We are given very powerful readings today, powerful individually and powerful collectively. And at the heart of them all is a line by St. Paul in his letter to the Romans: “…be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.” So today we’re given three challenges: transformation, renewal, and discernment. First Paul says, be transformed. This is what Jesus is trying to help Peter do in today’s Gospel. When Jesus explains what it means to be the Messiah — that it means suffering, death, and resurrection — Peter rebukes him. The fisherman rebukes the Messiah! Peter is stuck thinking as human beings do, not as God does. And Peter is arrogant enough to think that he needs to correct Jesus, the Christ. In reality, Peter is an obstacle to Jesus. In that moment, in fact, he’s just as much an obstacle as Satan. But Jesus is patient with Peter, he wants Peter to be transformed. He wants what’s best for him. He cares for him. He loves him. Peter has been raised to believe certain things about the Messiah, things that don’t match with what he is hearing from Jesus. So Jesus wants Peter to grow in his understanding of what it means to follow him. Jesus wants us, too, to grow in our understanding of what it means to be a disciple. He wants what’s best for us. He cares for us. He loves us. We can misunderstand and distort the gospel because of how we were raised, or because of what we read or see on social media, across the spectrum of ideologies. Like Peter, we can be tempted to arrogance ourselves, thinking we have the correct answer, that we know what God wants, and that everyone else needs to conform to our way of thinking about God — even the Pope! But when we do that, we become obstacles to to Jesus, thinking not as God does, but as human beings do. And we’re not only obstacles to Jesus, but we’re obstacles to other people’s relationship with Jesus. So the challenge for us is to let ourselves be transformed by Christ, just as Peter was transformed. Think of all those whose lives were transformed by Christ: Mary Magdalene, Matthew the tax collector, Nicodemus the Pharisee, etc. It’s challenging to be transformed, because transformation means change, and change is always frightening, It means leaving our comfort zone. It means temporary confusion and instability as we hover between our old self and our transformed self. And transformation is a lifelong process, so that means being uncomfortable over and over again. We would much rather stay where we are than risk transformation. There’s security in remaining where we are, but there is also stagnation and death. It’s the difference between being a living lake or a stagnant pond. Lakes benefit from water constantly coming in and going out, a steady exchange that brings life. Lakes are blue and fresh and filled with life. Stagnant ponds, on the other hand, have no life, no color, and they’re filled with the stench of decay. That’s because there is no exchange of water, the water just sits there still and unmoving. There is no renewal. And that’s our second challenge, to be transformed by the renewal of our mind. Renewal is walking in the newness of life in Christ. It’s a constant exchange between ourselves and the living water of Christ. As we prayed in today’s psalm, “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.” Our soul thirst for Jesus, the living water. Renewal is a steady drinking of the living water of Christ, and then allowing it to flow out of ourselves to others in the world around us, through conversation, generosity, kindness, genuine relationship. It is a constant flow, back and forth, that sustains us in the life of the Spirit. Today we are challenged to ask ourselves, How regularly are we drinking from the well of the living water of Christ? How open are we to the flow of the Holy Spirit within us and through us? Are we making time each day to be with and aware of God, making sure we are listening and not just speaking? Or have we become stagnant in our faith? Renewal is a constant process, a steady exchange between ourselves, the Holy Spirit, and the world around us. It is a lifelong task, as we can see from the life of St. Peter. Peter was constantly in need of transformation and renewal. We’ve already seen that in today’s gospel. Later, in the Acts of the Apostles, after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, Peter needs transformation and renewal again. The question comes up about whether the Gentiles need to be circumcised in order to be disciples. Peter thinks that they do, but through a gathering of Church leaders at the Council of Jerusalem, by listening to St. Paul, and especially by listening to the Holy Spirit, Peter comes to a renewed understanding of God’s will, and he was better able to discern what was “good, pleasing, and perfect.” We see this kind of renewal and transformation in the Church through gatherings like the Second Vatican Council and the current Synod gathering about to take place in October. Gatherings like these open the Church to the working of the Holy Spirit, and make transformation and renewal possible so that, like St. Peter, the Church can discern God’s will. And discernment is the third challenge we hear from Paul’s letter to the Romans. Peter was able to discern the will of God about the Gentiles because he was transformed by the renewal of his mind. Paul, too, underwent tremendous transformation and renewal after encountering Christ on the road to Damascus. Paul went from persecuting Christians to becoming one of Christianity’s greatest evangelizers. At first, Paul was an obstacle to faith who thought he had it all figured out. He needed transformation and renewal in order to better discern God’s will for him and for God’s people. So often we think we know what God wants before we do the necessary work of transformation and renewal. Peter rebuked Jesus, Paul persecuted Christians. There is a lot of rebuking and persecuting going on today, and precious little discernment. We have become obstacles to Christ by our lack of transformation and renewal. Today we are challenged to examine our lives, looking for those places where we are stagnant, and where we think like human beings, rather than God. We are blessed to have St. Peter as our parish patron. Not only for the times he got things right, but also for the times he got things wrong. Like Peter, we don’t always get it right. Like Peter, we are sometimes obstacles to Jesus. But, like Peter, we can change. We can be transformed and renewed. Each time we enter this church, we need to remember our need for renewal, our call to be transformed. And we can also remember that Jesus is patient with us, as he was with Peter. Jesus offers us living water for our thirsty souls, transforming us from stagnant ponds into living lakes, and renewing us in mind, so we can better discern God’s will, what is good, pleasing and perfect.

