Jan 8 Homily Prep Epiphany

-Last Sunday's homily is available by email
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org
-check out this week's LinC Letter at www.parishlincletter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass at 4:00 on Sat and 9:30am on Sunday

Home or Comb

 I am thinking about the revelation of Jesus Christ as Savior of the whole world as seen in the adoration of the magi and the home blessing that we are providing  at all of the masses this weekend. All of this under the umbrella theme of living a shared life in communion.

 On the feast of  the nativity and of Mary the mother of God I was encouraging us to examine the insular or insulated lives that we live even in very close quarters, habitual relationships, marriage,  Family, church. While we can on the outside and even in our minds believe we are sharing a life, too much of life proves that we are simply sharing space.

I have used the image of a beehive or honeycomb to present this "very close quarters but separate insulated lives". We can accept simple geographic proximity as a Shared life. Such proximity is a sad imposter to sharing life and love-communion.

As I described on the feast of Mary the mother of God we can insulate ourselves  in life by putting up the walls of resentment, anger, defensiveness, fear, self loathing etc. It is also possible, however, that we pigeonhole the people in our lives so that we enslave them or inprison them in our judgment of them.   So we build a wall around them because we think we know them and of course we cannot trust them to change.

 The feast of the epiphany is a startling revelation of the fact that all of humanity is called to worship our God. That we are a human family made in the image and likeness of God and that our God has come to save all of us. The home blessing that we will distribute at the end of masses today  can be seen as an invitation to open the door of our heart to at least one person. As we say the prayer of blessing and mark the lintel of the door of our home let's say the blessing over our hearts, our families, our marriages. Let's break down the wall of emnity  that divides us ,separates us even when we are living in such close proximity -  one to the other.

In Christ Jesus we are one person. This delusion of private life, that it is my life, and that no one can  be involved or certainly impact my life is the spirit of the world which Jesus Christ came to conquer.

 Let us come to life in our home by sharing life with those closest to us. It is God's intention from the beginning and it is Jesus' mission as savior of the world