What Love Might Have Done: Sunday in the Octave of Christmas

   What Love Might Have Done:

Sunday in the Octave of Christmas

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December 29, 2019

Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14; Psalm 128; Colossian 3:12-21; Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

If we focus only on the tone and not on the individual words in these readings, we are asked to focus upon the loving care that God provides for us. Sirach instructs parents to protect and to care for their children and to be filled with gladness for their service. He also asks children to remember the kindness of their parents when they grow old and needs extra care, and not to put other worldly concerns in the way. The Lord remembers the care we give to one another.

Colossians echoes this same sentiment when Christians are asked to treat others with the extraordinary type of kindness we would like to receive, with virtues that prove we live in harmony with each other, and that our care is genuine and heartfelt, rather than of duty. “Love,” says St. Paul, “is the bond of perfection.” Peace and thankfulness are the gifts we generate when we are grateful. St. Paul, speaking to a community that is wholly distinct from our modern, Westernized community, challenges men to truly love their wives and treat them with a type of respect that was unknown and unfamiliar to them. It was the self-sacrificing love that Christ had for the church.

In the Gospel, Joseph is warned in a dream to go to Egypt to flee from the malicious designs of the insecure King Herod. Because he felt threatened and could not identify the source of his fear, he lashed out to kill any potential child who could pose him harm. Joseph, knowing that his child needed a safe home, left his home, his business, and his support system for the sake of his son.

I want to pause here and read an excerpt from a poem by Mary Oliver called, “A Visitor.” She describes a girl at home waiting for her father as he came home from work. He knocked wildly at the door and she avoided answering the door because she knew she would encounter his waxy face, his lower lip swollen with bitterness. This was his customary way of coming home, and it was fearful to anyone who met him. But one night, the girl had the courage to get out of bed and stumble down the hall to answer the door. Here’s the excerpt:

         “The door fell open and I knew I was saved and could bear him, pathetic and hollow, with even the least of his dreams frozen inside him, and the meanness gone. And I greeted him and asked him into the house, and lit the lamp, and looked into his blank eyes in which at last I saw what a child must love, I saw what love might have done had we loved in time.”

         The power of love. What it might have done. What it still can do. How many Herods do we know in life who need an intervention of love? How many people act out of fear and irrationality, who are not emotionally intelligent, who are disturbed by the perceived thoughts and comments of others, or who are destructive to anyone they perceive as a threat? Imagine the lives of innocent children that could have been saved if someone loved Herod and reassured him of his place in the world. Imagine how the stranger moves from a place of marginalization to inclusion, the foreigner becomes a human person, maybe even a friend, how the once-demonized group becomes understood and honored. Imagine how love tames fear and replaces it with goodness. Imagine how love reconciles warring siblings who are convinced of their righteousness. Imagine how deep love can penetrate if we do not fear it. This is what changes the world. This is the type of love that is celebrated today. This is what our lives are all about.

         What part of you needs to be loved? What part of those in your circle need your love? We are at the cusp of a new year. Let’s do more than imagine. Let’s see what love can do. There is still time.

Scripture for Daily Mass

First Reading: 

Monday: (1 John) We are friends with God if we keep his commandments. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light and there is nothing in him to cause a fall.   

   

Tuesday (Sirach 3) God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons. Take care of your father when he is old.   

Wednesday (1 John 2) It is the last hour and the anti-Christ is coming. You have the anointing of the Holy One, and you have all knowledge.

Thursday: (1 John 2) The liar is the one who denies Jesus is the Christ. Anyone who denies the Son also denies the Father. Let what you heard from the beginning remain with you.

Friday: (1 John 2) See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. The world doesn’t know us because they don’t know him.

Saturday: (1 John 3) The person who acts in righteousness is righteous. Whoever sins belongs to the Devil. Stay in the Light as the children of God.  

Gospel: 

Monday (Luke 2) When the days were completed for the purification, Mary and Joseph brought the child to the Temple, where they met Simeon, a righteous and devoted man.

   

Tuesday (Matthew 2) When Herod died, an angel told Joseph to return to Israel. “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

Wednesday (John 1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came to be through him. A light shines in the darkness.  

Thursday: (John 1) This is the testimony of John: I am the voice of one crying out in the desert: Make straight the way of the Lord.    

Friday: (John 1) John the Baptist saw Jesus and said, “Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” The Spirit will come upon him and remain with him.

Saturday (John 1) The disciples of John were asked by Jesus, “What are you looking for?” They asked, “Where are you staying?” Come and see.

Saints of the Week

December 29: Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr (1118-1170), was the lord chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury in England during the time of King Henry II. When he disagreed with the King over the autonomy of the church and state, he was exiled to France. When he returned, he clashed again with the king who had him murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. 

December 30: The Family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, was a feast instituted in 1921. It was originally the 3rd Sunday after Christmas. The Holy Family is often seen in Renaissance paintings - and many of those are of the flight into Egypt.

December 31: Sylvester I, pope (d. 335), served the church shortly after Constantine issued his Edict of Milan in 313 that publicly recognized Christianity as the official religion of the empire and provided it freedom of worship. Large public churches were built by the emperor and other benefactors. Sylvester was alive during the Council of Nicaea but did not attend because of old age.

January 2: Basil the Great and Gregory Nanzianzen, bishops and doctors (fourth century), are two of the four great doctors of the Eastern Church. They are known for their preaching especially against the Arian heretics. Basil began as a hermit before he was named archbishop of Caesarea. He influenced Gregory who eventually became archbishop of Constantinople. Their teachings influenced both the Roman and Eastern Churches.

January 3: The Name of Jesus was given to the infant as the angel foretold. In the Mediterranean world, the naming of person stood for the whole person. Humans were given the power to name during the Genesis creation accounts. If one honors the name of the person, they honor the person. The name Jesus means “Yahweh saves.”

January 4: Elizabeth Ann Seton, religious (1774-1821), was born into an Episcopalian household where she married and had five children. When her husband died, she became a Catholic and founded a girls’ school in Baltimore. She then founded the Sisters of Charity and began the foundation for the parochial school system in the U.S. She is the first native-born American to be canonized.

This Week in Jesuit History

·      Dec 29, 1886. Publication of the beatification decree of the English martyrs.

·      Dec 30, 1564. Letter from Pope Pius IV to Daniel, Archbishop of Mayence, deploring the malicious and scurrilous pamphlets published against the Society throughout Germany and desiring him to use his influence against the evil.

·      Dec 31, 1640. John Francis Regis died. He was a missionary to the towns and villages of the remote mountains of southern France.

·      Jan. 1, 1598: Fr. Alphonsus Barréna, surnamed the Apostle of Peru, died. He was the first to carry the faith to the Guaranis and Chiquitos in Paraguay.

·      Jan. 2, 1619: At Rome, John Berchmans and Bartholomew Penneman, his companion scholastic from Belgium, entered the Roman College.

·      Jan. 3, 1816: Fr. General Brzozowski and 25 members of the Society, guarded by soldiers, left St. Petersburg, Russia, having been banished by the civil government.

·       Jan. 4, 1619: The English mission is raised to the status of a province.