It’s a sad fact of history that the largest religious community that ever lived together in the same place in the history of the Catholic Church was at the Dachau concentration camp in Germany during World War II. Over 2,500 Catholic priests became prisoners in Dachau, in Cellblock 26, known as the Priestblock. They were from 144 dioceses and 25 countries, and they made up about a third of Dachau’s total population. While they were there at Dachau, the priests ministered to the other prisoners the best they could, and they tried to strengthen each other, and give each other hope. As the days went by, they even held theological discussions to try and make sense of what was happening, not only to them, but to the world. They talked about the holocaust that was happening before their eyes, and the war raging across the world, weapons of destruction worse than any other in history; and all this coming after what had been called “The War to End All Wars.” These 2500 priests considered all of this, and as they pondered, one question kept returning to them. “How could this happen?” But that was not the complete question they asked. The complete question, the full question, included a key phrase at the end. Their full question was, “How could this happen in Christian nations?” Germany was a Christian nation. Italy, France, Great Britain, the United States; even Russia had its Christian roots. And these priests asked themselves, “How could this happen among people who professed to be followers of Christ? We must do better!” they said. We must do better. And that is what Jesus is telling his disciples in today’s gospel. He says, “your righteousness must surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees.” In other words, “You must do better.” The law is not simply to be observed, it is to be lived. It is not enough to merely avoid murdering someone, he says, that’s not enough. You must do better. If you have conflict, resolve it. Disciples are not to call people fools or other demeaning names. These people you try to humiliate are my brothers and sisters. Before you even approach the altar with a gift, if you have a problem with someone, go reconcile with them, and then come back. You must do better. It is not enough to avoid committing adultery. Don’t even look at someone with lust. That’s exploitation, using someone else for your own pleasure. You must do better. It is not enough to avoid false oaths. Live a life of integrity, be who you are at all times, in public and in private, so that your yes means yes and your no means no. You must do better. This is what Jesus is telling his disciples. It’s what Jesus is telling us. When we look at the world today, the escalation of conflicts between nations, the out and out war taking place, we must do better. When we look at our nation, the polarization, the name calling, the attempts to utterly humiliate opponents, we must do better. Even when we look inside our Church, we see infighting, bickering, lack of charity between fellow Christians, even, sadly, among Church leaders. Is this reconciling with our brother or sister before coming to the altar? Is this living a life of integrity where our yes means yes and our no means no? We must do better! The 2500 priests at Dachau who saw the need to do better also had discussions about how to do better. In the face of the great evil they were experiencing, they had an insight, perhaps even the grace of the Holy Spirit inspiring them. They realized that in the ministries of the Church there were images of Christ the King and images of Christ the Priest, but there was a need for images of Christ the Servant. And this could help us do better. Whenever we humble ourselves enough to serve others, we encounter Christ in them and they encounter Christ in us. In the words of Pope Francis, “The more we serve, the more we are aware of God’s presence, especially when we serve those who cannot give anything in return…” And when we see Christ in those we serve, we are more likely to treat them with dignity, we are more likely to build friendships with them, we are more likely to want to reconcile with them in peaceful and loving ways. Conflict and disagreement are always going to exist. But the way we resolve those conflicts and address those differences with others ought to grow out of an understanding of their dignity as children of God. When we serve others, we are less likely to call them fools, humiliate them, or exploit them for our own pleasure. When we serve others, we do better. So as the priests in Dachau continued thinking about the important of service, they saw the need for more images of Christ the Servant. But they weren’t thinking necessarily of more icons or paintings of Christ the Servant being put up in churches and homes around the world, although that would be wonderful. I’ve brought in this image of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet, because that’s who Jesus was and is, a servant. Contemplating icons like this one can certainly help us remember Christ the Servant, and our own call to serve others. But the priests at Dachau intended something more. They saw the need for living images of Christ of the Servant. And so they began to think the time had come to bring back permanent deacons. In the 1940’s, and for centuries before, there were no permanent deacons, as there had been in the early years of the church — deacons like St. Lawrence and St. Ephraim. Permanent deacons existed in the Church for many centuries, but for a lot of complicated reasons they declined in number and eventually disappeared. The priests in Cellblock 26 saw the need for the return of permanent deacons, permanent images of Christ the Servant, who would animate the people to service. That is what those 2500 priests concluded, and they wrote their thoughts down in notes, and those notes were eventually published in a book that was one of the influences on Pope Paul VI when he decided to re-establish the permanent diaconate in 1967, after the Second Vatican Council. That decision is what allows me to stand before you, a permanent deacon, talking to you about serving others. God always knows how to make grace come out of any suffering. That horrible experience of the 2500 priests in Cellblock 26 lead to the renewal of the permanent diaconate, so that now there are almost 49,000 deacons in the world, and the numbers are increasing each year. But when we look at the current conflicts in our world, the divisions in our nation, and even in our Church, I must do better, you must do better, we must do better! So I ask you to find some individual or some group that you can serve; someone who cannot give back, someone you disagree with or have a conflict with; or some individual or group that makes you feel uncomfortable. Christ the Servant went to uncomfortable places like Samaria and the Decapolis. He ministered to people who made others uncomfortable, people on the fringes of society, like tax collectors, prostitutes, and those with leprosy. Who would he minister to today, if he were here among us? Those are the very people he is asking us to serve. Today Jesus asks us to surpass the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees and do better. It is not easy; but when has the Christian life ever been easy? the Christian life is the way of the cross. And through the grace of our baptism, strengthened in confirmation and nourished here at the Eucharistic table, Christ gives us the strength to carry that cross. Today I urge you to find a way to serve others, for in doing so you will find Christ; and others will find Christ in you. With Lent approaching, maybe this can be part of your Lenten sacrifice. The world desperately needs to see Christ, the Prince of Peace. Because what we Christians have done so far, as good as it has been, has not been enough. We must do better.

