January 26, 2025: 3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Word Became Flesh when Christ was born.

So God fulfilled His Word in our presence, as He continues to do, and thus, we celebrate Word of God Sunday today.

Christ was anointed to fulfill the mission to bring Good News, with life and healing, to the world.

We are called to rejoice because the joy of the Lord is our strength because His life-giving Word is present to us.

Furthermore, we share in the mission of Christ to bring the Good News to all the world as the Word takes shape in us.

I remember powerfully receiving this call 6 years ago when I heard these passages proclaimed at the World Youth Day 2019 Closing Mass in Panama with 700000 people, celebrated by Pope Francis. It was a time when I heard God's Word anew and realized how it is being fulfilled in me as I join with the Church in fulfilling His mission.

January 25, 2025: Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

A great Light shone in our world when Christ was born

That great Light shone brightly upon Saul, calling Him to radical repentance.

He truly encountered Christ's Living Presence.  In baptism, He received God's grace.

Convinced of this reality, He answered the call of Christ in the Gospels to proclaim the Good News.

In his work, he helped lay the foundation for the Church.

Upon this foundation, we continue to build as we proclaim the Good News.

January 19, 2025: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

In our recent Christmas celebrations, we marveled at how God made HImself present to us in Jesus Christ, through His birth at Bethlehem, the visit of the Magi, and Christ's baptism.

Today we marvel at how God manifested Himself in Jesus through the first of Christ's signs, the changing of water into wine.

It's special that this sign happens at a wedding, highlighting an idea from the first reading: that despite the ways we've gone astray, God desires to rejoice and be in a relationship with us like a groom rejoices in His Bride.

As God provided for the couple when the wine ran out, God provides us restoration to a life-giving relationship.

Furthermore, He provides for gifts that we can live out our relationship in tune with the Holy Spirit, Who is the source of all gifts.

As we mark the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, God desires for us to be One Church. On this Sanctity of Life Sunday, we recognize that in God's sight, we all have value.  God rejoices in all of us, and reveals His presence to us constantly so we draw close to Him and believe in Him.

January 12, 2025: Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

We rejoice at the birth of Christ because God came to our world and became human.

Jesus Christ identified Himself so closely with us by taking on our flesh.

As the Word Made Flesh, He raises our humanity to the divine life of Heaven.

God indeed shepherds us into the ways of Eternal Life.  He cleanses us so that we are rightoues in God's sight and equipped for good works.

Jesus didn't need to be baptized, yet in His baptism, He identified Himself with us and transformed this ritual into a means by which God would cleanse us, declare us His beloved, and transform us to be part of His people.

So we join with the Church in praising Christ, the presence of God Who continues to abide with us, and open ourselves to transformation that manifests God's Divine Presence in us.

January 5, 2025: Epiphany of the Lord Sunday

A great Light shone in our world when our Lord was born as the Word Made Flesh.

This Light reached all the nations, and by it, they have come to encounter the God Who was born among the Chosen People.

The Child born unto us is a great gift because, though He was the fulfillment of promises to Israel, He offers salvation to all the world.

In light of this glorious gift, we all have the opportunity to respond and offer our gifts and devotion.  Like the Magi, let us lift our gaze above to see the wonders of God and follow the signs to encounter Him, because He has come to be so close to all of us in the whole world.

January is a special month because it was when I participated in the 2005 National Geograph Bee Final Round at Julian Middle School.  It's also when I went to Panama for World Youth Day.  Taking on a global perspective, I see how God has filled the earth with His light by the Incarnation and inspires us to join with all people in seeking Him.

January 1, 2025: Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God/Naming of Jesus

The Incarnation was a great blessing because God revealed Himself fully in the birth of Christ in the flesh.

God, Who is outside of time, entered in time, as St. Paul writes in his epistle to the Galatians, to ransom us and transform us into children and heirs of God.

Only in the name of Jesus do we find salvation, and that is why He is such a great gift from God.  The shepherds provide a great example for us to go in haste to encounter the God Who comes to us.

Mary also provides a great example because she ponders the mystery revealed to her in such an intimate way because she bore the Son of God into the world.  She certainly had so much to ponder, as do we.

In so pondering this mystery, like her, we then respond by answering the call to bear the Son of God into the world around us, announcing the Good News of God Who entered time from the outside to sanctify our time for His Glory.