1/10/2014 – Friday after Epiphany – Mass for the Happy Hearts Seniors Group and the Anointing of the Sick – Luke 5:12-16

      A leper approaches Jesus, falling prostrate at his feet, and tells him: “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.”  Leprosy was a very feared disease in the ancient world.  There may not be any physical lepers in our community today, but we can think of others we treat as lepers in our society.  When Jesus cured this leper and brought healing into his life, it was not only his physical condition that he was healing, but also his position within the community as well.  We can bring the healing of Christ to our communities as bearers of his Good News.  Bringing the healing of Christ to others is part of our role as disciples of his.  In fact, one of things I want to work at as a community of faith here at St James is to make us a very welcoming community, to help everyone feel a warm welcome and the love of Christ when they walk into our doors. It is important for us to think of ways that we can bring healing to the lepers, to bring the Good News of Christ to the stranger and to all who we meet.  It will not be easy, but it should be our goal.  I have mentioned to some of you that there are certainly many others we could join our Happy Hearts group.  Perhaps we could invite a friend or think of those we could bring into our Happy Hearts family.   And it is interesting to hear about the leper coming to Jesus for healing as we come to Jesus for healing as well in the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  This is such a wonderful Sacrament to celebrate in conjunction with the Eucharist, to have this encounter with Jesus today.  May we pray that Jesus bring healing into our lives in a special way today, to brings us healing, peace, and comfort in whatever way we need it in our lives. 

1/9/2014 – Thursday after Epiphany – 1 John 4:19- 5:4, Luke 4:14-22

      All this week, this last week of the Christmas season, we have been hearing readings from the first letter of John.   One of the main topics of this letter is love, which we’ve been hearing about all this week. Today, we are told that we cannot say that we love God if we do not love our brothers and sisters.  The letter does not say that we love our brothers and sisters when it is convenient or easy, just that we are to love our brothers and sisters. It also says that this love is not meant to be burdensome. We know that is not always so easy, that sometimes we need to grow into this love and forgiveness, to pray for it and meditate over it and to ask God’s grace to help us when it is difficult to do.  We also hear from the Gospel, as Jesus reads from the prophet Isaiah that “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”  Perhaps this is the key to loving as God loves us, to rely on his Spirit to help us to love, to help us to grow in this love.  Like Jesus, we are to bring his Good News to all, to bring glad tidings to the poor and the oppressed.  And the Spirit will lead us in doing this.  It is something we cannot do on our own. 

1/8/2014 – Wednesday after Epiphany – 1 John 4:11-18, Mark 6:45-52

      Jesus is walking on the water, approaching the disciples as they are being tossed about by the rough seas. Rather than being comforted, the disciples are seized with anxiety. They think he is a ghost.  They don't really know what to make of him. Jesus tells them – “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid.”  This is echoed in what we hear in the first letter of John – that God is love, and whoever remains in love remain in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.  We are told that there is no fear in love, because perfect love drives out fear.  Yet, the world we live in can be very frightening, can’t it?  We can fear for the future.  We can fear for the values of our faith that are being disrespected in our world today. But Jesus tells us not to be afraid.  Even though our Christmas season is supposed to bring joy into our lives, and on a spiritual level it probably does, our lives during this time of the year may also be filled with great stress, conflicts, and unmet expectations. And yet we are to bring all of that to God, to face it, to let our faith interact with our problems, our struggles, the reality of our lives.  And if we do that and if we place our hope in God, then truly we have nothing to fear. 

1/6/2014 – Monday after Epiphany – 1 John 3:22 – 4:6

       We are to believe in the name of Jesus.  We are to love one another.  We are to keep God’s commandments.  Today we hear the basics of our faith, which we as followers of Christ know so very well.  Putting this into practice in our daily lives can be very different.  The saint we recognize today is named Andre Bessette.  He was born in Quebec, Canada to a working class family in the middle of the 19^th century.   When he applied to be a Holy Cross brother in Canada at the age of 25, he could not read or write, he had been orphaned since the age of 12, and he had a very poor work history due to ill-health.  You can imagine that the Holy Cross brothers, who devote themselves to education, would not see such a young man as a good candidate for their order.  However, he had a glowing recommendation from his pastor, who must have seen something in him.  He started his life as a Holy Cross brother as a doorman at Notre Dame College in Montreal.   Brother Andre gain a reputation for his holiness, for his devotion to St Joseph.  Huge numbers of the faithful started coming to him for his blessing as his reputation in the community grew.  At the time of his death in 1937 at the age of 91, more than a million of the faithful passed by his coffin to give their respects.  When we think of the saints, we often think of these brilliant thinkers and movers and shakers that got a lot of things done in their lives.  Yet, how we live our lives and the values we live out are often what most speak to people, are often what we are remembered for.  May we honor the name of Jesus.  May we follow God’s commandments and love one another.  But may we absorb all of this in the reality of our lives, no matter what that reality is. 