The feast of the Epiphany commemorates the arrival of the magi, and their journey to find Christ can inspire us to reflect on our own journey to encounter Christ in our lives. Each of our journeys is unique, and no one finds Christ in the quite the same way as anyone else. The magi in the Gospel of Matthew found Jesus in their own way. The names and numbers of the magi are not given in Matthew’s gospel, but we think of them as a group of three, probably because of the three gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Our tradition gives them the names Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior. These three magi, or wise men, read and studied the signs, and when they noticed a particular star at its rising, they traveled far from their own land in the east and they found Jesus in Bethlehem. For some of us, our journey might be similar: following clear signs, point A to point B. For others of us, the path is different, a more winding road. Such was the case with the other wise man, Artaban. You won’t find Artaban in the Bible. His story is told by the author Henry van Dyke. It seems that Artaban had studied the stars with his friends Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior, and he knew that a king was to be born among the Jews, a King who would change the world. So Artaban arranged to meet up with his three friends and travel with them to visit this King, once they saw his star. In preparation, Artaban sold his possessions and bought three jewels – a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl – to carry as gifts to the king. One night, Artaban looked up and said, “The star! The King is coming, and I will go to meet him.” He had ten days to get to the rendezvous and join his friends’ caravan, so Artaban immediately got on his horse and rode across fields of Concabar, past Selucia, across the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and finally arrived at Babylon at nightfall on the tenth day, his horse exhausted, just three hours away from his friends. But what was this? There was a man lying across the road, a poor Hebrew exile, almost dead, in the grip of a deadly fever. Should he turn aside, if only for a moment, to help this poor man, and risk missing the caravan? He couldn’t leave the man to die, so Artaban jumped from his horse, brought the man water and cared for him until the man recovered. But, alas, he missed the caravan and his three friends. Sometimes we think we may have “missed the boat,” and we look back on the choices we have made, wondering if they were right. But Artiban was persistent. However, he couldn’t cross the desert with only a horse, so he sold the sapphire to buy the camels and supplies necessary for such a long trip. Fortunately, the Hebrew man he had saved told him that, according to the prophets, the King of the Jews would not be born in Jerusalem, but in Bethlehem. So Artaban set off for Bethlehem, hoping to meet his friends there. He crossed deserts, mountain ranges, endured the fierce heat of day, and the bitter chill of night. and finally arrived in Bethlehem. As he walked through the village looking for his friends, Artaban heard a woman’s voice through a doorway, singing her baby boy to sleep. When she noticed his foreign clothing, she told Artaban of the three strangers from the far East who had appeared in the village three days ago, and how they said a star had guided them to the place where a newborn child lay. But the young mother also told Artaban that the strangers had gone, and the child and his family were gone too, rumored to have fled to Egypt. Artaban’s spirit was crushed. He had missed his friends again, and the newborn King! Sometimes our spirits are crushed. And we feel unlucky or abandoned. And then it gets worse. For just then, soldiers arrived in the village, and Artaban and the young mother heard shouts: “The soldiers of Herod are killing our children!” The young mother hugged her child tightly, and crouched in the darkest corner of the room. Artaban went quickly to the doorway and stood there, looking out. A soldier came hurrying up the street and saw Artaban in his foreign clothing, filling up the doorway. Artaban said, “I’m all alone in this place, and I am waiting to give this jewel to the prudent captain who will leave me in peace.” Artaban showed the ruby, and the amazed captain pocketed the jewel and said to his men, “March on, there is no child here, the house is empty.” From Bethlehem Artaban traveled on to Egypt, seeking everywhere and finding nothing. When he got to Alexandria a wise Hebrew rabbi told him, “The Messiah will be despised and rejected by many, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Those who seek him will do well to look among the poor and the lowly, the sorrowful and the oppressed.” And so Artaban traveled from place to place, visiting the oppressed. Though he didn’t find the King, he did find many who needed help. He fed the hungry, clothed the naked, and comforted the captive, and his years passed swiftly by, thirty-three years to be exact, and still he sought the King of the Jews. Artaban’s hair was now white, his face wrinkled, his body weary. He had come for the last time to Jerusalem, still looking for the King. It was the season of Passover and the city was filled with foreigners. Artaban joined a group of people from his own country and asked them where they were going. They said, “We’re going to the place called Golgotha, where there is to be an execution of two famous robbers, and another, Jesus of Nazareth, a man who has done wonderful works, but who has been sent to be crucified because he said he was the King of the Jews.” Nazareth? The King of the Jews! Could it be? Could it be that he had arisen but had been rejected, and was now about to die? And Artaban thought, “Maybe I will at last find the King, in the hands of his enemies, and will come in time to offer my pearl for his ransom before he dies.” But just then a troop of Roman soldiers came down the street, dragging a young girl. She was the daughter of a merchant, but her father was dead, and she was being sold as a slave to pay his debts. Artaban knew what he had to do. He took the pearl and gave it to the slave. “This is your ransom, daughter. It is the last of my treasures which I have kept for the King.” Suddenly there was a great earthquake, and the walls of the houses shook to and fro. A heavy tile fell from a nearby roof and struck Artaban on the temple. He lay breathless and pale, in the lap of the young girl, knowing that his quest was over and that he had failed. Sometimes we feel the same way, that we have failed. We lose hope, we despair. But we don’t always have the full picture. In fact, we rarely do. You see, then came a voice through the twilight, very small and still. The young girl turned to see if someone had spoken from the window above them, but she saw no one. Then the old man’s lips began to move, as if to answer, and she heard him say, “Not so, my Lord, when did I see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty, and give you drink? When did I see you a foreigner and take you in, or naked and clothe you? Thirty-three years I have looked for you; but I have never seen your face, or ministered to you, my King.” The sweet voice came again, faint and far away, but this time the young girl understood the words: “Truly I say to you, whatsoever you have done to one of the least of these, you have done it to me.” A calm radiance of wonder and joy lighted the face of Artaban and a long breath of relief exhaled gently from his lips. His journey was ended. His treasures were accepted. The other wise man had found his King. Not one of us travels the same road. Some of us have led fairly straightforward lives of faith, from point A to point B, only to begin questioning in our old age. Some of us were raised in the Faith, and may have drifted away and then returned with new appreciation. Some of us came to the Faith later in life, after exploring many different paths, or after suffering through difficult challenges. We may have family or friends who seem to be moving away from Bethlehem right now. But even they are still on the journey, and there is hope for them. On this feast of the Epiphany, each one of us is asked to reflect on our own search for Jesus. What has your journey been like? Where have you gotten lost or sidetracked? Who has helped guide you back? In what unexpected places or people have you found Jesus? What treasures have you given him? What has been your Epiphany? [Click here to read the full version of “The Story of the Other Wise Man” by Henry van Dyke]

