  we just had the census taken in our country during the current year.  Census is always about counting people. How interesting it is to realize that behind the data of the census there are realities that we do not know, joys and sufferings in the lives of those counted, as it happened with the census of Quirinius.   

v Joseph belongs to David’s family. According to the way the census were conducted, everyone had to go back to their place of origin to be counted.  Therefore Joseph had to go to Bethlehem the city of David. He goes there with his wife who is with child, at a very late stage of her pregnancy.  

v The time to give birth came as they arrived in Bethlehem. I leave it to each one’s imagination, especially of the women who have given birth, what this moment means for a woman. Then we may look to Mary and try to discover her feelings.  She is a  very young girl, probably a teenager, it is her first child and neither her mother nor any known woman from Nazareth are with her to help her, to support her

v There is no place for them at the inn. This can be understood in several different ways:  

o   There is no place because they are poor   

o   There is no place because the inn is full.   

o   There is no place because they do not want to be disturbed by a woman in labor.     

o   There is no place because the inn is full of people and this is not an adequate setting for a woman to give birth. To give birth  requires privacy,  intimacy  and   sacredness.   

o   And the innkeeper, that I am inclined to look at as a good man, offers them the cave where the animals take refuge at night. There they will be able to be by themselves. 

v And Luke says very briefly  ”the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn  son.  She wrapped him in swaddling clothes.”  

o   And the time came for her, the hour that every pregnant woman expects with joy, because she is going to see for the first time the face of her baby. But at the same time she is overcome by anxiety, she does not know what will happen to her, especially when it is the first child, as in the case of Mary. 

o   Joseph helped Mary to give birth to her son. I like to imagine Joseph, the just man, the good man, with tears in his eyes as the mystery was enfolding in front of him. Tears of thanksgiving and emotion on seeing the face of the Son of God made the Son of man. He would have to be the father of the son of God, his God who had asked him to change the plans he had for his own life, and thus cooperate in the work of the salvation of the human race.  

o   Pope Francis has dedicated 2021 as the year of Joseph. Let us nurture a friendly relationship with that humble carpenter, the adoptive father of Jesus, the protector of Mary and of the Church. Let us ask him to teach how to be poor, humble, and meek as he was.

o   Mary sees, kisses, and feeds for the first time her baby, who is the Son of the Eternal Father. 

o   I believe that it is impossible for us to understand the fullness of this mystery, so full of joy and suffering at the same time.  Let us contemplate in silence, admiration and unconditional love this mystery.   

Let us contemplate the second scene of this same gospel: There are some shepherds watching their flock during the night.  

v They live in the fields; they do not live in houses, not even in stables.  They take turns in keeping their flocks.    

v Shepherds were considered to be people of not good standing in society: they were poor but they were seen as liars, as thieves, people who had to do many things in order to survive.     

v To them the angel of the Lord is sent to announce the good news of the birth of the Son of God among us. An angel was also sent to Mary,  to Zechariah, to Joseph.   Let us analyze the message, because it contains several of the themes so dear to Luke:    

o   Be not  afraid.  Fear is the natural reaction of the human being in the presence of the Mystery, of God or of his messengers. Jesus will repeat these same words to his apostles on Easter Sunday evening.      

o   I have good news to proclaim to you, which will be the cause of great joy.   The joy of the presence of God in our life, in our society, in our history. God is always a cause of joy. In the Old Testament Zion was invited many times to rejoice because “your King comes to you.”  

o   Today, it is the “now” of salvation. Luke uses several titles to describe the child who has been born and who is the cause of joy: Savior, Messiah, and Lord. Jesus is all of that and more, but this is the paradox of God’s work, so different from our works and our parameters, our King comes as a poor and vulnerable baby.    

o   Poverty, although Luke does not mention the word poverty, he says that the baby was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lay in a manger. These are signs of poverty.  God could only be born in poverty, because riches many times are void of meaning, and of truth. Real poverty is the truth,  because all of us a poor and needy even if we think that we are powerful and able to do whatever we want, and this is not true. Covid19 has helped us to acknowledge our indigence, our lack of power, our indigence, but God comes to us in the littleness of a baby in need of everyone and of everything .  

o   The praise,   many more angels join the first angel and they sing “GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST AND ON EARTH PEACE… to men and women of good will.   Praise and peace, two words that we find more than once in the Gospel of Luke. After the annunciation Mary sings, in the evening of Easter Sunday Jesus greets his own saying: PEACE.   

Let us continue now with the Gospel of the Sunrise Mass. 

Gospel of the Mass at Dawn   - Luke 2:15-20

It has been said that Luke was a painter, and that he painted the portrait of Mary; but some commentators say that the best paintings of Luke were painted with his words, not with brushes.    

