Pink slips and “Dear John” letters have one thing in common: they send a message of rejection. Countless authors have received pink slips for their manuscripts. So have many young men and women from the flames of their hearts. Perhaps I would not be standing here if I hadn’t received such a letter 42 years ago from a young woman named Luz Maria. In the gospel scene, Jesus is the one who is being rejected, just as he expected to be. No prophet, he observes, is accepted in his native place. So long as Jesus announced glad tidings, he was welcomed but the moment his tune shifted, his listeners were filled with fury.

Their reaction seems so outrageous. Why did they shift from a warm welcome to the “urge to kill” so quickly? To understand their reaction, consider this ancient Greek tale about the farmer who had a “perfect” wheat field. Everyone admired it because every stalk was exactly the same height. When asked how he achieved it, he explained, “If a grain sticks its head above the others, I cut it off!”

The folks in Nazareth acted much the same way. For thirty years they had known Jesus as the “son of Joseph.” All that time, he had blended in with the neighborhood. Now as a wandering preacher, he stood out like that overgrown shaft of wheat. What he had to say wasn’t what they expected or wanted to hear.

Identifying himself as the anointed one of God didn’t ruffle their feathers. What irked them was learning that God’s mercy and concern would now be extended to all peoples, not just the Israelites. By mentioning the widow in the land of Sidon and Naaman the Syrian, Jesus in effect was pointing out that all peoples are dear to God and are to benefit from his ministry.

Before we pass judgment on the people in the synagogue for overreacting, consider your reaction to God’s truth. Are we just as blind and narrow-minded to what God has to say at times? Jesus speaks hard sayings. There’s no denying that. Like the people in Nazareth, not all of us always want to hear, much less accept what Jesus has to say through the teachings of our Catholic faith. We act like the patient whose doctor felt he had to be told the truth about his condition. “You are a very sick man. You probably won’t live more than a couple of weeks at most. You should settle your affairs. Is there anyone you want me to call?” “Yes,” replied the patient, “another doctor!”

When we don’t like what we’re told, we are quick to get another opinion. As Paul notes, “When I was a child, I used to talk like a child, think as a child, reason as a child.” How often did we ask one parent for what we wanted if the other parent didn’t give us the answer we wanted to hear?

When given a truth they don’t like, some people will look for another “prophet” who will tell them what they want to hear. Many leave the church to find another one that tells them what they want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

Three traits in our culture impede people from accepting the divine truth. The most apparent is secularism, which doesn’t actually deny the existence of God. It conveys the message that God is irrelevant. Think of those you know who no longer practice their faith. How important is God to them?

Then there is relativism, the flawed notion that you have your truth and I have mine. This amounts to saying one opinion is just as good as another. In the name of tolerance, absolute truth is ignored or overlooked. Many opinions, especially judicial opinions, are regarded as being morally right when in fact they are not. The latest trend has been judgments rendered by some courts defining same sex unions as marriages.

Some argue that our society is mired in confusion because many choose to listen to politicians instead of prophets. A politician’s success often depends, not on what he or she truly believes but on saying what they perceive people want to hear. A prophet’s success, on the other hand, is measured by saying what people need to hear. Consequently, prophets often rub people the wrong way, just as Jesus did in his first homily.

As Catholics, we claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, but are we willing to listen to and accept the truth that he offers us? That means realizing that truth isn’t to be found in opinion polls but in the teachings of our faith which are rooted in the word of God. That could also means experiencing the discomfort that comes from literally standing alone at times on a certain principle. How often, for example, have you found yourself in the midst of a conversation that has become coarse or uncharitable? Did you have the courage to walk away or confront the speaker?

We are not all expected to professionally evangelize the good news, standing on street corners thumping on the Bible, but we ought to be committed to living our Catholic faith and that could make us prophets. Clearly, Jesus did not flow with the current of his times nor does he today. He spoke the divine truth, knowing that he would rarely be politically correct. He had no choice for promoting the truth is the prophet’s mission in this world. By virtue of our baptism, that is our mission as well.