Once upon a time there were two towers. Both towers began to be constructed about the same time, in the late 1800s. Both were constructed in Europe and designed by European architects, and both of them were ambitious projects, with plans for multiple levels, huge arches, and decorative statues. Each structure was designed to reach high into the sky, and to be built of sturdy stone. And both of these towers are unfinished to this day. Both architects died during their construction, and neither building was ever completed. Today Jesus talks to the crowds about building a tower. He compares building a tower to being his disciple. When you construct a tower, he tells the crowd, you must count the cost beforehand. In the same way, he says, to be his disciple, you must count the cost, you must understand fully what it takes to follow him. Otherwise you may find yourself unable to finish the work. There is a cost to building a tower. There is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus. What is the cost of discipleship? Jesus is very clear about this: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” The cost of discipleship is the cross. The spiritual writer Dietrich Bonhoeffer explores this idea in his book The Cost of Discipleship. Bonhoeffer distinguishes between what he calls cheap grace and costly grace: “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ. Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it, a man will gladly go and sell all that he has.” “Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a [person] his life, and it is grace because it gives a [person] the only true life… Above all it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son… and what has cost God so much cannot be cheap for us.” “…what has cost God so much cannot be cheap for us.” Jesus did not give up his life for us so that we could “leave the world for an hour or so every Sunday morning and go to church…” He gave up his life so we could follow him 24/7: carrying our own cross each day, letting go of all that we possess, and all that possesses us. Today we hear Jesus ask us if we have we factored that into our calculations for building a spiritual life. We often calculate costs in life. How much do I need to save for a down payment for a mortgage? How long will it take me to save it? We calculate how much a vacation will cost us, or what kind of car we can afford, how much we’ll spend on gas or maintenance. We calculate and estimate and predict. Jesus is inviting us to do the same thing with the spiritual life. Jesus challenges us to calculate the cost of discipleship. Because if we don’t, we risk leaving the work of our spiritual lives unfinished, like a building that is abandoned before it is done, like a tower that is never completed. Returning to the two unfinished towers we started with, we saw that they had a lot in common. Both were made of stone, both were started over 100 years ago, both remain unfinished. But there are also some significant differences between them. The first one was designed in Scotland by a man named John Stuart McCaig. It was McCaig who commissioned the tower to be built, and it was McCaig who designed it. His purpose was to create a lasting monument to his family, in the style of the Colosseum in Rome. He designed it to be an elaborate structure, with arches and arches, and a large central tower, and a museum, and an art gallery. Inside the central tower would be a large statue of himself, and statues of his siblings and their parents. But McCaig died before it was completed. He did leave money in his will for the maintenance of the tower, but his heirs contested the will and won their case, and so the tower was never finished. McCaig may have calculated what he thought it would take to finish the tower, but he miscalculated his family. His tower was all about glorifying himself, glorifying his family, and it sits in Scotland to this day, unfinished. In fact, it’s even known today as “McCaig’s Folly.” Jesus talks about the man who doesn’t finish his tower who is made fun of by the onlookers. McCaig’s Folly. La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona Now the second tower in our story is actually more than a tower, to be honest, quite a bit more. It was designed in Barcelona, Spain. And it, too, like McCaig’s Folly, was intended to honor a family, but not the family of the designer. This building is a massive church intended to honor the Holy Family, La Sagrada Familia, in Spanish, the Sacred Family, the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Its chief architect was Antoni Gaudi, and construction began on it in 1882. And like McCaig’s Folly, it remains unfinished to this day. But what’s different about La Sagrada Familia, when compared to McCaig’s Folly, is that construction has never stopped on La Sagrada Familia. From 1882 to 2022, for 140 years, it has been worked on and worked on. And it is magnificent. I’ve only seen it in pictures, but it’s on my bucket list. Our daughter Teresa saw it when she spent a semester abroad a few years go, and she raved about how awe-inspiring it is. Eighteen towering spires of differing heights, representing the twelve apostles, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the four evangelists, and the tallest spire of all, representing Jesus Christ. It will have three grand facades, representing the Nativity, the Passion, and the Glory; massive columns depicting the the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the seven deadly sins, and the seven heavenly virtues; five doors, with the central door having a triple entrance, to represent the seven sacraments. And that’s not even mentioning the interior of the church, illuminated in all the colors of the rainbow, designed to look organic, like a living thing. When Gaudi died in 1926, less than a quarter of the project was complete. But work continued under the direction of Gaudi’s main follower, who handed it on to a group of architects who have continued the work, so the church is continually being worked on. Pope Benedict consecrated the church in 2010 and proclaimed it a minor basilica. It was projected to be finished in 2026, but this has been delayed a bit due to the pandemic. Maybe some of you here have seen it in person, but if you haven’t, and you want to see something truly inspiring, go online and look up La Sagrada Familia, the church of the Holy Family in Barcelona Spain. The construction of this church is a metaphor for the construction of our spiritual lives, for the building of our relationship with Christ. Gaudi calculated correctly. He knew the church would not be finished in his lifetime, it was not even intended to be finished in his lifetime. He built that into his calculations. And now, it is very close to being finished. And so that begs the question, where are we in our spiritual lives? How are our calculations? Are we, like McCaig’s Folly, focused on glorifying ourselves, incomplete in our calculations? Or are we, with our lives, honoring the Holy Family, taking Mary as our model of discipleship, of motherhood, of prayer; taking Joseph as our model of fatherhood, of devotion? Are we following Jesus, by taking up our cross daily, refusing to settle for cheap grace, and seeking costly grace? When we honor Jesus with our lives, when we build that into our calculations, We have a much better chance of finding fulfillment, of being completed. We know that we will not find complete fulfillment in this life. That only happens in the next life. But we also know that if we abandon the work we will run the risk of living an unfinished, unfulfilled life And so this week we’re invited to recalculate our spiritual life, to factor in taking up our cross daily. This is the cost of discipleship. As we look at the spiritual life we are building, is it looking more like McCaig’s Folly, or La Sagrada Familia?

On this Solemnity of Pentecost the red vestments and red altar cloths are reminiscent of the fire that descended on the disciples. We see this color more and more in our own lives as the weather heats up and the fire season begins. As we know so well from the fires that typically begin to plague us in the summer, fire can be destructive and deadly. That’s one of the reasons pop singer Billy Joel used fire as a metaphor for chaos, crime, and war in his 1989 song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” He got the idea for the song from a conversation he’d had with a young man. Joel had just turned 40 years old, and the young man told him that the world was in an “unfixable mess.” When Joel tried to console him by saying, “I thought the same thing when I was your age,” the young man replied, “Yeah, but you grew up in the fifties, and everybody knows that nothing happened in the fifties.” Joel was taken aback by this and replied, “Wait a minute, didn’t you hear of Korea, the Hungarian freedom fighters, or the Suez Crisis?” Those events then became the origin of the song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” Throughout the course of the song, Joel sings a litany of headlines from 1949 to 1989: North and South Korea, Joseph Stalin, the Thalidomide children, the Bay of Pigs invasion, Watergate, AIDS. And as Joel rattles off headline after headline, the chorus pounds out: We didn’t start the fire It was always burning Since the world’s been turning We didn’t start the fire No we didn’t light it But we tried to fight it It’s been over thirty years since Billy Joel wrote those words, and unfortunately we can keep adding to his list of headlines: the pandemic, the epidemic of school shootings, the war in Ukraine. And on and on and on. It sometimes seems that our world has always been engulfed in a raging wildfire, and we don’t know how to put it out. How do we fight it? One possible answer is to fight fire with fire. We see the fire of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles today. “From the sky a noise like a strong driving wind,” “tongues as of fire.” It sounds like a wildfire from heaven. The Holy Spirit descends like fire upon the disciples gathered together, but unlike a wildfire, it does not consume them. This is a different kind of fire. Think of the burning bush on Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Law. God was present in a bush that burned but was not consumed, and from that fire God gave Moses the Law. It was that Law that connected the Israelites to their God. For generations, the way to be in relationship to God was to be faithful to the Law, to follow the instructions of the Torah. For Jews, Pentecost celebrates the giving of the Torah, the giving of the Law to God’s people. The Law comes to Moses from a burning bush that is not consumed. It is fitting then, that it is on Pentecost that the disciples receive the fire that burns but does not