1/7/2014 – Tuesday after Epiphany – 1 John 4:7-10

      We are continuing our celebration of the Christmas season this week.  Our Christmas celebrations will come to a close this coming Sunday with the celebration of the Baptism of our Lord.  Today we hear about love in the first letter of John, which is very appropriate in the Christmas season since the arrival of the Baby Jesus into our world in that manger in Bethlehem is all about love.  Love is a word commonly used in the Gospel of John and the Letters of John as well.   But the love that John is talking about is not a romantic love, but rather an agape love that cares about the well-being of the other person and that is a giving of our very self to the other.  We are to give of ourselves to our brothers and sisters in the same spirit in which God gave himself to us.  If we forget this concept of self-giving in the way we live out our faith, perhaps we forget about what our faith is all about.  Pope Francis has asked us to love beyond our differences this year and to reach out to others in a spirit of peace, solidarity, and brotherhood.  May we push through some boundaries this year that are keeping us from living out agape love in our lives. 

1/5/2014 – La Epifanía del Señor – Mateo 2, 1-12 –

       Hoy, continuamos nuestra celebración del tiempo de Navidad.  En el Evangelio de hoy, escuchamos sobre la visita de los tres reyes magos al niño Jesús en el pesebre en Belén.  En muchos sentidos, esta visita de los magos es un catequesis sobre Jesús y su misión para nosotros.  El mensaje de la visita de los magos es que Jesús está enviado por la parte de Dios Padre para ofrecer la salvación de Dios a todos los hombres de la tierra. Es interesante que los magos son reyes del oriente, que son paganos, no son judíos.  Ellos vienen a Belén para adorar al niño Jesús, mientras Herodes y los sacerdotes queden en Jerusalén.  Herodes está perturbado y enojado cuando se da cuenta sobre el nacimiento del niño divino.  Herodes no quiere visitar al niño; él quiere planear su muerte.  Herodes no tiene alegría en su corazón cuando él recibe esta noticia del nacimiento del niño.  Al contrario, los magos están gozosos porque ellos lo reconocen como el salvador del mundo. 

        A veces, nosotros también no pueden reconocer las maravillas de nuestra fe que están en frente de nosotros.  Jesús estaba rechazado por su pueblo, por la gente que espera el Mesías, pero estos extranjeros -  estos tres reyes magos - ellos reconocen su identidad verdadera.  Cuando yo estaba trabajando en las selvas de Ecuador como misionero católico, yo tenía mucho para enseñar la gente, pero, también, yo tenía mucho para aprender.  Todos los hombres del mundo forman el nuevo pueblo de Dios.  Su salvación es para todo el mundo.  Tenemos la libertad y la voluntad para aceptarla o para rechazarla.  Nosotros tenemos señales para encontrar a Jesús como los magos tenían esta estrella muy especial.  Como esta estrella tenía una luz muy brillante, Jesús es la luz mas brillante en las tinieblas de nuestro mundo.  Es una cosa para conocer los mandamientos de Dios y sus Escrituras, pero es otra cosa para seguir la Luz de Jesucristo y para caminar en esta luz en nuestro viaje de fe. 

      El Papa Francisco proclamó un mensaje de paz por el año nuevo – este mensaje es una reflexión del mensaje de los tres reyes magos.  El Papa dice que: “Todos deben estar comprometidos con la construcción de una sociedad verdaderamente justa y solidaria" El Papa nos invita a la comunión con nuestros prójimos, en los que encontramos no enemigos o contrincantes, sino hermanos a los que acoger y querer.

        Me gusta el cuento de los tres reyes magos muchísimo, como me gusta también el mensaje del Papa por la paz.  La verdad que existe en su viaje a través el desierto para llegar a este pesebre en Belén es un verdad para nosotros hoy día.  Su camino como discípulos es un ejemplo para nosotros. 