This Lent, there will be ads on TV inviting anyone who has left the faith to come home. Perhaps, they may ask you questions.  If so, simply answer their questions as best you can and if you don’t know the answer, invite them to see me or a member of our evangelization team listed on the flyer in last week’s bulletin. What you say and do could be what it takes to bring someone home to the Church, allowing Jesus to cheer as he tears up one of the many rejection letters in his collection.  

It is hard to realize that we are already in the 3RD week of Ordinary Time. Christmas has come and gone . The Christmas season has fleeted away like the snow that falls and melts away in a day when it does fall here on the Island.

However, have we realized and been moved by what we have heard? Have we taken to heart the beautiful scripture passages that have been proclaimed here on this altar?

Have we taken to heart the words that came from the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, one if not the most recognized prophet of the Old Testament, to the beautiful words from the New Testament to include the Book Of Acts, the letters of a convert St. Paul, to the people whom he converted to Christianity, and to the rich and nourished filled words of the Gospels, to name just a few?

The scripture passages show the journey to salvation through the prophecy of a savior who would reconcile with and protect the nation of Israel, the chosen people of the Old Testament, and then leading through to Jesus’ birth and later his ministry and ultimately Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection that brought salvation to the world.

We then see the birth of the Church and the teachings that would enlighten our understanding of “the One Body in Christ”; All this for the Kingdom of God!!!

In today’s gospel, Jesus begins his public ministry. Jesus was bringing forth the center of his teaching, the vision of God’s Kingdom. This was the dream of the prophets of the Old Testament, the promise of God’s reign of truth and justice, and love, the biblical image of salvation.

Jesus says: “The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to

bring good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, recovery of site to the blind, let the oppressed go free”. Taken from a worldly approach, we would think that Jesus is implying that he came to bring abundance to those who were poor, to free the slaves and the prisoners, to heal the blind, and to stop all worldly oppression.

Embracing a spiritual approach meant that Jesus was announcing the arrival of the “Kingdom of God” on earth. The Kingdom of God was the good news that Jesus was proclaiming. For the arrival of the Kingdom of God to be fulfilled, it meant the arrival of the promised Messiah, Jesus.

It meant that those who were spiritually blind would be enlightened, now being able to see the way, the truth, and the life. Those who were captives of sin, slaves to Satan, would be free, first through Baptism and then through the sacrament of Reconciliation so that they (WE) could enjoy eternal life after physical death. And Jesus brought hope for those who were oppressed through the vision of the eternal life to come, the fullness of God’s Kingdom.

The authors of the books of the bible, the prophets in particular, were only too aware of the injustice, the wrong from lies, the blindness to see the truth, the numerous forms of exploitation  that arise from this fallen human nature. Those are the features of the kingdom of this world, so to speak, and they enter into our world, as we see in our society, even today.

God’s kingdom, on the other hand, is the symbol for the kind of relationships that take shape under the influence of God’s nature. It is a pattern of peace, justice, truth, holiness, love. To move from one to the other is to express salvation, from this world’s kingdom to the realization of God’s kingdom, to live in the love of Christ.

According to the prophets and Jesus, salvation will only be completely realized at the end of time, at the final judgment of humanity. In that sense, God’s Kingdom is always something that lies ahead of us, beyond our present vision, beyond any effort or action we do.

Is this what we think of when we here the phrase “The Kingdom of God”? Jesus proclaimed that the availability of the Kingdom was already here.

Christ presented himself as the Messiah, the person anointed by God to usher in his reign. And he presented his ministry as the fulfillment of what the prophets had looked forward too: God’s decisive intervention in history. He taught his followers to see that his time on earth was the start, or the dawn, of God’s Kingdom.

The Kingdom in its essence, is something we receive, a reality of God’s grace, not something we create or build by our own efforts as I stated before. It is something we are invited to cooperate with. The way to belong to God’s Kingdom is to put it into practice each day of our lives, until it becomes a part of us. Jesus showed us how and he used his life on earth as an example for us, living a life of truth, trust, happiness, joy, forgiveness, love.

