Homily
for January 7, 2007
Liturgical Year C - Cycle I
The Epiphany of the Lord
By Fr. John Carney Topic:
Happy Birthday Mother Church
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Reading I
Is 60:1-6
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. Raise your eyes and look about; they all gather and come to
you: your sons come from afar, and your daughters in the arms of their
nurses.
Then you shall be radiant at what you see, your heart shall throb and
overflow, for the riches of the sea shall be emptied out before you,
the wealth of nations shall be brought to you. Caravans of camels shall
fill you, dromedaries from Midian and Ephah; all from Sheba shall come
bearing gold and frankincense, and proclaiming the praises of the LORD.
Reading II
Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6
Brothers and sisters:
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.
Gospel
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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We all know what happened on Christmas--the word of God, Jesus Christ,
the Incarnate God was shown to the Jews, the people of God. He was the
Messiah, the fulfillment of the Prophets. The Jews were represented by
the shepherds, the poorest of people, as God often does; He selects the
poor and the weak to represent Him. Some brief time after, on the
Epiphany that we celebrate today, the rest of the world is represented
in the person of the three Magi. Of course, the word “Epiphany,” means
‘to manifest or to be shown’. During Epiphany, Jesus, the word of God,
God incarnate, is shown to the rest of the world. It is often said that
the Epiphany is the birthday of the church Catholic, the Catholic
Church. The word catholic means, “Universal, everywhere.” In fact, we
celebrated the feast of the Epiphany in a liturgical way long before
the feast of Christmas was throughout the church. Indeed, the Epiphany
is very important today in the Eastern churches. It is the time the
gifts are exchanged, and we know that means a lot.
The church is truly universal in at least in two ways. First, she has
the fullness of the faith; she contains the fullness of the deposit of
faith. Secondly, of course, the more common understanding, the church
is universal because she consists of persons of every nation, of every
race, of every tribe. It says in Acts 2, “for every nation under
heaven.” Indeed, the Catholic Church is everywhere.
Every once in a while, not infrequently, someone in confession, and
this never happened before I came to this parish, someone will say, “I
missed mass because I was on travel.” I always say, “Did you go to the
moon? Were you on the space shuttle?” Really, there are few places in
the world that you could travel where you couldn’t attend mass.
Sometimes, of course, it is impossible to attend mass, you leave on
Saturday and you get there on Sunday evening. The idea that if we leave
our home, we leave our church is inaccurate. As Yogi Berra would say,
“No matter where you go, well, there you are.”
This catholicity of the church is one of the four marks of the church.
A mark of the church, or the marks of the church, is its
characteristics that indicate its genuineness. The church is one holy
catholic and apostolic church. The church is one. At least God intended
the church to be one. We know that the Lord said “. . . my prayer that
they be one as you and I are one.” It certainly was not the intention
of Christ to found thousands of Christian churches; He wanted to begin
one church. Church is one and it is holy--not that its members are all
holy. It contains within the church, the means to make and to keep
people holy. The church is the Body of Christ and through its
sacraments, it helps us to be holy. The church is apostolic. It comes
from the apostles. Each bishop in the world today is a successor of one
of the twelve. We can trace their lineage back to the twelve.
Most of us come to the church as babies. Many people come to the church
as adults. I can think of two ladies that I’ d like to talk about a
little bit. One joined as a child. I was visiting her and I thought she
looked Irish. She was very holy looking. I said, “What was your maiden
name?” She said, I think it was Goldberg or Silverstein, or a very
Jewish name. She said she was born and raised in Brooklyn. Although her
parents were ethnically of Jewish origin, they were wonderful people,
but they professed no religion. They were perhaps agnostic. As a little
girl, she had a desire to have a religion, to know God. She would visit
churches and she wanted to become Catholic. I said, “What your family’s
reaction to that.” She said, “They were very supportive. My mother
said, ‘So you want to be a Christian?’ I said, ‘Yes Mother.’ ‘What
flavor?’ “
I want to be Catholic.”
“Well, you picked a tough one.”
Another woman, also from Brooklyn, both of these encounters were in New
Mexico. It is not that New Yorkers have more experiences; it is that
they talk more. I asked this lady; she was baptized as an adult and she
died not long after she came into the church. I asked her why she
wanted to become Catholic. She said that from her childhood she wanted
to be Catholic. Her friends were mostly Catholic, and she used to visit
churches. I said, “Well, why did you want to become a Catholic, why the
Catholic Church?” She said, “Because it smelt right.” I know what she
meant. It smelt right. What she was saying in a very simple but correct
way was that the church is a sacramental church. It ‘s a church for out
bodies as well as for our souls. The sacraments that are given to us
for our sanctification all involve stuff, because we are made of stuff.