consume. The Law is now written on their hearts. That burning bush now dwells within them. They burn with God’s presence and are not consumed. We, too, have received this fire. Through Baptism, Confirmation, and the continued reception of the Eucharist, the Holy Spirit has come to us “like a strong driving wind,” in “tongues as of fire.” So on the one hand we have the raging fire of violence, destruction, and death outlined by Billy Joel’s song, “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” and on the other we have the fire of the Holy Spirit descending on the apostles. Is this how we fight the fire that Billy Joel writes about? Do we fight fire with fire? Yes. And no. When we hear the phrase “fight fire with fire,” we likely think of using an opponent’s strategy against him or her. For instance, in politics, if an opponent starts slinging mud, then a candidate might fire with fire by slinging mud right back. Or in business, if I’m competing for a promotion and someone tries to make me look bad to ruin my chances, then I might decide to fight fire with fire and try to make them look bad, too. Or personally, if someone’s always picking on me or insulting me, then I could fight fire with fire and insult them right back. But this isn’t the original meaning of fighting fire with fire. The phrase “fighting fire with fire” comes from a strategy in battling wildfires. When a wildfire begins to get out of control, firefighters deliberately set what’s called a back fire in the path of the oncoming wildfire. This is not so that the two fires “battle it out.” Instead, as the back fire burns, it consumes fuel so that the primary fire has no tinder when it reaches the edge of the fire line. The back fire burns up the grassland, the vegetation, and other flammable material so that when the main fire arrives, there is nothing left to burn. It can’t spread. The Holy Spirit is like a back fire for our world. The Holy Spirit consumes the fuel for our fires. It’s like the refining fire in the book of the prophet Malachi that we hear during Advent. The Holy Spirit burns away our prejudice, our pride, our doubts, and our fears. When we burn with the love of God in our hearts, there’s no room for fires of rage and hatred. The key to stopping the wildfires in our culture is to allow the Holy Spirit to do its work of burning away the jealousy, hatred, prejudice, and fear that lie within us. This is what the first Christians did. It’s what the saints have done throughout the ages. They set back fires of the Holy Spirit to starve the raging fires of sin. The first disciples didn’t fight fire with fire by battling the Romans. They fought the fires of persecution with fires of baptism. And that, too, is our call. Jesus’ words to the disciples are meant for us too: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” On this Solemnity of Pentecost, we remember our call to bring the Holy Spirit to the world, the fire within us that burns without consuming. It’s a fire that says, “Turn the other cheek.” It’s a fire that says, “Love your enemies.” It’s the fire that gave St. Thomas More the determination to stand up to Henry VIII. It’s the fire that gave St. Maximilian Kolbe the confidence to give his life in place of a stranger at Auschwitz. It’s the fire that sustained Mother Teresa through years of discouragement and darkness. It’s the same fire that St. Ignatius of Loyola was talking about when he told the Jesuits to “set the world aflame.” This is the fire that makes a difference in the world. It makes a difference in our personal lives, and it makes a difference in our culture. It burns away our selfishness, our pettiness, our prejudices, and our fears, so that they can be replaced by self-giving love. We see that fire most clearly in the burning heart of Jesus hanging on the cross, not a political leader come to overthrow the Romans with the fire of battle, but a servant leader come to transform hearts with the fire of sacrificial love. It is His Holy Spirit we celebrate today, and it is his Spirit that sets our hearts on fire so that we can fight the fire of sin with the fire of the Holy Spirit.

If you have been listening to the Bible in a Year podcast and are still on schedule, then you probably finished listening to the Gospel of John on Good Friday. Don’t worry if you’re not on schedule, my family and I are a little behind, too. But if you are on schedule, then during Holy Week you heard John describe all the many signs and wonders that Jesus worked: He turned water into wine at the wedding feast at Cana. He cured the official’s son from a distance. He healed the man who had been blind, lame and paralyzed for 38 years; he cured another blind man by making mud and smearing it in his eyes. He raised Lazarus from the dead. We have all heard these stories before, and we know that the signs and wonders that Jesus worked while he lived among us were meant to encourage the people to believe in him. Today we’re told that that is the very purpose of John’s Gospel: “these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God…” The signs and wonders Jesus performed were powerful and effective, even if they were temporary. Jesus turned water into wine that was gone once the wedding guests drank it up. He gave sight to blind eyes that would soon be closed again in death. He raised Lazarus from the dead only for him to die again. His bodily cures did not last forever, and they were never meant to. But he used those visible signs and wonders, those temporary cures to build up people’s faith, to bring about eternal healing and salvation. Some might say we need those signs and wonders today, that since Jesus no longer works such miracles among us, the Church was better off in its early days. We might wish to see signs and wonders with our own eyes: Jesus curing cancer in our friends and family, or driving out the demons of addiction and depression. Surely a little extra wine at our wedding this summer would be nice. Then, like the early disciples, we would be more easily able to believe in him, and so would all those we know who have fallen away from the Church. But let us not be jealous of those early Christians who had the signs and wonders of Jesus in person to help them in their belief. On the contrary, as St. Augustine says, today Jesus puts those who have never seen and yet believe ahead of those who believe only because they see. Even those who lived with Jesus and saw him every day struggled with their belief. So fragile was the disciples’ faith at that time, that even when they saw the Lord they found it necessary to touch him before they could believe he had really risen from the dead. They were unable to believe the testimony of their own eyes, until they had touched his body and explored his wounds with their fingers. Only after this could Thomas, the most hesitant of all the disciples, exclaim: “My Lord and my God!” It was by his wounds that Christ, who had so often healed the many wounds of others, came to be recognized himself. They knew him by his wounds. Now we might ask: couldn’t the Lord have risen with a body without any wounds at all, a body with no scars? And we know he certainly could have; but he knew that his disciples carried within their hearts a wound so deep that the only way to cure it was to keep the scars of his own wounds in his body. The disciples had left everything behind to follow him. They had devoted their lives to him, only to see him brutally crucified like a common criminal, and buried in a tomb, dead and gone, like all their hopes and dreams, seemingly. Their pain and disappointment was a gaping wound deep within their hearts as they gathered together in that upper room. It was only when the disciples saw the Lord’s wounds, and when Thomas was able to explore them with his fingers a week later, that their own deep wounds could be healed, and their despair transformed into joy. And when Thomas finally exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!”, what was Jesus’ response? “Have you come to believe because you have seen me?” “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.” And who are those, if not ourselves and those who come after us? When, later on, the Lord had ascended from human sight and faith had had time to take root in people’s hearts, those who believed in him made their act of faith without seeing him or any of his signs and wonders, without touching the one in whom they believed. And so it has been from that day to this, through countless generations of believers. How blessed we are, indeed, who have not seen or touched the wounds of Jesus, and yet who believe in him. Like the disciples, we have our own deep wounds, and blessed are we who believe the Lord can heal them, even though we cannot see him or touch him. On this Divine Mercy Sunday, we recognize that this is the mercy of God: that Jesus is the divine physician, capable of bringing us not merely a temporary cure, but eternal healing and salvation. Like the disciples, we gather here on the first day of the week. We see the bread broken for us and the wine poured out for us. Though their appearance remains the same during the Eucharistic Prayer, yet we believe that they become the Body and Blood of Christ. When we come forward to receive Holy Communion, blessed are we who can say, “My Lord and my God.” St. Augustine tells us that such a faith is beautiful to behold, “because it springs from a devoted heart rather than from an exploring hand.” Let us not long for the signs and wonders of the early days of the Church, but instead let us celebrate these days in which we live in the eternal presence of Christ, who can heal us from all of our deepest wounds, and whose divine mercy is everlasting.