1/5/2014 – Epiphany – The Celebration of the Visit of the Magi to the Christ Child - Isaiah 60:1-6; Matthew 2:1-12 –

      Three years ago, this time of the year, I was in Rome with the youth choir from St Richard Church in Jackson. The youth had the wonderful opportunity to attend an international choir convention there in Rome, and to sing with the other choirs at the mass at St Peter’s basilica with Pope Benedict. I remember that before one of the masses we had, I was chatting with a couple of priests from Monterrey, California.  We were discussing our assignments and how we served as priests.  As they described to me their rather affluent parishes in Monterrey, I described how I served two counties in the Mississippi Delta. They looked at me with shocked expressions on their faces verifying what I had just said, “You serve two entire counties in the Mississippi Delta?”  I thought about how I had just been in Yazoo City for a couple of months when I had that conversation with these two priests, how visiting several sick and shut-ins on a Sunday afternoon would take several hours because of this isolated, spread out area of the Delta. In fact, I remember one afternoon when I was visiting someone way out in the country.  It was down roads that were not really marked, some unpaved.  It was a difficult place to find, and then when I left when it was dark, finding my way back to Yazoo City was quite difficult.  In fact, at one point I thought I was following the road, and I accidentally drove into someone’s driveway. 

      Whether we are driving to a new location or whether we are trying to navigate life, sometimes we lose our direction and need a sign.  The Magi had a sign as they traveled from afar to honor the Son of God born in a distant land: the star guided them to exactly the right place.  It wasn't just any star that the Magi followed in their search: it was “his” star, the star of the child Jesus.  Isaiah describes a darkness that separated the people from God's glory: the star's light directed the Magi through this darkness.  In the midst of his chosen people, Israel, God revealed his glory.  Isaiah prophesied: “Nations shall come to your light, kings to the brightness of your dawn.” Magi from a faraway nation came to the light of Christ’s birth – a light that burned so brightly in the midst of the earth's darkness. 

      The story of the Magi visiting the baby Jesus is a beloved part of our Christmas celebrations, but it's so much more than an enthralling story.  Ultimately, the story of the Magi has its deepest significance in what it tells us about the early Christian communities and what it tells us about ourselves as modern believers in Christ. The early Church knew that the Magi were not Jews, that they did not have the Hebrew Scriptures to provide them knowledge about the birth of Christ.  However, the Magi read the signs that God sent them.  Perhaps the gifts that the Magi brought don't seem appropriate for an infant, but the early Church saw symbolism in them: gold for virtue, frankincense for prayer, myrrh for suffering.  These gifts were meant for the baby who would be the Savior and Redeemer of the world.  The journey of the Magi - Gentiles from the East - and their homage of the Christ child, told the early Church that salvation and redemption through Christ is open to all. Today's responsorial psalm response reflects the inclusiveness of God's offer of salvation to all that is present in the story of the Magi: “Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.”

      The message of the Magi still has meaning for us in the modern world.  Pope Francis, in his New Year’s message of peace, echoes the message of the Magi.  Francis urges us in the new year 2014 to work for a world where everyone accepts each other's differences, for a world where enemies recognize that they are brothers.  The Pope tells us: "This brings a responsibility for each to work so that the world becomes a community of brothers who respect each other, accept each other in one's diversity, and takes care of one another.”  That is the journey we are on here on earth.  We also search out the reality of the Christ child in the midst of our daily lives as we see Christ present in our brothers and sisters. 

      The story of the Magi appeals to our imagination, but it does so in the midst of how we are living out our lives of faith. We all bring our own gifts, just as we bring our gifts to our multi-cultural and multi-lingual mass celebration today.  We don’t bring gold, frankincense and myrrh to Christ today, but we're called to lay down our own unique gifts at the feet of the baby Jesus: our talents, our time, our riches, our love and our care for one another.  We also have stars in our own lives guiding us.  We have the Holy Spirit – we have our dreams and our prayers – and the ways we see Christ in our world.  Like the Magi, our own journey of faith calls out to us to search for the Christ child in the world. It calls us to search for a mystery that we will never fully understand.  Yet, like the Magi, we continue to search, to wander, to wonder.  For the mystery that we ultimately find is not in some lofty ideal, or in a principle, or in a theory, but in the very person of Christ, the same Christ who was born as a child in the manger in Bethlehem.