Mary treasured all these things and pondered them in her heart!” (Luke 2:19). In these words, Luke describes the attitude with which Mary took in all that they had experienced in those days. Far from trying to understand or master the situation, Mary is the woman who can treasure, that is to say, protect and guard in her heart, the passage of God in the life of his people. Deep within, she had learned to listen to the heartbeat of her Son, and that in turn taught her, throughout her life, to discover God’s heartbeat in history. She learned how to be a mother, and in that learning process she gave Jesus the beautiful experience of knowing what it is to be a Son. In Mary, the eternal Word not only became flesh, but also learned to recognize the maternal tenderness of God. With Mary, the God-Child learned to listen to the yearnings, the troubles, the joys and the hopes of the people of the promise. With Mary, he discovered himself a Son of God’s faithful people.
We’ve become a very mobile culture, often moving several times in the course of a career. It can be daunting to leave one place for another, to make new friends and build new routines and traditions. But it offers tremendous opportunities to share our gifts in ever-widening circles. As the Christmas season draws to a close, we reflect not so much on the birth of Jesus as on the impact that birth had on all those who heard of it—the shepherds, the magi, the villagers, and us. We get so busy at this time of year with all the activity that sometimes we forget that this baby whose birth we celebrate was in fact the divine in our midst. The Feast of Epiphany makes clear that by taking on our human reality, God shows us how to move beyond our ordinary routines into lives that can make a difference in our world. The coming of the Magi to visit the holy family was a sign that Christ had come not only for the people of Bethlehem and Jerusalem but for all people in all times and places. It is a reminder that we’re called to be ever more inclusive, to be open to questions from all those who seek the love and the mercy and the peace of God.
No matter how much we try to extend the holiday with traveling and vacation time and a last party or two, there comes a time when we need to return to our daily activities and responsibilities. School starts up again, work beckons, and we have to bid farewell to Christmas once again. It can be refreshing to reclaim the space that was filled with the Christmas tree and other decorations. We forsake the Christmas cookies and boxes of candy for healthier food choices in the new year. If we’ve traveled to visit family, we return home, put away the suitcases, finish vacation laundry, and settle into our lives. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus traveled a great deal during the first years after the birth—back and forth to Jerusalem, a sojourn in Egypt, a return to their home in Nazareth. And in later years, Luke’s Gospel tells us, they traveled on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where Jesus was separated from his parents and found conversing with holy teachers in the temple. Perhaps we’re a bit relieved that Christmas is over for another year. But perhaps we discover that something has changed in us because of an encounter, a gift, a new insight into the meaning of the incarnation. We can keep a little bit of that with us through the coming year and let it bring light and peace to our everyday lives. Our journey with God doesn’t end with the Christmas season. Jesus is forever, not just for Christmas.
The Holy Family were refugees from a corrupt political situation and an unstable ruler. No matter how much Matthew focuses on the way this flight into another country fulfilled passages in the Hebrew Scriptures, the fact is they were fleeing for their lives. Pope Francis never misses an opportunity to remind us of this reality. In caring for today’s refugees from the many war-torn places around the globe, we are caring for the least of God’s people, and the end of Matthew’s Gospel reminds us that in doing so, we are caring for Christ himself. We may wish that our religious experience could take place in some sort of bubble, protected from the political divisions and ideological arguments that blare into our lives from the media. But Jesus was clearly born into a world of politics and ideology, of power struggles and armed conflicts. We can learn from him that our loyalty is ultimately to the kingdom of God and to the truth, not to any one political point of view. Pray to the Holy Family to watch in a special way over today’s refugees that they might find a place of safety and peace and perhaps one day return to their homes and families.
I love going out in the yard in the winter to look at the stars. The clear, cold air makes them seem brighter. Different stars are visible in the winter than at other times of the year. As the constellations wheel overhead, there’s a sense of vast possibility in the universe, but also a sense of permanence. The sun, the moon, the stars, and our own earth travel through time and space but there’s nothing random about those movements. Each has an orbit, an appointed path to travel. Our lives, too, have an appointed path. We move through the seasons of the year, and the seasons of a lifetime. Sometimes it seems as though the only constant is constant change. But the eternal feasts of the Christmas season remind us that the eternal keeps our feet grounded on the earth and our eyes fixed on God’s star, the plan God has for each of our lives.