The Kingdom takes shape in history, partly in the Christian Community, in the Church, in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist where Jesus brings himself to us, and in our hearing the word of God through the scripture passages we attest to every Sunday and at every celebration of the Eucharist we attend.

The Kingdom of God also takes shape in the efforts of Christians to live out what Jesus taught us. But the Kingdom also takes shape in everything that co-operates with truth, justice, and love. At its best, in spite of the human flaws, the Church has always and will always be the vehicle for God’s Kingdom.

That’s what it is suppose to be. And down through the ages, despite being in very different circumstances and periods of history, Christians who were open to the Holy Spirit have always been shown how to remain faithful to the vision and the values of the Kingdom of God, and how to keep God’s love and truth and Justice alive in the world.

Believe it or not, at the end of the day, that is still part of our journey to the fullness of God’s Kingdom. It is still the Church’s mission, every individual believers mission, not just to cultivate a private relationship with God but to make the Kingdom present in the world around us. It is the mission of every parish community to be the light of the gospel, attracting others to it.

My Sisters and Brothers, in keeping what Jesus has taught us in our

hearts, we will find God’s Kingdom now. In keeping our hearts open to the Holy Spirit, we find the guidance that will take us through our life

journey’s and to the end of our human existence where we will then experience the fullness of God’s kingdom in heaven, forever. We are now able to keep the scriptures alive, today, at this moment in time, and we are able to say with a loud voice, “today your words, Father, are fulfilled in my hearing”, as we now begin living in the Kingdom of God.

Most greeting cards convey trite messages but once in awhile we receive gems that are never forgotten. When I graduated from the seminary 25 years ago, a close friend sent me a card of congratulations I will not forget. The front featured a monk busily writing on a long scroll. He pauses to comment, “Your graduation should be listed amongst the sacred events in the Bible.” Inside, the message continues, “…along with the other miracles!”

So true! For me, graduation was a miracle. After five years of study, I finally had my degree in hand, unlike many of my peers who had dropped out.  We tend to think of miracles as magical, unnatural acts; events beyond our wildest expectations. If my hearing was suddenly restored, that would be a miracle.

Imagine what the reaction would be if anyone today could turn water into wine. Undoubtedly, that would be a major news story that would catch the attention of many curious reporters who would ask, “How did you make this happen?”  I could picture those reporters also asking, “Can you change my worn out $10 bill into a newly printed $100 bill? Can you change my badly dented Ford into a brand new Lexus SUV?” Maybe an illusionist like David Copperfield could pull off such a stunt.

Bent on getting a sensational story, the typical reporter would be apt to miss the whole point of what a miracle is really about. Jesus used miracles to show everyone around him the fullest beauty and expression of God’s love.

John did not even call these events miracles. Through out his gospel, he records seven such incidents, calling them signs. These events were used to reveal Jesus’ true identity to his followers. They pointed to the hour in which Jesus’ divine glory would be revealed, namely his passion, resurrection and the eternal banquet.

The incident at Cana is a very fitting start to Jesus’ public ministry. Unlike other celebrations, a wedding feast denotes the start of new life and the anticipation of many life miracles for the groom and his bride.  Likewise, John provides us with this sign to convey that Jesus and his bride, the Church, have the potential, like any newlyweds do, to change the lives of many.

Miracles bring about change when and where we least expect. Years ago, I saw a movie entitled, A Soldier’s Story. The film was about a black captain in the army during WWII who was sent to a small Louisiana town to investigate the death of a black sergeant. Even though he was a lawyer, this captain, because of his race, encountered much skepticism from the white officers. In the end, he brought immense credibility to his mission of justice. In the closing scene, one white captain offers him a ride to his destination. While driving, he asked, “I guess I have to get used to black officers now?” The reply was predictable. “Guess you have to get used to black officers now.”

I consider the film to be a good example of a miracle because the story portrayed a miracle of accomplishment, a miracle of recognition, a miracle of respect and a miracle of admiration.  Miracles should not be seen only as events that defy the laws of nature but also as unexpected events that happened because someone believed that with God’s grace they could happen.

