Peace through Right Relations: The Family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, 2023

                                           Peace through Right Relations:

The Family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, 2023 

December 31, 2023

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Genesis 15:1-6; 21:1-3; Psalm 105; Hebrews 11:8-19; Luke 2:22-40

 

 

The difficulties Joseph and Mary faced in raising Jesus becomes evident in today’s readings. On Christmas Day, we hear the beautiful story of the Incarnation, which is God choosing to be with us. The very following day, Scripture tells us about Steven, the first martyr in the faith, to highlight that discipleship is risky and demands that we make a choice. The serenity of Christmas does not last long. Three days after Christmas Day, we read that Herod slaughters the innocent boys of Bethlehem because he saw them as a threat to his throne. The innocence of Christmas does not last long.

 

In today’s Gospel, we hear that Joseph and Mary brings Jesus to the Temple to present him to God’s care. It is akin to what we do at baptism of our young children. We seek God’s protection and guidance. We want to know that God is near. The parents of Jesus fulfill their devotional duty and keep Jesus in right relations with God. The first reading from Sirach encourages proper and right relations among family and neighbors, realizing that God is about maintaining proper relationships. The readings from Colossians that St. Paul spoke outlines how a disciple of God must act – with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Discipleship is about maintaining and bringing about right relations within our families and with neighbors.

 

How then are we to respond to the images we have seen on the news about Christians of Bethlehem not being able to celebrate the Incarnation this year? Christians placed figurines of the Holy Family in the rubble that has become of the land. With no joy nor any hope, how does one celebrate Christmas? A name we give to Jesus is the Prince of Peace, but it seems like our world at times is far from it. It seems like each Christmastime that comes around we each need to have our own Christmas Carol moment, our own Scrooge or Grinch moment, where our heart expands in love, which entails compassion and mercy for those who are suffering. Prayer is ineffective if we simply offer up our thoughts and good wishes; prayer is effective if we act upon it now.

 

That is not to say that we are going to solve the world’s wars and conflicts with our prayerful actions. We are not. We can however bring peace and goodwill to those places in our world where love once existed and no longer does. Christmas is a reconciling moment between God and humanity; we must further that work by reconciling with those in our immediate corners of life. We each have relationships that are broken and need mending. Our prayer is to give us the fortitude, the courage, the insight to try again, to become vulnerable in our hopes of bridging the gap that exists between loved ones. We must achieve peace in our hearts, peace in our relationships, if we want to bring about a bigger peace on the world stage. Our attempts to do so might make us experience what Mary did when she felt that sword pierce her heart, a heart broken by a magnanimous love, knowing that her son was destined for the rise and fall of many, but Mary persisted, and so must we if we are to place faith in God. Mary and Joseph teach us about forming right relations as an act of trust in God. 

 

It is only love that stops the progress of hate and violence in its tracks. It is love that reconciles and atones and binds us together in tighter bonds. It is love that increases compassion and mercy and changes hardened hearts. Our lives are entangled with God’s, and God’s life is intertwined with ours. Our prayer must be followed by our action: we are called to put God’s love into action. Today. Now. Christmas is the celebration that hope will prevail.

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (1 John 3) We belong to God, and anyone who knows God listens to us, while anyone who does not belong to God refuses to hear us. This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit.

 

 

Tuesday: (1 John 4) Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. In this way the love of God was revealed to us.

 

Wednesday: (1 John 4) Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God.
Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us.

 

Thursday: (1 John 4) If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 

 

Friday (1 John 5) Who is the victor of this world? The one who believes in Jesus, who came through water and Blood, and the Spirit testifies to him.   

 

Saturday (1 John 5) We have confidence that if we ask anything according to his will, God hears us.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 4) He went around all of Galilee,
teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom,
and curing every disease and illness among the people.

 

Tuesday: (Mark 6) When Jesus saw the vast crowd, his heart was moved with pity for them, for they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. By now it was already late and his disciples approached him and said, “This is a deserted place and it is already very late.

 

Wednesday (Mark 6) After the five thousand had eaten and were satisfied, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And when he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray. 

 

Thursday (Luke 4) Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.

 

Friday (Luke 5) It happened that there was a man full of leprosy in one of the towns where Jesus was; and when he saw Jesus, he fell prostrate, pleaded with him, and said, “Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” 

 

Saturday (John 3) Jesus and his disciples went into the region of Judea, where he spent some time with them baptizing. John was also baptizing in Aenon near Salim, because there was an abundance of water there, and people came to be baptized, for John had not yet been imprisoned.

 

 

Saints of the Week

 

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.

 

January 5: John Neumann, bishop (1811-1860), emigrated from Bohemia to New York and joined the Redemptorists in Pittsburgh before being named bishop of Philadelphia. He built many churches in the diocese and placed great emphasis on education as the foundation of faith.

 

January 6: Andre Bessette, religious (1845-1937), was born in Quebec, Canada. He joined the Congregation of the Holy Cross and taught for 40 years at the College of Notre Dame. He cared for the sick and was known as a intercessor for miracles. He built St. Joseph’s Oratory, a popular pilgrimage site in Canada.

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• December 31, 1640. John Francis Regis died. He was a missionary to the towns and villages of the remote mountains of southern France. 
• January 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. 
• January 2, 1619: At Rome, John Berchmans and Bartholomew Penneman, his companion scholastic from Belgium, entered the Roman College. 
• January 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. 
• January 4, 1619: The English mission is raised to the status of a province. 
• January 5, 1548: Francis Suarez, one of the greatest theologians of the church, was born at Granada. 
• January 6, 1829: Publication of Pope Leo XII's rescript, declaring the Society to be canonically restored in England.