This Sunday we hear Matthew’s account of Jesus’ famous “Sermon on the Mount.” We’ve heard it over and over since we were children and are hardly shocked by Jesus’ description of the reign of God. Undoubtedly some of those who gathered on that slope to listen to Jesus were shocked by the picture he painted of the Reign of God. It made no sense and ran contrary to the sociopolitical reality of their lives.

What was he thinking?…The meek will inherit the land? We all know that it is the powerful who control the land; it is the powerful who decide who enters the land and who gets to stay in the land…and the “peace-makers,” well, they usually get run over by the armies and the people with the biggest weapons! And what was he saying about the “poor in spirit”?…Theirs is the Kingdom of God? Wait a minute, I thought the Kingdom belonged to the righteous and those who followed The Law down to the letter.

Well, the truth is that Jesus had a different take on the whole matter. The beatitudes name the ways in which peoples’ lives and wellbeings are threatened: by grinding poverty, grief, landlessness, hunger, war, and the open and active persecution of the people by the Roman occupation.

Jesus does not advise that those so afflicted simply wait for a reversal of fortune in the here-after, although the final verse does speak of great reward in heaven.
​
Jesus calls for attitudes and actions that will more fully bring about the reign of God. The poor in spirit are the humble whose wealth is found in God and not in gold…any wealth they do have is to be shared with the materially poor. The meek are not to be “shrinking violets” who accept injustices, but rather, those who know their proper place as children of God, and who stand up and resist repression, to insure that all people are treated with dignity and as full heirs to God’s Reign.

The beatitudes are really “Be - Attitudes”…they call us to holiness through reaching out to all who suffer in this world, and promise us that to the extent that we reach out to, and work on the behalf of the suffering, to the extent we work to right injustices against immigrants and migrants, when we work to end all forms of systemic racism, misogyny and all policies that marginalize, silence and demean the human dignity of our sisters and brothers, then we will become more fully the “blessed of God” and through that resistance we are actively building up the Reign of God!

As we take time this week to reflect on this Gospel in light of all of the violence and intimidation against immigrants across our nation by Federal Authorities, let us ask ourselves: in what concrete ways will I live out the “Be – Attitudes” this week and show my resistance to the anti-immigrant violence? Will I join local prayer protests, and stand in solidarity with my immigrant sisters and brothers? Will I write and call multiple members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, to share my thoughts on the brutality of ICE actions in cities around the country like in Minneapolis? Can I call the White House and register my opinion on the brutal and inhumane tactics and policies towards immigrants and immigration that this Administration is undertaking? Remembering that every prayer, every phone call, every letter, every act of resistance matters because we are a people of light living in a time of growing darkness. And, we need to let our light shine, as individuals, as communities and as a nation by our words and by our actions.

May the Holy Spirit that dwells within each one of us, guide us and guard us as we seek to resist hatred and evil and seek to
be builders of peace and makers of justice as we pursue to build up the Reign of God in the here and now.

May the peace and light of the Risen Christ be upon you all!
Fr. Tim

The theme this weekend is God’s call and our response, but there is a focus on the urgency of responding to that call…an urgency in building up the Reign of God…NOW! The Gospel tells of the disciple’s response to Jesus’ call -- they respond without hesitation, dropping what they were doing and following him immediately.

As disciples, we too are called and expected to drop everything and follow Jesus…not only proclaiming the Gospel with our words, but through our actions.

Discipleship is about following “the way”…God’s way. And God’s way is “the way of love”… of being for the other as Jesus is for us…and this truly is the Good News. It seems more than we can do, and it would be if not for the Holy Spirit being right there with us every step of the way, guiding us and gently pushing us forward! That Divine indwelling is what guides us in living out our discipleship of Jesus Christ in our daily lives, through our words and actions.

There is urgency in discipleship; we are not to tarry and be about many other things, but rather to live in such a way that our very lives proclaim God’s amazing love for all peoples in all places. It is a monumental task, but we can, each one of us, each in our own way live it out…not perfectly, but with the willingness to listen to the call of the Gospel, the call of Christ, and respond to the best of our ability at that time and in that place, and if we fall, get back up and answer the call again.

The Good News is preached by our loving of each other, especially by our loving of the poor, the marginalized, the immigrants, the “Dreamers” and the refugees. By loving the one who is “other” than “me” and loving those most in  need of being loved…not just with our words but with our actions.

It means that we must speak out and act out against the unethical and anti-Gospel methods being taken by our government against immigrants, migrants and even foreign students here legally on visas. It violates our rule of law! This cruel treatment of immigrants and migrants violates their human dignity and is fundamentally anti-Christian.

We are called, as Pope Francis said, “to draw close to them”! We are called to work for racial justice. We are called to work for an end to white supremacy and “Christian” nationalism…which is truly anything but Christian. It is completely antithetical to the life, words and actions of Jesus Christ! We must recognize it and call it out for what it is!

We are called to be ambassadors of the Reign of God and must stand up against all of those previously mentioned destructive, unjust and anti-Gospel political realities, which cannot exist in and are hostile to the Reign of God.

We are called to not just preach about the Reign of God, but making it present by how we live our lives…lives of peace-making and justice-building, guided by and built up-on the principles, values, words and actions of Jesus Christ as proclaimed in his Gospels!