On Monday, we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy as a man who believed in miracles. In 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he expressed his conviction in miracles when he said, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed; we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal…I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will be not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!”

Contrast the racial attitudes of today with the tensions this country experienced in the mid sixties when Dr. King shared his dream. Did anyone listening to him that day envision that an African-American child born in Hawaii would today be president of this country? Wouldn’t you consider the change in our racial attitudes to be a miracle? I do, even though we as a society still have a long ways to go before we can honestly claim to be living out fully the true meaning of our nation’s creed, namely that everyone from the unborn to the terminally ill is endowed with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of hapness.

The miracles we witness occur because some people believe in themselves, their potential to make a difference, and the divine providence to move forward with their dream.  They recognize that the gifts given them by the Holy Spirit aren’t meant to be kept under wraps but are to be used for building up God’s kingdom.

Unfortunately, many do not believe in the power or reality of miracles. Thus, talents and gifts are ignored or overlooked because they are not seen as the origins of miracles. Age and wisdom are dismissed because they too are not seen as sources of miracles. The ability to alter, to adapt, to amend, to change is not taken seriously. When that becomes our personal creed, then miracles cease to exist for miracles cannot happen unless we dare to believe in them, in God, and in ourselves to create the new life for ourselves and others that only miracles can create.

The challenge posed by these readings is to become more sensitive to the many signs of God’s power and glory. Imagine how our world would change if each one of us took hold of even one of the many gifts we have been given by the Spirit and transformed our lives in the coming year, like water into good wine to be shared with others.  How miraculous that would be!

Jesus, the Ultimate Gift

The celebration of the solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord brings the Christmas season to its liturgical end. The deeply symbolic act of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus is one of the Biblical proofs for the sacrament of Baptism, which we share with Jesus. This act of the Baptism of the Lord is a fitting end for the Christmas season. Jesus’ entered into the world at Christmas, and His baptism at the earliest stages of his public life show us that not only did God show up on this earth, he beckoned us through Baptism to join Him in a new lifestyle. This lifestyle is one of loving God and loving others. It is the critical means of salvation for all of us.

But enough theology for one Mass. By now, as we know all too well, the Christmas season will be over for us in different ways, ways that we might indeed be glad are over.  Let us review the “can’t miss” rituals:

There was the joy of stringing lights and trying to get them to flash, leading to back pains, pulled muscles, and lights that devilishly flash when you hold them in your hand, and then refuse to when you put them on the tree;

There was the obsession over ornaments, how many, what kind, and how they hang from the tree, trying to balance their display on the tree only to have them fall off the tree when someone walks by;

As we go shopping, there was the joy of finding for a parking place, only to have someone else dive in front of you and snap it up, while you have to settle for a parking place a half a mile further away;

There was the joy of standing in a long line to be checked out after you have found that “perfect gift.”  As you get close to being able to pay for your purchases, the person in line in front of you is trying to buy something for which there is no mysteriously no price, leading to more delays as beleaguered clerks call for help that usually does not come.

There was the joy of holding a very fragile gift in your hand as someone’s unattended children about half your height dash right in front of you as you seek to get on an escalator.

And last but not least, as you leave the mall parking lot to go home, you discover three parking places very close to the stores you just left.

Brothers and sisters, while all this was going on, the ultimate perfect gift was  standing in front of us, there all along. No, it is not shopping on the Internet. It is the gift of Jesus Christ.

In our Gospel today, as John the Baptist was baptizing Jesus as well as others in the Jordan River, he reminds people that “one mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.”  It is hard to imagine truer words ever being spoken.

One of the greatest joys we have as Christians is the reality that our God loved us so much that He pierced the veil between heaven and earth so that he could be with us.  But Jesus as God and man did not come into our world because He was curious about us.   He came into the world to conquer sin and death.  He gave us everything we have. He showed us how to live. He showed us the means to follow his example and conquer sin and death ourselves.  He opened the gates of heaven, and blazed a trail for us so that we could get there, too.

