8 January 2023 in the year of our Lord
Mt 2:1-12 When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people, He inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it has been written through the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel.” Then Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage.” After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way. |
Κατά Ματθαίον Ευαγγέλιον 2,1-12 1 Τοῦ δὲ Ἰησοῦ γεννηθέντος ἐν Βηθλέεμ τῆς Ἰουδαίας ἐν ἡμέραις Ἡρῴδου τοῦ βασιλέως, ἰδοὺ μάγοι ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν παρεγένοντο εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα 2 λέγοντες· ποῦ ἐστιν ὁ τεχθεὶς βασιλεὺς τῶν Ἰουδαίων; εἴδομεν γὰρ αὐτοῦ τὸν ἀστέρα ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ καὶ ἤλθομεν προσκυνῆσαι αὐτῷ. 3 ἀκούσας δὲ ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἡρῴδης ἐταράχθη καὶ πᾶσα Ἱεροσόλυμα μετ’ αὐτοῦ, 4 καὶ συναγαγὼν πάντας τοὺς ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ γραμματεῖς τοῦ λαοῦ ἐπυνθάνετο παρ’ αὐτῶν ποῦ ὁ χριστὸς γεννᾶται. 5 οἱ δὲ εἶπαν αὐτῷ· ἐν Βηθλέεμ τῆς Ἰουδαίας· οὕτως γὰρ γέγραπται διὰ τοῦ προφήτου· 6 καὶ σὺ Βηθλέεμ, γῆ Ἰούδα, οὐδαμῶς ἐλαχίστη εἶ ἐν τοῖς ἡγεμόσιν Ἰούδα· ἐκ σοῦ γὰρ ἐξελεύσεται ἡγούμενος, ὅστις ποιμανεῖ τὸν λαόν μου τὸν Ἰσραήλ. 7 Τότε Ἡρῴδης λάθρᾳ καλέσας τοὺς μάγους ἠκρίβωσεν παρ’ αὐτῶν τὸν χρόνον τοῦ φαινομένου ἀστέρος, 8 καὶ πέμψας αὐτοὺς εἰς Βηθλέεμ εἶπεν· πορευθέντες ἐξετάσατε ἀκριβῶς περὶ τοῦ παιδίου· ἐπὰν δὲ εὕρητε, ἀπαγγείλατέ μοι, ὅπως κἀγὼ ἐλθὼν προσκυνήσω αὐτῷ. 9 Οἱ δὲ ἀκούσαντες τοῦ βασιλέως ἐπορεύθησαν καὶ ἰδοὺ ὁ ἀστήρ, ὃν εἶδον ἐν τῇ ἀνατολῇ, προῆγεν αὐτούς, ἕως ἐλθὼν ἐστάθη ἐπάνω οὗ ἦν τὸ παιδίον. 10 ἰδόντες δὲ τὸν ἀστέρα ἐχάρησαν χαρὰν μεγάλην σφόδρα. 11 καὶ ἐλθόντες εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν εἶδον τὸ παιδίον μετὰ Μαρίας τῆς μητρὸς αὐτοῦ, καὶ πεσόντες προσεκύνησαν αὐτῷ καὶ ἀνοίξαντες τοὺς θησαυροὺς αὐτῶν προσήνεγκαν αὐτῷ δῶρα, χρυσὸν καὶ λίβανον καὶ σμύρναν. 12 Καὶ χρηματισθέντες κατ’ ὄναρ μὴ ἀνακάμψαι πρὸς Ἡρῴδην, δι’ ἄλλης ὁδοῦ ἀνεχώρησαν εἰς τὴν χώραν αὐτῶν. |
Fr John Lankeit's homily :
Our Gospel passage for today begins with these words:
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” (Mt 2:1-2)
This is rather significant, because the Magi—the wise men from the east—were not Jews, yet they came to pay homage to the new Jewish king. They represent all the Gentile nations for whom Christ came to save from their sins.
What could possibly have been their motivation to honor a king of a religion they themselves didn’t follow?
Perhaps a personal anecdote might help us understand their motivation better.
I don’t often log on to the YouTube page for our Televised Mass, though on one Sunday, some months ago, I did just that because someone had brought something to my attention about a particular TV Mass that I needed to check out. I noticed in the comment section below the video for that Mass that someone named Mohammed from Indonesia had weighed in on the conversation.