Our holiday celebrations often keep us indoors. In northern climates, this might be partly because the cold and snowy weather makes going outside a difficult and even unpleasant experience. We hurry from house to car and then into another warm house. In warm climates, the heat finds us scurrying between air conditioned buildings. But creation—including the weather— is a gift to be celebrated, not something simply to be controlled and altered. We lose our sense of wonder in nature when we become too absorbed in the structures of everyday life. Most of us have jobs and other responsibilities that keep us indoors. The people of the Bible lived much closer to the land than we do today. Navigating by the stars was something they did as a matter of course. Jesus’s parables reflect a deep knowledge of flocks, fields, and fishing. We can understand these stories better if we grow in our awareness of creation. Pope Francis, like his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi, calls us to read God’s presence not only in our holy books but in the holiness of the world around us, plant and animal as well as human.
God reveals himself to man and gives us the capacity to know and love him beyond our own natural abilities. From the very beginning, even after the first sin of Adam and Eve, God made himself known to human beings and gave us a promise of redemption. Fr. Mike explains how God’s covenant with Noah offers hope for salvation and unity that are only made possible in Christ. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 50-58.
Saint Raymond of Peñafort’s Story (1175 – January 6, 1275)
Since Raymond lived into his hundredth year, he had a chance to do many things. As a member of the Spanish nobility, he had the resources and the education to get a good start in life.
By the time he was 20, he was teaching philosophy. In his early 30s he earned a doctorate in both canon and civil law. At 41 he became a Dominican. Pope Gregory IX called him to Rome to work for him and to be his confessor. One of the things the pope asked him to do was to gather together all the decrees of popes and councils that had been made in 80 years since a similar collection by Gratian. Raymond compiled five books called the Decretals. They were looked upon as one of the best organized collections of Church law until the 1917 codification of canon law.
Earlier, Raymond had written for confessors a book of cases. It was called Summa de Casibus Poenitentiae. More than simply a list of sins and penances, it discussed pertinent doctrines and laws of the Church that pertained to the problem or case brought to the confessor.
At the age of 60, Raymond was appointed archbishop of Tarragona, the capital of Aragon. He didn’t like the honor at all and ended up getting sick and resigning in two years.
He didn’t get to enjoy his peace long, however, because when he was 63 he was elected by his fellow Dominicans to be the head of the whole Order, the successor of Saint Dominic. Raymond worked hard, visited on foot all the Dominicans, reorganized their constitutions and managed to put through a provision that a master general be allowed to resign. When the new constitutions were accepted, Raymond, then 65, resigned.
He still had 35 years to oppose heresy and work for the conversion of the Moors in Spain. He convinced Saint Thomas Aquinas to write his work Against the Gentiles.
In his 100th year, the Lord let Raymond retire.
Reflection
Raymond was a lawyer, a canonist. Legalism can suck the life out of genuine religion if it becomes too great a preoccupation with the letter of the law to the neglect of the spirit and purpose of the law. The law can become an end in itself, so that the value the law was intended to promote is overlooked. But we must guard against going to the opposite extreme and seeing law as useless or something to be lightly regarded. Laws ideally state those things that are for the best interests of everyone and make sure the rights of all are safeguarded. From Raymond, we can learn a respect for law as a means of serving the common good.
Saint Raymond of Peñafort is a Patron Saint of: Lawyers
Today’s reading is a summation of what we have learned so far. Man is made for God, and we are born with a capacity for knowing God. Using our senses, listening to our consciences, and employing our gift of reason, we can know with certainty that God exists. Fr. Mike explains how we live freely only in communion with our Creator, even if we are limited in our capacity of comprehension. Knowing this compels us to share our faith in God with those who do not yet believe. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 44-49.
