Happy first week of the year of Our Lord, 2016! I pray that this year brings many blessings to you. One of the first blessings for me will be the opportunity to travel to Haiti to visit All Saints Parish's sister parish of Our Lady of the Nativity in Terre Neuve. Please pray for me and the two parishioners who I will be travelling with that we will arrive safely and that our time there will be fruitful. We will be remembering you in prayer.
I pray also that posting my homilies will continue to be a benefit to you in 2016. May God bless you all richly!
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Homily:
The Epiphany of the Lord – Cycle C
Of the many shocking things that happened in 2015, one of
the most challenging (to me, anyway) was the dramatic rise of the “nones”. The “nones” are people who, regardless of
whether or not they were raised in any sort of religious tradition, now declare
to have no religious affiliation at all.
Whether it be because they are still searching for faith and failed to
find it in their own (or any other) religious tradition, or because they have
given up the search altogether, the number of persons who categorize themselves
as having no religious affiliation grew at a higher rate than any other
religious group in 2015.
The analysts are quick to point out that this is not good
news for Catholics and for Protestants of mainline denominations (like
Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, etc.).
They note that, over the same periods, the numbers of people professing
to being Catholic or one of the mainline Protestant denominations has
decreased; which, to them, at least, indicates that those who are leaving these
faith traditions are no longer switching traditions, like they used to, but
rather are abandoning religion altogether.
Certainly, a lot of this is using survey numbers to create dramatic
headlines, but there is, nonetheless, cause for concern here. And for us, this ought to cause us to do a
little soul searching.
Today we come here during one of the most joyful
celebrations of the year for us—the birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ—and we
celebrate today that Jesus isn’t Savior of only one specific nation of people,
but rather that he is the Savior of the whole human race. We boldly make our own Isaiah’s prophecy that
the “glory of the Lord” shines upon us; and that the rest of the world, who
heretofore had walked in darkness, will now walk by the light of the Lord’s glory;
and we proclaim that this has been fulfilled by the magi who came from the
east, following the light from the Christ child’s star, to bow down and adore
the Son of God become man, Jesus the Christ.
In other words, we boldly proclaim that Jesus is the Light that will
illumine the darkness (both physical and spiritual) and will draw all people to
salvation. This is what we celebrate
today; and yet the most rapidly growing group of “believers” is the
“nones”. And so it seems to me that, in
spite of the fact that we claim that the light has come to us—the light that
will draw all people into itself—these folks aren’t seeing it.
And so, why can’t they see it? Gosh, I could probably write a dissertation
about all of the reasons why more and more people aren’t seeing and being drawn
to Christ’s light these days, but I’ll just touch on a couple. First, the sheer volume of distractions that
fill the world with artificial light (both literal and metaphorical) is
overwhelming. Even on a clear night,
unless you live way out in the country and are surrounded by trees or are up in
a more mountainous region, you will only be able to see a few of the brightest
stars because of the “light pollution” that comes from cities that are perpetually
lit in a society that doesn’t seem to sleep any more. Thus, we don’t see Christ’s true light
because it has become just one among many.
Second, our sense of the eternal has been dulled. We’ve become a people whose primary concern
is about satisfying our desires “right now”.
If we think about the past, it’s to regret missed opportunities. If we think about the future, it’s to worry
about how we will satisfy our future desires.
Either way, we’re not thinking about the eternity beyond this world,
rather we’re focused on maximizing our satisfaction within it. Thus, we don’t see Christ’s light because we
don’t even know that we should be looking for it.
Third, and this, perhaps, is the most personal one, people
aren’t seeing and being drawn to Christ’s light because those through whom His
light should be shining have either darkened their lenses or have hidden the
light under a cover. While the other two
reasons that I’ve mentioned fall to others, this reason falls squarely on us,
the members of Christ’s Body, to whom he said “You are the light of the world…
Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.” My
brothers and sisters, if Christ’s light is not being seen and pursued by people
today, then the blame falls partially on us for not shining his light as
brightly as it can shine.
In the Gospel, the Magi pursue the star in part because
they had not allowed distractions to pollute their vision with lights that had
no meaning and also because they were looking for something beyond the “right
now”; but also because Christ’s star shined so much brighter than the others. For them, not only was the star immediately
noticed, but the meaning of the star’s rising was also immediately known. King Herod, on the other hand, was concerned
only with satisfying today’s desires and worrying about how he was going to
satisfy his future desires and so he was blind to the star when it rose: so
much so that he was surprised when the Magi announced it to him. While his own weaknesses prevented him from
seeing the star, even in its full brightness, that didn’t diminish how
important it was that the star shined as bright as it did.
My brothers and sisters, you and I cannot keep others from
blinding themselves from seeing Christ’s light, but we can keep it from shining
at its full brightness by not living like we are Jesus’ apostles in everything
we do. I use the word “apostle” here
intentionally: we cannot be people who only hear Jesus’ teaching and then
repeat it; rather, we must also be those who live his teaching in our everyday
lives: proclaiming that the kingdom of God is among us and then demonstrating
it by performing the works of mercy. This is how Christ’s light will “shine
before others”, thus leading them to him so that they, too, might “glorify [our]
heavenly Father”.
Blessed Pope Paul VI once said that “Modern man listens
more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to
teachers, it is because they are witnesses.”
Friends, we are called to be witnesses to Christ so that those who are
searching for the meaning and purpose of their lives—especially those who have
drifted away from religion—will find it by seeing and being drawn to the light
of Christ as it shines forth through each of us. Perhaps, then, we can make it a resolution to
seek one new way each month that we can engage one of the “works of the
kingdom”, also known as the “works of mercy”, during this Jubilee Year of
Mercy. In this way, Isaiah’s
prophecy—already fulfilled in the coming of Jesus as man—will see the fullness
of its realization as all men turn towards the true light and the kingdom of
God is established firmly here on earth.
Then we will be truly ready for the epiphany that each of our hearts
most deeply longs for: the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in glory.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – January 3rd, 2016
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