4th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B

Today's Gospel (Mk 1:21-28) sees Our Lord curing a man with an unclean spirit. The crowd is amazed and wonders who this man is who teaches with such authority. In his Parochial and Plain Sermons, St. John Henry Newman writes about the revelation of Jesus to humankind:

Rembrandt, Head of Christ

Those who look towards him for teaching, who worship and obey him, will by degrees see “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in his face, and will be changed into the same image from glory to glory.”

And thus it happens that people of the lowest class and the humblest education may know fully the ways and works of God; fully, that is, as human beings can know them; far better and more truly than the most sagacious of this world from whom the gospel is hidden.

Religion has a store of wonderful secrets which cannot be communicated to others, but which are most pleasant and delightful to know. “Call on me,” says God by the prophet, “and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things of which you have no knowledge.” This is no mere idle boast, but a fact which all who seek God will find to be true, though they cannot perhaps clearly express their meaning.

3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B

Today's Gospel tells of Jesus calling his disciples. In 2014 Pope Francis spoke to a group of priests in the Chapel of Santa Marta who were concelebrating the Mass on their 60th anniversary of Ordination. He told them:

Calling of the Apostles (1481) Domenico Ghirlandaio

God in his love prepares the way, and he prepares our lives for each of us. He does not make us Christians through spontaneous generation. He prepares our path, he prepares our lives over time.... He is the Lord of the preparation, who has always loved us and never abandons us. Perhaps the act of faith to believe this is not easy, it is true. Because our rationalism tells us: why would the Lord, with all the people he has to deal with, think of me? And yet he has prepared the way for me, by our mothers, our grandmothers, our fathers, our grandfathers, and by our great grandparents, everyone: this is what the Lord does. And this is his love: concrete, eternal and also an art.

     

2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B

In today’s Gospel (Jn 1:35-42) John the Baptist points Jesus out to his disciples as “the Lamb of God.” They respond by following him. The following reflection on the passage was given by Pope Francis at his Angelus talk. Here's a link to the original talk if you'd like to read the full text.

The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew by Caravaggio

Thus it is for us: the One whom we have contemplated in the Mystery of Christmas, we are now called to  follow in daily life. Therefore, today’s Gospel passage introduces us perfectly into Ordinary Liturgical Time, a time that helps to invigorate and affirm our journey of faith in ordinary life, in a dynamic that moves between epiphany and sequela, between manifestation and vocation.

... Only a personal encounter with Jesus engenders a journey of faith and of discipleship. We will be able to experience many things, to accomplish many things, to establish relationships with many people, but only the appointment with Jesus, at that hour that God knows, can give full meaning to our life and render our plans and our initiatives fruitful.

It is not enough to build an image of God based on the words that are heard; one must go in search of the divine Master and go to where he lives. The two disciples ask Jesus, “where are you staying?” (v. 38). This question has a powerful spiritual meaning: it expresses the wish to know where the Lord lives, so as to abide with him. The life of faith consists in the wish to abide in the Lord, and thus in a continuing search for the place where he lives.

January 1, Mary Mother of God

On this Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God, to whom our church is dedicated, we remember you in our prayers, and wish you a blessed and grace-filled New Year.

Jesus and Mary rest, St. Joseph blows on the fire.
Detail from the Wildung altarpiece by Konrad von Soest

In the Bleak Midwinter

by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

In the bleak mid-winter,
Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him,
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign.
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim,
Worship night and day,

A breastful of milk,
And a mangerful of hay;

Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,

Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air;

but His mother only,
In her maiden bliss,

Worshipped the beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd,
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man,
I would do my part;

Yet what can I give Him -
Give him my heart.

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Nativity of the Lord

We wish all who read this the peace of which the angels sang.

Dearly beloved, today our Savior is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness. And so at the birth of our Lord the angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest, and they proclaim peace to his people on earth as they see the heavenly Jerusalem being built from all nations of the world. When the angels on high are so exultant at this marvelous work of God's goodness, what joy should it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?

From a sermon by St. Leo the Great, pope

4th Sunday of Advent, Year B

The fourth Sunday of Advent leads us directly into the first moment of the Incarnation: the Annunciation (Lk 1:26-38). At this glorious encounter, Mary accepts the plan of God to redeem the human race through a divine child born of her womb. Here, St. Bede the Venerable sheds light on this beautiful Gospel:

Annunciation, Fra Angelico (1437-46)

Today’s reading of the gospel calls to mind the beginning of our redemption, for the passage tells us how God sent an angel from heaven to a virgin. He was to proclaim the new birth, the incarnation of God’s Son, who would take away our age-old guilt; through him it would be possible to be made new and numbered among the children of God. And so, if we are to deserve the gifts of the promised salvation, we must listen attentively to the account of its beginning.

The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. What is said of the house of David applies not only to Joseph but also to Mary. It was a precept of the law that each man should marry a wife from his own tribe and kindred. St Paul also bears testimony to this when he writes to Timothy: Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, descended from David, as preached in my Gospel. Our Lord is truly descended from David, since his spotless mother took her ancestry from David’s line.

He will reign over the house of Jacob forever. The house of Jacob here refers to the universal Church which, through its faith in and witness to Christ, shares the heritage of the patriarchs. This may apply either to those who are physical descendants of the patriarchal families, or to those who come from gentile nations and are reborn in Christ by the waters of baptism. In this house Christ shall reign forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. During this present life, Christ rules in the Church. By faith and love he dwells in the hearts of his elect, and guides them by his unceasing care toward their heavenly reward. In the life to come, when their period of exile on earth is ended, he will exercise his kingship by leading the faithful to their heavenly country. There, for ever inspired by the vision of his presence, their one delight will be to praise and glorify him.

3rd Sunday of Advent, Year B

In this Sunday's Gospel (Jn 1:6-8; 19-28), the spotlight focuses intensely on John the Baptist. He declares that he is not the messiah, but one who testifies to his coming. John Scotus Erigena, in the homily below, describes more fully who the Baptist was, and who he is in relation to the Christ.

John the Baptist, Mathis Gothart Grunewald (1512-16)

So then, the Lord’s forerunner was a man, not a god; whereas the Lord whom he preceded was both man and God. The forerunner was a man destined to be divinized by God’s grace, whereas the one he preceded was God by nature, who, through his desire to save and redeem us, lowered himself in order to assume our human nature.

A man was sent. By whom? By the divine Word, whose forerunner he was. To go before the Lord was his mission. Lifting up his voice, this man called out: The voice of one crying in the wilderness! It was the herald preparing the way for the Lord’s coming. John was his name; John to whom was given the grace to go ahead of the King of kings, to point out to the world the Word made flesh, to baptize him with that baptism in which the Spirit would manifest his divine Sonship, to give witness through his teaching and martyrdom to the eternal light.