I typed a reply to his comment, saying, “I’m delighted that you watch our televised Mass, but I’m puzzled by something. What is it that attracts a Muslim to the Catholic Mass?”
He responded, “I don’t know. It’s just whenever I watch I feel so much peace!”
Needless to say, I encouraged him to keep watching. I also encourage all of you here today to pray that Mohammed will experience fullness of joy that God created him to experience in Jesus Christ.
Just two days ago, as I was flying home from my post-Christmas visit with family in Washington State, I was reading from an amazing book entitled Christus Vincit that a parishioner gave me for Christmas. It’s written by a rock-solid, holy bishop in Kazakhstan named Athanasius Schneider. Bishop Schneider’s words about Islam—a religion he regularly encounters in Kazakhstan—helped me understand what might motivate Mohammed—my Muslim YouTube friend from Indonesia— based on an encounter the bishop had with a young Muslim man outside his church one day.
Bishop Schneider writes:
[A Muslim] Kazak student of English [told me] that he grew up in a practicing and strict Muslim family, but he started to seek God because as a Muslim he was yearning, longing for God as Love. And God as Love is rejected in the Islamic religion...
...The young man came oftentimes to our church and, after sitting in the back of the empty church, he would come out and say that he always felt a deep peace, which he had never before experienced in a mosque. He was seeking God and already reading the [Bible on the Internet in English], even though his mother prohibited him...And so, he said to me: “I oftentimes look at television and internet out of Europe...The form of Christianity that I see in Europe does not attract me because they have no zeal, no convictions. Islam attracts young people because of the decisiveness, the commitment, it’s uncompromising nature...This form of Christianity which I see in Europe does not attract me.” (Christus Vincit, p. 81-83)
Here it’s important to consider why the watered-down, politics disguised-as-religion that passes for Catholicism in so much of Western Europe and Canada—and which has infected large swaths of the Catholic population in the United States—is so utterly unattractive to the sincere seeker.
This is the fake faith that collaborates with our corrupt culture to create an androgynous humanity that no longer resembles the image of God—male and female. It is a new paganism more concerned with the amount of carbon in the air than with the amount of sin in the soul.
One wonders why so many people have abandoned the true Faith for an inhuman humanism that rages at disposable plastics, but which readily disposes of humans—young and old—if they are no longer useful to the “cause of the day”.
Ironically, what so many consider to be “progressive” these days is actually quite ancient. The new “virtues” of today are simply the old “sins” of yesterday, repackaged and remarketed to an unsuspecting population more entranced by the blue light emanating from their screens than they are by the...true light, which enlightens everyone, [and which] [has] com[e] into the world (cf. Jn 1:9).
Today’s purveyors of perverted Catholicism at the highest levels of the Church are just modern versions of the paranoid, murderous Herod who sought to determine the location of the Christ Child not to do him homage—as he claimed—but to commit “homicide” against this innocent baby in order to eliminate a perceived threat to his throne.
Our Gospel today tells us:
...Herod called the magi secretly and ascertained from them the time of the star’s appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word, that I too may go and do him homage.” (Mt 2:7-8)
Herod pretended friendship and solidarity with the pious wise men, not to join in their worship of the Messiah, but to use them as pawns to wipe out an innocent infant. And we know that he slaughtered hundreds of toddlers in order to eliminate his “competition”.
Those in positions of power in the Church today who corrupt the True Faith, play on the naïve compassion of uninformed Catholics in order to replace the treasure of the Catholic faith with a cheap counterfeit.
Bishop Schneider continues:
I heard a saying which has often been repeated in recent years, “We have not to fear a strong Islam in Europe but a weak Christianity.” As this young Kazakh man observed, our answer to Islam must be to increase our convictions in the Catholic faith, to nurture a virtuous and chaste life, faith in the uniqueness of Christ, in the reality that there is no other way to salvation outside the Church, and that all who are not Christians and who are Islamic have to know Christ and, by God’s grace, freely accept Him. It is our duty to tell them this with love, not with violence; with love, but with conviction. We have to be deeply convinced Christians. We have to foster and nourish in ourselves the spirit of martyrdom and develop the beauty of a chaste and virtuous life. (Christus Vincit, p. 81-83)
Wow!
“...faith in the uniqueness of Christ [and] the reality that there is no other way to salvation outside the Church”!
No politically correct dance around the elephant in the room for Bishop Schneider!
This past summer when I was texting back and forth with my friend Matt the Atheist, I made a claim about Jesus that he objected to.