The gospel of the Midnight Mass  had two scenes. The gospel for the Sunrise Mass has also two different scenes: the shepherds, and Mary.   

v The shepherds decide to do something about the good news they have received, they go to see the truth of what has been told to them. 

v And because they go they see. But, what do they see? A new born baby in a manger, Joseph and Mary.  We have here another of the themes cherished by Luke, faith.   He does not mention the word, but the scene speaks more eloquently than words. They see a baby and they recognized in that vulnerable baby, as vulnerable as any other baby, the Messiah and Lord.   

v And the shepherds made known the message that had been told about the baby.   

v The first scene ends here.     

The second  scene is about Mary.   

v Mary kept all those things, reflecting on them in her heart. 

o   She kept them, these are her memories. The memories of everything that had to do with the baby:

§  at the annunciation, the reaction of her parents, of Joseph and  the people of Nazareth. 

§   The journey to Bethlehem, during which both Joseph and Mary could share their experience of Mary’s pregnancy,  the baby that was in Mary’s womb. The birth, the shepherds… All of these are her memories.

o   She cherishes them in her heart, meditates on them. Luke does not say that Mary understands, she cannot understand them, they go beyond our human understanding. But she cherishes them, and believes because she trusts in the God who has made the promises to her. Faith is to trust he who has called us to life and has given us his salvation. 

Gospel of the Mass of the Day –  John 1:1-18

Ø  The Gospel for this Mass is taken from the Prologue of John’s Gospel.  Luke has painted, described for us four different scenes related to the birth of Jesus.   

Ø  John leads us into the mystery, he removes the curtain, this is the meaning of revelation, to see what is behind the curtain. He helps us to discover the mystery hidden behind the events and the different characters. 

Ø  In the two former Masses Luke has narrated the birth of Jesus, called Messiah and Lord.   

Ø  The Church, the community of the believers and followers, led by the Spirit sent by Jesus to her, has deepened into the theological meaning of the events related to the birth of Jesus.  Let us hear what John has to say

o   In the beginning  was the Word… and the Word was God.   If we go to the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis the first words are “In the beginning…God created… and God said … God says his Word and the abyss becomes a wonderful and beautiful creation.   

o   John continues his theological reflection and says that the Word existed from the beginning, that without him nothing came to be.  But the darkness did not acknowledge it. Our darkness, our own and the that of our society, and of our world cannot understand and accept his light.    

o   John proceeds and says that the light, the Word was in the world, but the world did not acknowledge the Word. 

o   He came to his own and they did not welcome him. Sometimes we think that these words are said of the people of Bethlehem; but I believe that we need to enter into our heart, and to discover in how many ways we do not welcome him into ourselves. Only in this way we will be able to understand the dreadful mystery of the human heart that can refuse to recognize his or her Creator.  

o   To those who did accept him…   According to some commentators verses 12 and 13 refer to the virginal birth of Jesus, and also to our baptism.  

o   And we reach now the climax of the prologue AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH  

§  The creating Word, the Word who is the Eternal Son of the Father. 

§  Became flesh. Flesh means the condition of the sinful and vulnerable human being. Without having any sin, because God cannot sin, he becomes like us, to be able to nail to the cross, as Paul says, our flesh and in so doing to give us his life, the life of the Father’s Son.   

§  He made his dwelling among us, in some translations he “put his tent among.” This sentence makes us think of the nomads, the pilgrims who do not stay in a same place forever.  We are all pilgrims in this world. He puts his tent and lives like anyone of us.     John Paul II in the document for the preparation of the Third Millennium wrote:  he loved with a human heart, he worked with hands of a man, talked… he was and is one of us.    

§  This gospel ends with the words that John will repeat in his Ist Letter. He is fascinated in awe by the truth of what they had experienced living with Jesus “and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.”   

§  THIS IS THE BABY WE CONTEMPLATE IN BETHLEHEM WITH MARY AND JOSEPH, SURROUNDED BY ANIMALS, GREETED  BY THE SHEPHERDS AND PROCLAIMED BY THE ANGELS:      

GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST AND ON EARTH PEACE TO MEN AND WOMEN OF GOOD WILL.

CLARETIAN CORNER

Whoever wants to repair the ruins of my House cannot forget my first entrance in the world. Look the extreme poverty I experienced, because my Mother hardly had what was needed to cover my most holy little body and to warm me the breath of the beasts was necessary. O! poverty of our God!  (Venerable María Antonia París, Foundress of the Claretian Missionary Sisters. First Constitutions  Trat,I, ch 2,2.)

On December 25 God infused in me a love of being persecuted and slandered. The Lord even favored me with a dream the following night. I dreamed that I had been jailed on a charge I was innocent of. Because I considered it a gift from heaven to be treated like Jesus, I was silent, as He had been. Nearly all my friends had abandoned me, as had the friends of Jesus, too. One of my friends wanted to defend me, as Peter had wanted to defend Jesus, but I said to him, "Don't you want me to drink the chalice my Father has prepared for me? St. Anthony Mary Claret, Founder of the Claretian Missionary Sisters, Autobiography 679.