I think that there are many people who search for God outside of the
body, as if it is a mystical experience. Of course, there is an aspect
of that, which is true. Most of what we do in the earthly life comes
through our bodies, so we have the sacraments. The sacraments use
stuff, the sacraments are means instituted by Jesus Christ to give us
grace. That comes through our bodies. It uses stuff like taste; you
will eat the bread and drink the cup. Lying on of hands is a physical
touch, very powerful physical touch. Oil. Water. Words of forgiveness.
Words are stuff. Words are real things. They exist. Words of commitment
in marriage. Words of forgiveness in confession. Words of commitment in
marriage and then after the vows, the physical confirmation of the
marriage. That is after the vows, not before the vows. That is part of
the sacrament by the way. The union between man and woman. It is
beautiful. It is part of the sacrament, it is holy, and it is sacred.
It is in the church that we encounter with our bodies. That is how we
are made. That is how God makes us. Even in the church, among some
Catholics, is the Greek philosophy that the body is bad and the soul is
good. That is ancient Greek heresy. We know that in the next life that
our bodies will be joined to our souls in the Resurrection on the last
day. Again, this book I’m reading, The Travel Guide to Heaven (by
Anthony De Stefano) talks about that. It is very fascinating. That is
what she meant when she said, “It smelt right.” I am sure it was the
incense or the candles. The new churches don’t smell like the old
churches, unfortunately. If you grew up in the city, you remember the
smell of the old churches, the candles and the smells. A friend of
mine, before he became a monk, was visiting a church, there were two
tourists, there had just been a funeral, and the incense was still in
the air. The one guy says to the other, “What’s that smell?” He
replied, “That’s the Catholic smell.”
Getting back to the other woman, the mother said, ‘Well, you picked a
tough one.” Yes and no. Other churches are less demanding and ask less
of their members. That is true. The Church, the body of Christ, is very
demanding. We have a code of conduct we live by. The Code of Cannon
Law, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, that’s what’s expected
of us. There is a distinct Catholic way that we share with people all
over the world. The church does not try to fit in itself with every
different time, culture and society. If it did, it would disappear. It
would be the American church and the Irish church and the German church
and the whatever. It doesn’t try to accommodate itself to fit each
culture; rather it challenges the culture to live according to its
ways. This
is a church that dares to say, “This is
where opinion ends and the truth begins.”It doesn’t even sound right to Americans, especially in this age
of
relativism, where everything is true. Whatever
you think is true is true when it
comes to religion. This, of course, is absolute nonsense.There is truth and we can disagree on what it
is, but each opinion is not of the same value.
The Church is uncompromising in many areas, a lot like Jesus. We value
compromise as some kind of sacred wonderful thing, and it can be, but
it is not an end in and of itself. If Jesus had been a man of great
compromise, he would have died of old age. At certain times on certain
matters, the leader of the Church claims to speak for God. That is
pretty tough. The Church call herself our Mother, and we all know, “If
momma’s not happy”…well. We, as the members of the Church, are not
clients, or constituents or customers. We are her children. Did we pick
a tough church? Yes, in a way we have, because God asks a lot of us. As
Catholic Christians, we are not spectators or participants in the cross
of Christ. God asks much of us, but he gives far more. He gives us our
true human freedom.
I want to read to you an expert from a book by George Weigel. Weigel
has many excellent books published. He was John Paul II’s biographer.
In a book entitled, Letters to a Young Catholic, Weigel talks about the
Swiss theologian John Balthazar. He says this.
The church
is a church of discipleship. It is formed in the image of a woman,
Mary, who was the first of disciples and thus the mother of the Church.
How? Because it is in Mary’s fiat, her yes, “Be it done to me according
to your word” that we discovered the pattern and form of all Christian
discipleship. Because all Christians and grafted onto Christ in
baptism, Mary is the mother of the Church. The mystical body of Christ
extended in history. Through Mary’s fiat, we glimpse one of the primary
lessons of discipleship. A lesson it takes a lifetime to learn, and
this is it: We are not in charge of our lives. God is in charge of our
lives. To know that is to be liberated in the truest sense of human
freedom. To know that is to be set free from the restlessness that
besets every human heart in every age.
In scripture, Mary’s last words were “Do whatever he tells you”. We
hear about her after that, but we do not hear her say anything. Of
course, this is at the wedding feast of Cana when she says to her son,
“They’ve run out of wine.” “What is that to me?” I don’t know how that
exchange occurred, if it had an edge to it, it was a mother and a son
after all. I can see her saying, “They’ve run out of wine.” “Well, what
is that to me?” I can see her give a look and then say, “Do whatever he
tells you.” In a way, she got the last word there. “Do whatever he
tells you.” This is Mary’s message to us, as well as to the servants at
the wedding feast in Cana. Do whatever he tells you is Mary’s gentle
invitation to make her fiat your own. Live in trust, not in
calculation. Stake everything on Christ. In His embrace, to which Mary
points us, you will find a path to happiness, wholeness, and holiness.
You will find it by keeping your options open. Therefore, on this
Epiphany, we say,
"Happy
birthday Mother church. How blessed we are to be your children."