Jesus “was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil.” Each year on the first Sunday of Lent we enter into this significant moment at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. He has just emerged from his baptism in the Jordan river only to be sent into the testing ground of the desert. As we accompany him into the wilderness, Jesus shows us how to live a life of Gospel conversion, how to begin anew. Today, as we begin the first full week of the Lenten season, let us begin by asking ourselves whether we are willing to embrace the grace-filled opportunity before us. Are we prepared to be led into the desert with Jesus, ready to wrestle with our temptations? Or are we fearful of change, preferring to let this season pass us by while remaining comfortably stuck where we are? Entering fully into Lent means leaving our comfort zone and accepting the struggle of the wilderness. Let us look at Jesus. First, he was led by the Spirit; then he enters into the desert; and finally he faces temptation. The Spirit, the desert, and temptation. These three words characterize the Lenten experience. It all begins with the Spirit. The Gospel passage begins by saying Jesus is filled with the Holy Spirit, that he returns from the Jordan and is led by that same Spirit that had descended upon him in the form of a dove. After his baptism, Jesus places himself under the direction of the Spirit. The Father has just told him, “You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased.” Why is he pleased with him? Because, among other things, Jesus is a son who listens to his Father’s voice. Jesus does not go his own way. He is a faithful son who trusts in the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Lent is the season for us to place ourselves under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit cares for us, knows what’s best for us; the Spirit loves us. But how often do we neglect the voice of the Spirit, or follow the voice of our own ego instead, or let the Spirit’s voice be drowned out by the competing voices of all the distractions in our lives? Jesus set his own interests aside, put his faith in the Father, and listened to the voice of the Spirit. What do we need to do today to allow the Spirit of the Lord to guide us? This Lenten season is the time to examine the voices we listen to— the lyrics of our music, the visuals of our TV shows and movies, the biases of the news sources and websites we frequent— and to turn our attention to the Spirit that always seeks our own good, that leads us to fullness of life. What do those other voices seek? “Buy this; buy that.” “Condemn this group or that group, this person or that person.” Obeying the voices of our consumer culture leads us into envy, self-centeredness, and isolation, resulting in a perpetual state of fear, unease, and anxiety. The voice of the world leads to the tomb. But the voice of the Holy Spirit leads us into generosity, fellowship, and community, resulting in peace, in shalom, in harmony. The voice of the Spirit leads to the empty tomb, to resurrection. But to get there, the Spirit first leads us into the desert. And what is the desert? It is a place apart, a barren wilderness away from the false world we have created to hide from ourselves. The desert is the place of truth, where all illusions are stripped away and where we are confronted with our ego, with our own sins and failings; where false desires are revealed. The desert is a place of potential chaos and danger, but it is also the place of solitude and focus, of meditation and contemplation. This Lenten season is the time to let the Spirit lead us to a place apart. The Gospel tells us that, instead of plunging headlong into ministry after his baptism, Jesus was led into the desert for forty days, where he ate nothing. During Lent we are led into a desert of fasting and focus, leaving behind those things that we think we need to be comfortable. Let us ask ourselves honestly this Lent: What can I leave behind for these forty days so that I can focus more intently on what really matters? Entering into Lent means going where Jesus went, into the desert, into the wilderness. It means following in his footsteps, discovering that there are things in our current way of life that we can leave behind and do without. It is a challenging and maybe even fearful exercise, this leaving of things behind. We can become so addicted to certain patterns of living that we can’t imagine life in any other way. So often our habits can put us in a rut. This Lent let us be creative and embrace new ways of living. Lent is characterized by the Spirit, by the desert, and finally, by temptation. Following the Spirit into the desert is not without its challenges. On the contrary, whenever we seek to follow Jesus, we are confronted with temptations to return to our former way of life. And this is true no matter how long we have been a disciple. We have doubts, we have fears, we’re surrounded by contrasting messages, and all of these make us vulnerable to temptation. These temptations come in many forms: physical and emotional comfort; power, prestige, and success; daring God to prove his love. But these are false promises, powerful illusions that seek to separate us from our true home. And in the end they have eternal consequences. Jesus sees right through the devil’s temptations and dispels them with what is written in Sacred Scripture: “One does not live on bread alone.” “You shall worship God alone.” “You shall not put God to the test.” Lent is a time for us to return over and over to the Word of God to confront the temptations that try to rule our lives. In the first reading, Moses tells God’s chosen people, “He brought us out of Egypt with his strong hand and outstretched arm, with terrifying power, with signs and wonders.” He reminds God’s people that God took care of them, that his mighty power saved them from their oppressors. That message is for us, too! We need to hear, over and over again, that God loves us, cares for us, and saves us. This is the message of God’s sacred Word, and the more we hear it, and the more it becomes part of our very fabric of being, the more we are able to dispel the temptations that haunt us. How can we do that? How can we make Sacred Scripture a more integral part of our lives during the next forty days and beyond? By whatever means necessary. By carrying a little pocket edition of the New Testament with you throughout the day and reading a little bit from it every so often. Or by finding that Bible app that you installed on your phone the last time you made a resolution to read Scripture. Or easier yet, by going to the US Catholic Bishop’s website and subscribing to the Daily Mass Readings. They will be delivered to your email inbox every single day. Temptations are powerful. We need the strength of Scripture to help us resist them. Today’s gospel is a powerful lesson for us. Lent is a time to listen to the voice of the Spirit as it leads us into the desert where we confront our temptations. It is a process of tuning out the competing voices, of fasting from destructive patterns of living, and of confronting the darkness of temptation with the light God’s word. May we journey through this Lenten season with resolve. Let us not miss out on this grace-filled opportunity to turn away from sin and be faithful to the gospel.