May we not let the political chaos and darkness overwhelm us, for Christ is our peace and our light, which no chaos or darkness can overcome!

May the peace and light of the Risen Christ be upon you all!
​
Fr. Tim

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. One of the most frequently asked questions is why did Jesus have to be baptized since he was God? I think that that question comes from a place of a primary understanding of baptism as the sacrament that removes original sin; clearly a central tenant of the theology of the Sacrament of Baptism. But prior to Vatican 2, it was the core understanding of baptism.

But in Vatican II, theologically speaking, a much deeper dive was done into the history and the historical theological breadth of the sacrament of baptism. In addition to the concept of the removal of the ancient stain of original sin, one of the jewels that became a centerpiece of the post Vatican II theology of baptism was a refocusing on baptism as the sacrament of initiation into the community of believers and discipleship of Jesus Christ. So not only is one washed clean from original sin and made a new creation, but one is brought into the Body of Christ and made a disciple of Jesus!

So, back to the question of why did Jesus receive baptism from John? Many scripture scholars agree that it served as a moment to mark his entry into his public ministry. In a way it was a moment of John the Baptist presenting Jesus to the crowds as the long awaited Mesiah, and John testifies that Jesus is the Son of God.

And in allowing himself to be baptized, like all of those who had rushed out to the Jordan to be baptized, Jesus aligns himself with humanity in all of its brokenness, even though he is Divine.

Many scholars will point out that since John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for one’s sins, and since Jesus was sinless, what did this baptism of repentance then mean? It meant that Jesus was showing his willingness to take on our sins…perhaps a foreshadowing of the cross, where he would open wide his arms and surrender himself for the salvation of the world. 

So as we consider the powerful message and meaning behind the baptism of the Lord, what does our baptism mean for us and how we live out our daily lives? The truth is that my baptism has made me a new creation, joined me to the Body of Christ and made me a disciple of Jesus Christ! So that means that having been baptized I have been named and called to live a very specific way of life, which Jesus has carefully laid out for us in his words and action handed down to us in the Gospels.

He commanded us to love one another as he has loved us. He commanded us to welcome the stranger, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and give water to the thirsty. He commanded us as his disciples to visit the sick and the imprisoned. He called us to be good Samaritans, to care for the injured and the needy. These weren’t suggestion…Jesus tells us that when we do these things to the least of our sisters and brothers, we do them to him! And when we fail to do them to the least of our sisters and brothers, we fail to do them to him.

It seems like many baptized Christians in our nation and certainly many of our elected political leaders have missed this part of our baptismal call to discipleship and to living out our membership in the Body of Christ! When we make budget cuts that take food away from the hungry, we take food away from Christ himself -- his very words!

When we make healthcare unavailable and unaffordable for the most vulnerable, we do the same to Christ! When we fail to house the unhoused, we fail to house Christ. When we reject the stranger, we reject Christ himself!

Jesus’ words and actions had consequences; our words and actions have consequences.

Jesus’ call for actions of loving and caring for the other, they are the actions which will decide the division of the sheep from the goats, in the final judgement. This is how critical Jesus saw it was to live our discipleship following in his footsteps: loving as he loved, embracing the stranger and the outcast as he did, eating and sharing time with those society marginalizes, embracing them as sister and brother, being open to encountering the divine that dwells within them, and thus, having our own encounter with God.

Let us pray that filled with the Holy Spirit we may continue to boldly live out our discipleship each day, and to continue to stand up for and with those most in need, in our families, in our community, in our nation and in the world.

Blessings in the New Year,
Fr. Tim 

The word epiphany comes from the Greek, meaning: to “appear” or to be “revealed”. In some cultures the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord is referred to as “Little Christmas” or “the Feast of the Three Kings,” and is the day of exchanging gifts with friends and loved ones.

Regardless of what we call it, it is a day on which we tell the story of the arrival of the magi, or the three kings, who have come from afar to see the newborn king and to offer gifts.

Epiphany is a time of celebrating the acknowledgement of “a new beginning,” a time to celebrate the Reign of God bursting forth in the midst of creation -- bursting forth even in the midst of the chaos and suffering of our times!

For sure we dwell for a while on the visit of the magi and the wonder of their journey, led by only a star that shown brightly in the deepest of the night sky. It is a time of wonder and awe…a time to allow ourselves to enter into the story and reflect on our own journey…our spiritual journey. For the magi the signs were in the heavens: a star that led them to Bethlehem, to a humble little stable where our God took on human flesh and came among us as one of us.

Perhaps the magi’s real wisdom was that they knew that they didn’t know everything. They valued learning, they looked for signs, and they paid attention to their dreams…they expected that God would talk to them!

They believed that they encountered God in their daily lives. Ultimately the story of the magi is a story of encounter, an encounter of the greatest kind…an encounter with God!

And so the Feast of the Epiphany is a time to ask ourselves, am I open to “following a star,” am I open to paying attention to the signs of God’s presence in my daily life?

Even in the midst of all the political and social chaos, how do I make time to listen for God’s words spoken to me in my life? Where and when do I most often encounter God in the ordinary routine of my daily life?

The magi came bearing gifts…what gift of self or of my life might I offer to God, and to my sisters and brothers, especially those most in need?

I pray you all a most happy, healthy and blessed New Year. One filled with sacred encounters!

Christmas blessings,
Fr. Tim