He responded, “You’d really have to subscribe to the belief in a historical Jesus to believe that.”
I responded, “Not subscribe. Profess!”
Later in that same exchange, Matt equated the Trinitarian God with pagan “gods” and the founders of other religions.
I responded, “There is only One, True God.”
Full stop.
End of sentence.
I cannot tell you how liberating it was to simply profess the truth and feel no compulsion to convince Matt of something he was unwilling to consider in the first place.
A confident, charitable Catholicism packs more punch, and is more convincing, than a perverted political program passing itself off as compassion and piety, while undermining the constant teaching of the Apostles...like that of St. Paul in our 2nd Reading:
You have heard of the stewardship of God’s grace that was given to me for your benefit, namely, that the mystery was made known to me by revelation. It was not made known to people in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit: that the Gentiles are coheirs, members of the same body, and copartners in the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. (Eph 3:2-3, 5-6)
Bishop Schneider continues:
One of the best and most efficacious means of radiating the Catholic faith and of evangelizing is given when our young people, our families, our priests radiate the integrity of the moral life...This is what will attract Muslims: our conviction, our uncompromising faith and the purity of the moral life in our families, and among young people and priests...
When we restore beauty, truly reverent and venerable and sublime liturgies, Christocentric beauty and sacredness, this will strongly attract others, especially Muslims. Their souls are penetrated by the natural sense of reverence, sometimes even more deeply that some Christians. This is our path. Overcoming the crisis of the Church will also have the missionary effect of attracting non-Catholic and non-Christians to the Church. (Christus Vincit, p. 81-83)
Very early this morning, I read two articles about monasteries of monks and convents of nuns that are so overwhelmed with new vocations that they don’t have the space to accommodate the young men and women clamoring to join these communities.
What do these thriving convents and monasteries have in common?
• Living and praying together in community
• Wearing an identifiable religious habit
• Fidelity to the teaching authority of the Church
• Centrality of the Eucharist—Mass and Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament
Even today, the visible, supernatural light of Christ attracts others. This calls to mind something Pope St. Leo the Great wrote for the Epiphany:
...the star beckoned the three wise men out of their distant country and led them to recognize and adore the King of heaven and earth.
http://www.liturgies.net/Liturgies/Catholic/loh/christmas/epiphany/officeofreadings.htm
What attracted the magi to the star was its otherworldly nature. To follow the star required sacrifice, difficulty and suffering. Yet there was something in the hearts of the magi—or rather there was something missing from the hearts of the magi—that they sensed would only be filled if they undertook the long and difficult journey to see this remarkable Child-King.
What they did not know was that the hunger in their souls was put there by the very God who had taken on the human flesh of a newborn infant. Their reaction, upon seeing the Jesus and Mary, confirms this:
...on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. (Mt 2:11)
What our Protestant friends might not notice—our Muslim friends do: the centrality of Mary, the Mother of God. Mary—or Maryam—as she is called in the Koran, is highly revered by Muslims. And, as Archbishop Fulton Sheen commented decades ago—Mary will be the bridge for Muslims to find their way into the Church!
The words that Isaiah proclaimed to God’s Chosen People so many millennia ago, could just as easily be spoken to the faithful remnant in the Catholic Church today:
Rise up in splendor, Jerusalem! Your light has come, the glory of the Lord shines upon you. See, darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples; but upon you the LORD shines, and over you appears his glory. Nations shall walk by your light, and kings by your shining radiance. (Isa 60:1-3)
When those nations walk by the light of Christ—when the people outside the Catholic Church encounter the True Christ, they are no longer able to return to “business as usual”. They, like the magi, are compelled to abandon the counterfeit in favor of the true treasure. Our Gospel today tells us that the magi...having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod...departed for their country by another way. (Mt 2:12)
St. Leo the Great challenges us to illumine the path for others to find Christ:
The obedience of the star calls us to imitate its humble service: to be servants, as best we can, of the grace that invites all men to find Christ.
http://www.liturgies.net/Liturgies/Catholic/loh/christmas/epiphany/officeofreadings.htm
We’ve started a New Year.
Perhaps a better resolution than losing weight would be to lose our fear of inviting others to encounter Christ.
It’s really as simple as inviting a fallen away family member back to Confession or a non-Catholic friend to Mass.
And if we—like the star that led the Magi to the manger—simply point the way to the Light of the World, Jesus and Mary will do the rest!
No comments:
Post a Comment