About five or six years ago there was a poll to discover the world’s greatest love letter. After all the votes were tallied, the overwhelming favorite among all the love letters ever written, was a letter from country music singer Johnny Cash to his wife June Carter Cash for her 65th birthday. The letter was published in a book by their son about ten years ago, and it’s just a beautiful letter, brief, simple, and heartfelt, and it goes like this: Happy Birthday Princess, We get old and get used to each other. We think alike. We read each others [sic] minds. We know what the other wants without asking. Sometimes we irritate each other a little bit. Maybe sometimes take each other for granted. But once in awhile, like today, I meditate on it and realize how lucky I am to share my life with the greatest woman I ever met. You still fascinate and inspire me. You influence me for the better. You’re the object of my desire, the #1 Earthly reason for my existence. I love you very much. Happy Birthday Princess. – John Now there are many things to love about that letter. First of all, I love it because it was written by Johnny Cash, and I happen to be a fan. But aside from that, there’s a real honesty to the letter, a simplicity that gets right to the point, a heartfelt sincerity. Johnny Cash doesn’t try to gloss anything over, he’s not trying to hide anything. They sometimes get on each other’s nerves, and take each other for granted. But he ends with a beautiful tribute to how important she is to him, “the #1 Earthly reason for his existence.” You can tell that this is a letter from someone who’s been in a relationship for a long time, with its ups and downs, its tragedies and glories. It’s just beautiful, and it’s no wonder that it was voted the greatest love letter of all time. Now I bring this up today because this weekend is Word of God Sunday. Every year on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time we celebrate the Word of God, God’s love letter to us. The Word of God is God’s love letter to us. Love seeks expression. Love, true love, almost demands to be communicated, to be expressed to the beloved. And so God, in his infinite love for us, gives us his Word as a love letter to us. And what is the Word of God? If we look at the very beginning of the Gospel of John, we can see exactly what the Word of God is: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “And the Word became flesh and lived among us.” The Word of God is not a what, but a Who, the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word of God. Jesus is God’s love letter to us. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” Out of love, the Father gives the Son as gift to the world. Jesus, the Word of God, is God’s love letter to us. And it is up to us to read that letter, to receive Jesus into our lives, into our hearts. Like all married couples, Brenda and I have exchanged love letters over the years. And I don’t think it would ever have occurred to us not to read any of the love letters that we had written to each other. To receive a Valentine from Brenda and say, “Oh, thanks, honey, I’ll read this later,” and set it aside? Or, “Let’s put this anniversary card on the stack with the bills and junk mail, and all the rest of the stuff that we need to go through this week.” No, when we get love letters from our beloved, we set everything aside to read them, whether they’re from a fiancé, a spouse, a parent or grandparent. And we often go back and reread those letters, noticing something we missed the first time, or just reveling in the love we feel coming through those simple lines. And that’s why it’s so important for us to read Scripture regularly. We have a love letter from God that we can experience every single day, and which leads us to encounter Jesus Christ, the true Word of God. How can we put that aside? How can we ignore that love letter? Well, we get distracted, we get our priorities mixed up. And so that’s one reason the parish is promoting the Bible in a Year Podcast. It’s one way of staying committed to reading that love letter, cherishing the Word of God daily. It’s a convenient way of becoming acquainted with the whole of Scripture, so you get the bird’s-eye view, so to speak, of Salvation History. If you’ve been listening to the podcast for the first three weeks, I have just one word for you: brokenness. That seems to be Fr. Mike’s word of the year so far. If you haven’t been listening, and you’d like to, it’s not too late to start. Just jump in on day 22 or 23. Or start at the beginning and listen whenever you can. As Fr. Luke has been saying, you can listen in your car, while you exercise, you can even watch it on TV through the YouTube app like Brenda and I are doing with our family each evening, so we can read the transcript in big letters. It can be really helpful to listen to the Word of God in its entirety, like the Bible in a Year Podcast is doing, but it’s also important to read God’s love letter to us is in a slow, deliberate, savoring way. To use a metaphor that I think some here will appreciate, it’s like opening up a bottle of fine wine and letting it breathe, then pouring it carefully into the glass, swirling it around while you appreciate its color, sniffing its complex aroma, and finally sipping it slowly, absorbing the flavors. Reading our love letter from God ought to be a little like that. Sitting down comfortably and quietly, turning deliberately to a sentence or paragraph of Scripture, maybe the Gospel reading for daily Mass, and reading it ever so slowly, looking for a word or phrase that stands out to you. When you encounter a word or phrase like that, you stop reading and roll that word or phrase around in your mind, chewing on it, pondering it, wondering what this particular word or phrase means to you, and how God may be using it to communicate with you. Eventually, you may feel inspired to speak your own verbal, prayerful response to God’s word. At that point you pray honestly, simply, and sincerely, just like Johnny Cash’s love letter. You pray not in order to make a good impression on God, but simply to be intimate with the One who loves you. Eventually, the words may just drop away and the wordless silence will embrace you as you simply sit in God’s presence. For instance, if you were reading today’s gospel, you might be taken by the phrase, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” And you might stop and ponder, and think to yourself, “This is about Jesus, but it’s also true of me. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, too. Through my baptism and my confirmation, I have received the Holy Spirit. But I forget that sometimes. I forget what a great gift it is to have received the Holy Spirit.” And so I might ponder that awhile and be filled with gratitude, and then I might return to the gospel and be drawn to the line, “He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.” So then I might think, “Yes, I have received the Holy Spirit for a reason, to bring glad tidings to the poor.” And at this point I may say to God, “I’m afraid of what that means,” or I might say, “God, show me how to do this. I’m not sure how to bring your glad tidings to the poor. Who are the poor you want me to reach, and how do I speak your glad tidings? I’m not very good at this kind of thing. But I believe that your Spirit is with me.” Or maybe I don’t believe that, maybe I’m having a hard time believing that, and so I tell God that, too. You see, our dialogue with God needs to be honest, just like that love letter from Johnny Cash to his wife June. When mature lovers speak to each other, they tell the truth. And so our reading and pondering of a word or phrase of Scripture may lead us to talk to God honestly and openly. And after we speak, we sit in silence, the way long-married couples often do, saying nothing, just reveling in each others’ presence. Just like Johnny Cash writes, We get old and get used to each other. We think alike. We read each others’ minds. We know what the other wants without asking. This is what happens to us the more regularly we pray with Scripture, spending time with the beloved who loves us infinitely, just 15 or 20 minutes a day. We get used to God, we begin to think like God, we begin to know what God wants. We enter into communion with God. Reading the Bible this way is not about figuring it all out, but rather it’s about encountering Jesus, the Word of God, through the medium of the written word, and entering into communion. On this Word of God Sunday, I encourage you to make a commitment to listening to the Bible in a Year Podcast, or to spending 15 to 20 minutes each day prayerfully reading the love letter that was written directly to you, responding to that letter in prayer, and sitting in silence with the One who loves you infinitely, so that you can say to God in all honesty, You’re the object of my desire, the #1 Earthly reason for my existence. I love you very much.