Even when we fail, when we reject Him, He beckons us through prayer and the sacraments to get ever closer to Him.  And he forgives us, over and over again, desiring above all else that we be with Him.  He is with us always. He watches over his flock, as the prophet Isaiah says, feeding us and gathering us in His arms.

This brothers and sisters is the ultimate gift because, as St. Paul says in our second reading, it is so undeserved.  Despite our flaws, throughout history, Jesus has worked with people whose flaws were obvious to build up the communion of saints and the Body of Christ.

This patience with people, which I wish I had sometimes, is based on the Lord’s desire that none of us should perish but rather come to repentance.  Paul obviously understood this well. He, like many of the great saints, reject Jesus’ gift for many years of their lives.

How did Jesus respond to this rejection?  He forgave Paul. He went to extraordinary lengths, as He does for all of us,  to ask this very ordinary, flawed man to do extraordinary things in founding the Church and spreading the message of the Gospel life to all corners of the earth.  The rest, as we say, is history.

But Jesus’ undeserved gift is at work in our own time too. I share with you this morning a classic example of this. In 1923, a boy by the name of Joseph Whalen was born. He was the oldest of seven boys in a poor family that lived in the seafaring town of Quincy, Massachusetts. At the age of thirteen, Whalen was offered the chance by an uncle who was a bishop to enter study for the priesthood.  He said no without giving it much thought.  Like many of us, it was easy not to bother with the gift of Jesus Christ.

As he grew older, he began digging clams for a meager living. There he began to learn to drink with professional clam diggers.  It was a hard life. He began to drink more and more.  He also developed a two pack a day cigarette habit,  Camels straight up, with no filters. With his body still young and vigorous, he survived these habits and joined the Navy and eventually learned to be a pharmacist.  Often, he used his learning to make five-gallon jugs of instant gin out of ingredients for cough medicine. It was a clever way to serve his drinking habit and those of others.  The young man suffered blackouts, the “shakes,” and other classic symptoms of alcoholism.

After leaving the Navy, Whalen got married and had children in spite of his alcoholism.  He took on a high stress sales job, which only made his drinking worse.  His children were afraid to bring friends home.  His wife was constantly apologizing for him, as he staggered around and became increasingly obnoxious.  His marriage ended in bitter divorce, with all of his life savings swallowed up by a legal settlement.

But the Lord did not give up on Whalen. One day the man was introduced to a cloistered nun, who told him through her gift of knowledge from the Holy Spirit that he was going to become a priest. Whalen thought she had been wearing out more than just her Rosary beads.

And yet, she turned out to be correct.  When thinking about it further, tears streamed down Whelan’s face. Jesus’ amazing, one might say even stubborn, love reminded him of the offer he had been given more than thirty years earlier by his uncle.  Loaded down by guilt, anger, bitterness, and remorse, he was nonetheless rescued.  The nun’s friends recommended to him a recovering alcoholic priest.

For five years, this priest and others helped Whalen on a very difficult road to recovery filled with setbacks and eventual triumph.  Whalen finally accepted the freely given gift of the presence of Jesus in his life. He forgave himself and those who had hurt him over the years.  Through the prayers of many, he is a recovering alcoholic and he even kicked his smoking habit.

As his prayer life deepened, he began to have visions of God calling him again and again to the priesthood. He began to move toward God.  After receiving an annulment from the Church, Whalen was ordained a priest in 1989 at the ripe young age of 66. He had a flourishing ministry working with alcoholics.

Brothers and sisters, each day this week, as we stoop to undo the modern-day equivalent of our own sandal straps, let us think about the Baptism of the Lord, and our own Baptism. Let us think about the ultimate gift of Jesus.  We have a choice. We can chase after material gifts, with their fleeting joy and the tortured rituals that comes with getting them.  Or we accept the ultimate gift of Jesus: His joy, His peace, and the blessed assurance of eternal life. This is a gift that keeps on giving, not just during the Christmas season but always and forever.  Which gift will we choose?

Not much is really known about the magi. We assume they were three in number since Matthew only mentions three gifts. Might they have been kings? Astrologers? Priests of an eastern religion? Were they wise men? Were their names Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar? We don’t know but the facts aren’t important. What matters is what they did.

