Twilight Twitches

Dear Family,
That might seem to be an odd heading for a Twitch but I’m hoping it got your attention. It all comes down to the second scripture we heard this weekend: I Corinthians 12 “You are Christ’s body, and individually parts of it.”

Today’s reading is a lead-in to next Sunday when Paul continues describing that most important aspect of the body, namely the love that binds it together.

This week, I find myself thinking about just what does being a part of the body that we call Church really mean. Over the years I have remarked that I loved my previous parish very much. I was there for more than 30 years, but it was (and still is) very large. I would need to go through the cycle of the eight Masses we had on a weekend just to see folk once a month.

Dear Family,
Last Sunday in the homily, I referred to Pope St. John Paul II’s gift of the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, the first of which was last Sunday’s feast, the Baptism of Jesus. Today, we hear John’s gospel recounting the second Luminous Mystery, the wedding Feast at Cana. We hear from John because although it is Luke’s year, Luke doesn’t tell the story of the wedding feast at Cana.

As I said last Sunday, leave it to St. John Paul to fill in the blanks between the Joyful and the Sorrowful mysteries. In the public adult life of Jesus, we see the examples of how we are called to live God’s love, with grace and charity - the way Jesus did.

Dear Family,
Welcome to the last feast in the Christmas cycle, the Baptism of the Lord. I think of this feast often. In Matthew’s version of the story, when Jesus presents himself for baptism to John the Baptist, John objects. “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me?”

Jesus said to him in reply, “Allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John allowed him.

Forgive me for quoting a long footnote from the New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE) on Mt 3:14-15 but you’ll see why...

Dear Family,
When the Three Kings came, they were representatives of the gentile world. The light of the Christ child shone upon them, too. Not only did they see his star in the east, but they also had very good connections with angels, and they receive a warning in a dream not to return to Herod the Great. Herod had murdered two of his own sons, some of his wives, and his faither-in-law as well to stay in power. When the Magi left town not telling Herod about the Messiah, he murdered all the boys younger than two years of age, because they too, threatened his reign. Joseph hid Mary and Jesus in Egypt to avoid Herod’s evil.