Today is the feast of the Holy Family, and as we look at the gospel reading today we might be reminded of a similar story, a more modern story. A story of a family taking a long trip during the holiday season who suddenly realize that they’ve left their young son home alone. I’m speaking of course of that 1990 movie Home Alone, where young Kevin McAllister believes he is being bullied by his older brothers and sisters, and ignored by his parents, so he wishes his family would just disappear. His wish gets granted when, on the morning they’re supposed to be getting on an airplane to go to Paris for Christmas, they oversleep and have to rush to get to the airport. And just as Mary and Joseph don’t realize that Jesus has remained behind in Jerusalem, the McAllisters don’t realize that young Kevin has been left behind at home. It takes Mary and Joseph several days to find Jesus after they return to Jerusalem, and it takes Mrs. McAllister several days to get back home from Paris. In the end, Jesus is reunited with his family, goes back to Nazareth with them and is obedient. And Kevin is reunited with his family, comes to realize how much he loves them, and goes back to his normal life. At least until Home Alone 2. It’s good to look at these two stories together because today the Church sets Jesus, Mary and Joseph before us as a model of what our families should be. But we might identify more easily with the McAllister family, with their arguing, noisiness, and chaos. Here in front of us we have the beautiful manger scene with the Holy Family portrayed in sacred art. It’s a beautiful, peaceful image of the sacredness of family life, so calm, so holy. Now imagine, if you will, Kevin McAllister and his family standing down the aisle in the back of the church just inside the doorway. A very different image of family life. And now picture an imaginary line running the length of the floor from the Holy Family to the McAllister family. And suppose I asked everyone here to get up, move to the center aisle, and stand somewhere on that line, somewhere on that spectrum, closest to the family that most resembles your own. Think back over the holidays now and recall the scene in your house just yesterday on Christmas, or on Christmas Eve, or the last time you gathered together, or your last phone call or text exchange with your children, grandchildren, brothers and sisters. Where would you place your family on that line? The Church sets the Holy Family before us today as our model, but how could we ever measure up to that kind of holiness? And yet that is our call. To be a holy family. How could our families ever be that perfect? What could we do that would ever be good enough for us to be called a holy family? But holiness doesn’t come from our being good enough, holiness is not the result of our own efforts. There is only one who is holy, and that’s God. Holiness comes from God being good enough, and more than good enough, overflowing with goodness! And wherever God is, is holy. Our holiness comes from our connection to God, from our relationship with God. And so what we learn about family from the Holy Family is that a holy family is one in which God is present. The Holy Family was holy because Jesus was there, and Jesus is God, and wherever God is, is holy. Mary is holy because she carried Jesus, cared for him, treasured him in her heart all her days. Joseph is holy because he protected Jesus, taught Jesus, and devoted his life to providing for him. Our families are holy to the extent that Jesus is present in them. And Jesus can be present in surprising and unexpected ways. If you think back over the past few days, where were the moments of holiness in your own family? I would suggest three signs that indicate the presence of holiness in a family: sacrifice, reconciliation, and joy. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived lives of self-giving sacrifice. Anyone who is part of a Christian family knows it takes sacrifice. The sacrifice of time and attention, the financial sacrifices, the emotional sacrifices, the spiritual sacrifices. The sacrifice of dreams, perhaps, that we had envisioned for ourselves. To be a Christian family is to sacrifice, and all of those sacrifices can be signs of holiness. What were the sacrifices present in your family this Advent and Christmas season? The sacrifice it took to bake Christmas cookies, or to make Christmas dinner. Time spent dressing the children for Christmas Mass. The hours it took to wrap Christmas presents. The money it took to buy those presents, and braving the crowds in busy malls and stores. Spending time in long lines at the airport or driving over snow-covered mountain passes, to get home in time for Christmas. Shoveling the snow so that guests wouldn’t fall as they visited your home. When sacrifices like these are done out of love, then that is Jesus working in your family, making it holy. Reconciliation is another sign of holiness in a family. Jesus came to reconcile us to each other and to the Father. Whenever Christian families reconcile, the holiness of Christ is there. Did any reconciliation happen to take place over the holidays this year, no matter how small? Even just the inkling that a reconciliation might be possible in the future can be a sign of holiness. Were there any apologies, handshakes, or hugs, that bridged an angry or awkward divide this Christmas? Anytime someone takes a step toward forgiveness and embraces another in love, reconciliation begins to take place. And where there is true reconciliation, Christ is present. And where Christ is, God is, and wherever God is, is holy. And then there’s joy. Joy is perhaps the surest sign of holiness in a family. At Christmas we sing “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” Think back on all the moments of joy you’ve witnessed in the last few days: The faces of the children and grandchildren opening presents; the joyous singing of Christmas carols; the feasting and laughter around the Christmas table; playing board games or card games. Enjoying each other’s company just for the sake of being together. These are joyful signs of holiness. Whenever there is sacrifice, reconciliation, and joy, there is holiness. Now it is very possible that for some, that rather than sacrifice, reconciliation, and joy, the last few days have been filled with self-centeredness, division, and sadness. The holidays can be a very difficult and stressful time, especially for those who have experienced a recent loss, or are alone, or are in the middle of a difficulty family situation. And whenever families gather, there is always the possibility of conflict or jealousy. But that doesn’t mean there was no holiness present. God is present even and especially in our struggles. And wherever God is, is holy. If the last few days have been an incredible challenge and struggle, and if you look back wishing that there could have been just a little sacrifice, reconciliation, or joy, remember that even the desire for those things is holiness. Because that desire comes from God, and wherever God is, is holy. And so as we recall our vocation to be holy, and as we look at the Holy Family, we may sometimes feel more like the McAllisters. We may even wish at times, like Kevin, that we could make our family disappear. But we have a God who will never disappear, and his presence can be recognized in the sacrifices, reconciliation, and joy that we experience as family, and wherever God is, is holy. Let us set aside some time this week to recognize and name the holiness we experience in our family and to look for more ways we can sacrifice, be reconciled, and be more joyful.

There is no text for my homily this past weekend, just the audio. But here is the video for “If You Eat Each Day” by Bryan Sirchio, from which I quoted: