note to self...

By means of the homily the mysteries of the faith and the guiding principles of the Christian life are expounded from the sacred text, during the course of the liturgical year; the homily, therefore, is to be highly esteemed as part of the liturgy itself; in fact, at those Masses which are celebrated with the assistance of the people ... Sacrosanctum Concilium 52

Solemnity of the Epiphany

Is 60:1-6
Ps 72:1-2,7-8,10-11,12-13
Eph 3:2-3a,5-6
Mt 2:1-12

How many of you were told not to eat cookies before meals growing up?  Why are we told that?  Because it would spoil our appetites! If you indulge yourself too much with snacks and sweets, you mess up your dinner right?  But you know what? That’s the Christmas season, the big dinner: the great food that we eat, the celebration of Christ’s birth, and the time together with family.  But we spoil it by preemptive Advent festivities.  How many of you don’t feel like celebrating Christmas right now?  The reason the Church tells everyone to put on the brakes, slow everything down in Advent is to give us the time and the moment to prepare and most importantly savor what Christmas is all about.  Christmas is practically shoved down our throats right after Halloween and we burn out before we even start.  And then we are expected to celebrate Christmas for one more week?!  Yes, today is the last day of the 12 Days of Christmas and the Christmas season extends for one more week!!  We wouldn’t be burned out for Christmas if we really took the time to celebrate Advent for what it is – But you know what?  Hindsight is 20/20 – we’ll see if we can do better next year.

So today being the last day of Christmas – we celebrate the Epiphany.  Some families have this tradition of bringing the Magi from one corner of their living room and moving them closer and closer to their nativity set each day as they approach this special feast.  There’s also the blessing of chalk to bless the doorways of homes and a bunch of other little family traditions that surround this time of year.  As we know, the Epiphany the manifestation – the great “Ah-Ha!” – of Christ as King with the Magi bringing gifts to Baby Jesus.  But before I talk about the gifts, I would like to talk a little bit about the date itself – because this date is really steeped in tradition.

Today, we celebrate the feast of the birth of Christ on December 25.  Historically, the celebration of the birth of Christ is somewhat cloudy. And despite what detractors and atheists may say, December 25 is still a very strong contender for the actual date of Christ’s birth.  In the early Church – in the first hundred or two hundred years there was also the tradition of celebrating the birth of Christ today: January 6.  This was especially true in the East from the Christians around there.  The reasons for it are too involved to get into now, but they held January 6 as the date for Christ’s birth.  These two dates December 25 and January 6 ultimately became the dates for Christ’s birth.  The Church in the West – the Latin Church, that’s us – focused on December 25 as the Birth of Christ and the Church in the East focused on January 6 as the day of His birth.  To make a long story short: because we are the Catholic Church and we love baby Jesus – we made Christmas both days and all the days in between; hence the twelve days of Christmas.

However, January 6 – the Epiphany – also focused on a few more celebrations in addition to the birth of Christ in the East: the gift of the Magi, Christ’s baptism, and the wedding feast in Cana, where Jesus changes water into wine.  Of course, all these events signify major events in Christ’s life and are precursors to His destiny.  The Epiphany really rounds off the Christmas celebration with the Magi and then kicks off the next two Sundays where we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord and the wedding feast at Cana.  As time went on, Christ’s birthday was given its place on December 25 and the rest of the major events of Christ were placed on Epiphany.

Traditionally, today is also a day where we announce the dates for Easter and the movable feasts of the Year: Ash Wednesday, Ascension, Pentecost, and the First Sunday of Advent.  In an age where we all have calendars and electronic devices that already tell us when these important days are, I still argue that it is important to announce them, not because it is tradition, not because we want to waste your time, but because the proclamation – when done well – points to something greater.  Epiphany roughly translates to “manifestation” – the manifestation on Earth of the kingship and glory of God.  And when is He glorified?  The fact that He has incarnated and has come amongst us we celebrate gladly, but He is truly glorified when He suffers, dies, and rises from the dead on Easter Sunday.  In other words, the announcement of the date of Easter and these other days is connecting the fact that through the event of the birth of Christ in this world, manifesting Himself as the God made Man – He has and will truly come to save us through His most precious body and blood on that most Holy Cross on Easter.  To announce the date is to connect these celebrations and to realize that the story of our salvation does not end here, but continues on until the Resurrection and the end of time.

This is further realized for us when we see the gifts of the Magi – the wise and powerful men from a foreign land that had come to pay homage to the newborn King of the Jews.  Certainly for biblical scholars and theologians this is a sign that salvation is not just for and from the Jewish people, but that all peoples – us gentiles – now have a share in this salvation too.  So, the gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh are not some white elephant gifts that the wise men found on the way to Jerusalem, but rather they are prophecies of what the Christ Child is destined to do.  Gold for a King, frankincense for a priest, and myrrh for the prophet who will suffer and die; priest, prophet, and king.  These are the three “munera” – or roles, obligations, duties that Jesus has come to be: to rule as Christ the King, to offer sacrifice as a priest, and to be sacrificed to fulfill the prophecy.  Again, this points to what will happen when we celebrate Easter – that already, even as a baby, Jesus is being prepared and destined to bring us salvation through His passion and death.

In the vein of gift giving, I know some families do not give gifts on Christmas but actually exchange gifts on the Feast of the Epiphany to follow the lead of the Magi giving gifts to Christ – it makes more sense doesn’t it?  “Jesus is born for us, so let’s get each other gifts!” doesn’t make much sense.  Wouldn’t it be better to say, “Jesus Christ is born for us, so let us offer gifts to God and each other, as the Magi offered gifts to God”?  I think this practice is just radical enough to break the trend of consumerism that consumes us during Advent AND you get all the after Christmas sale prices on top of that.  It might be something for you to try next year.

So to close, the Epiphany gets short-changed here in the West because we are burned out before we even get started for Christmas. (I cannot tell you how many times I have heard in the middle of Advent, “I can’t wait for Christmas to be over.”)  This is something for us to work on, but for now, the celebration of the Epiphany is to serve as the last bookend to Christmas and to prepare us for the Easter mysteries.  Our worship of God is always directed towards Easter – Christ’s passion, death, and glorious Resurrection.  So let us bear this in mind as we continue this celebration of the Mass: that the gifts that the Magi – and in a small way, we the gentile people – have given to baby Jesus: gold, frankincense, and myrrh will ultimately be exchanged for the ultimate gift:  Jesus Christ offering Himself for us in His body and blood in the Most Holy Eucharist.

Solemnity of the BVM, the Mother of God

Nm 6:22-27
Ps 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8
Gal 4:4-7
Lk 2:16-21

The Church calls the faithful together to celebrate something very special.   Interestingly enough, the celebration today does not commemorate the beginning of the year, but rather we are celebrating the eighth day of Christmas or the Octave – yes, there are actually twelve days of Christmas and this is the eighth one and so if you have already packed up your tree, you didn’t get your money’s worth!  You still have until January 6th.  For all you procrastinators, you can leave your Christmas decorations up according to the older tradition of celebrating Christmas and that’s all the way until February 2nd.  We are celebrating the eighth day of Christmas, which happens to be New Year’s Day.  If Jesus was born on the 26th, we’d celebrate this feast tomorrow.   But as it works out, and fortunately as we will see later, the eighth day falls on New Year’s.  Why is the eighth day important?

According to Jewish custom and as we hear in the Gospel: When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus… This is the day they perform the rite of circumcision for a newborn son.   And all painful imagery aside, the day that one is circumcised is also the day one receives their name and enters into covenant with God and his chosen people.  You could say this ritual is equivalent to our baptism.  From salvation’s standpoint, the circumcision solidifies the fulfillment of the prophecy of Jesus – the Son of God incarnated – the Messiah coming from the Jewish people to bring salvation to the world.  As we hear in St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians: When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law.  Jesus was announced at the annunciation, born of a woman on Christmas, and now born under the law in the circumcision.  In doing all of this, Jesus enters fully into His humanity to redeem humanity from slavery, not in the physical sense, but rather slavery to sin.  And to show that He does this out of love for His creation, through Jesus’ humanity we also become sons and daughters of God – heirs to the Father – the almighty God.

So the question that may be going through your mind is, “Well that’s all well and good Father Reuben but what does this all have to do with Mary – isn’t this her feast day?”  And my answer is, “Glad you asked! Let me tell you!”  We have many feasts honoring Mary – Annunciation, the Immaculate Conception, and the Assumption to name a few.  Today’s Feast pays special honor and tribute to the title “Mother of God” – theotokos, in the Greek.  This title is of special importance because it is one of the oldest titles of Mary and they had an entire ecumenical council dedicated to discussing this title.  But lest we be accused of idolatry to Mary, let us take examine the title more closely.  As with all titles of Mary and if I may add, in her very person, Mary points to Christ.  The only reason she is exalted it is because she is connected to and points towards Christ.
The title “Mary, Mother of God” in three words describes and captures the very essence of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity.  During that ecumenical council that I had mentioned earlier, an archbishop named Nestorius wanted to change the title from theotokos to christotokos or Mother of God to Mother of Christ.  He did not and could not believe that it was possible for Mary to bear God in her womb; and so instead believed that she bore a human person and then God came down and took over the person of Jesus, leaving only Jesus with a divine nature.  But we, the Church believe that when Jesus was conceived, He was both God and man.  The title “Mother of God” protects that idea – the sheer mind-bending impossible idea that Mary could bear God in her womb was the very reason why the Church adopted the title to acknowledge this very fact that she “mothered” God.  This is again, not to exalt her and her ability to bear God in her womb. The exaltation is in the fact that Jesus, who is God, took on flesh to be born for us and save us.  Salvation comes from the person – both God and human – of Jesus Christ.  Mary is the instrument by which this salvific event is able to take place and hence she is called Mother of God.

So now we know the importance of celebrating the title, Mother of God, the next question to answer is why do we celebrate this feast day on today?  Short answer:  Because Pope Paul VI said so.  I believe perhaps a better answer is that it would make sense for us to celebrate this feast day of Mary, Mother of God on the day that Jesus completes His entrance into humanity.  As Jesus reaches the fullness of His humanity marked by His initiation with circumcision, Mary realizes the fullness of her Motherhood as well.  We are reminded again, When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.… 

If you remember at the beginning, I said that it was fortunate that this feast occurred at the beginning of the solar calendar, the first of the year.  As a lot of you probably celebrated last night remembering the events of the past year and making resolutions for the new year, to celebrate this feast is fitting and fortunate because the news and the realization of our salvation is still very present.  The first reading comes from the Book of Numbers and is known as the Aaronic blessing – used to significant feasts throughout the year.  The very fact that this blessing contains the Holy Name of God (in our Bible it is written in all capitals LORD) invokes the power of God’s Holy name to bring about blessing and goodness.  When you think about it, the power of a name can invoke the very essence and being into the presence of the speaker.  On the opposite end, if you have read the Harry Potter books, you know what I am talking about “you know who”.  The same with God – that His Holy Name, the name of Jesus – given to Him on this the eighth day from His birth into the world brings about blessings and goodness by its very invocation.

Brothers and sisters: today, we celebrate the Octave Day of Christmas – the day of Jesus’ initiation into humanity, the divine motherhood of Mary in calling her the Mother of God, and the giving of His Holy Name to be known throughout all time as the One who comes to bring us His salvation, His blessing, and His peace.  Therefore let us celebrate the beginning of the New Year in His good graces.