They came from the east, searching for the new born king of the Jews. They were seekers. “We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” Distance and time did not stop them from seeking what really mattered to them. They came from afar, reading the stars, making inquiries as they followed the star that stood out in the night sky. This was not the same as going down to the local grocery store in search of a missing ingredient for some dinner recipe.

Seeking is what people of faith continually find themselves doing. Static faith does not endure for long. Those who do not seek to enrich their faith through prayer and worship risk losing what faith they have.  This feast invites us to reflect on our ultimate goals in life. What matters to us in the long run? Are we really searching for God or merely paying lip service with so much else commanding our time and energy?

On Christmas, I talked about a father who kept a box in this closet marked “good stuff.”  This time, I want to talk about a son who found a box in his father’s bedroom closet that was marked “Christmas stuff.”

His father was a common laborer who could barely provide for his family. His mother was chronically ill, constantly in need of medical care that the family could hardly afford. Life was a succession of meager meals, second hand clothes and furniture. All the boy wanted to do was escape his poverty and he did, by focusing on school and work.  With guile and luck, he rose rapidly in the corporate world. By age 40, he had realized the American dream: a prestigious position with a New York investment firm, a beautiful home and family, and more than enough money to live securely for the rest of his life. The poverty of his childhood was a distant memory.

Then his father died. As far as he was concerned, his father died a failure. After the funeral, he went to clean out his father’s small apartment. He was embarrassed by the rickety furniture and the few possessions that made up his father’s “estate.”

In one closet, he found a box labeled “Christmas stuff.” For a few moments he was a boy again, reliving the joy of Christmases past when he was too young to realize how poor his family was. As he fingered the ornaments and the pieces of the manger scene, an incredible sadness overcame him. Then he spotted an envelope taped to the base of the manger. Inside was a letter, written by his father, dated Christmas 1955.

“Hi, Johnny, I’m your daddy. I’ve waited a long time to say that. How can I describe what it means to be your daddy? Words don’t easily come to me, but here goes. Johnny, to be your daddy means picking you up when you fall and holding you when you are afraid. Being your daddy means loving you just because you are my son. There’s so much in my heart, so many dreams for you. You have brought joy to our lives, a joy that your mom and I never thought we’d know.

“Johnny, a few weeks before we were married, the doctors told us that because of your mom’s health, we could never have a child of our own. We were crushed. Every morning and night, we prayed for a miracle. Months turned into years and then much to our surprise, you were born at 12:01 AM on December 8. Because of you, Christmas carries a special meaning for us.

“Son, I’ll never be rich. But I believe that if God could help us find our way to you, God will carry us every step of the way. We’ll always have each other and that’s more than I ever hoped for, much more than I probably deserve. Someday, Johnny, you’ll understand how I’m feeling. Just keep in mind who you are, where you’ve come from, and how much you are loved. Hold the blessings of Christmas close to your heart, because you are one of them. You are forever our miracle child.”

Johnny sat there in tears, clutching the most valuable piece of paper he had ever held. He realized how rich his parents were and how poor he had become.

Like the magi, we are on a pilgrimage; our lives are a constant search for meaning, for purpose, for God and the things of God. The gospel today invites us to consider the stars we follow to chart the course of our lives. Do we navigate by the stars that lead us to wealth, to power, to prestige –stars that change, move beyond us, eventually flame out of the sky altogether? Or do we fix our lives on the great “star” of God: peace, compassion, mercy, justice, forgiveness? It is never too late to discover as Johnny did late in his life’s journey, that the true measures of life are found in the things of God.

These decorations will soon be packed away in boxes labeled “Christmas stuff,” for another year, yet the message of Christmas is one we must ponder daily as we search for God in places and persons where we least expect to find him. In the coming year, may we show God and others what matters to us by taking time to pay homage as the magi did through prayer and worship. The magi found what they were looking for on their pilgrimage and so will we as we journey together with faith in the guiding star of Christ. As the message on some Christmas cards proclaim, “Wise men still seek him.” And so must we.