Homilies for February 2025

For February 2 (Feast of the Presentation), February 9, February 16, February 23

Feast of the Presentation – February 2, 2025

Readings: Malachi 3:1–4 • Psalm 24:7, 8, 9, 10 • Hebrews 2:14–18 • Luke 2:22–40 or 2:22–32
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020225.cfm

That didn’t take long. Have we forgotten about Christmas already?

It happened without warning. Walking around New York City the last week of December, you couldn’t help but notice it. The streets were a mess of dead evergreens, flattened boxes, crinkled wrapping paper and limp tinsel. Workers were pulling down lights from storefronts and apartments. The world moved on. Even in early December, Valentine’s Day chocolates were being stocked on the shelves at Walgreens.

But this weekend, the Church gives us this welcome reminder: it’s not over yet. There’s one more event to celebrate, the Presentation of the Lord, or Candlemas.

It’s been a while since this feast last fell on a Sunday. This is a moment to give it its due — to remember the “reason for the season” that somehow has been nudged aside like the dried-out tree you dragged to the curb.

This is a chance for cherishing once more the greatest gift that arrived 40 days ago on Christmas. The gift of our salvation. The gift of Christ.

The gift of light.

The holy and aged Simeon in this Sunday’s Gospel said as much, when he finally saw for himself what the world had been waiting for:

“My eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”

In a beautiful way, his words take us back to how everything began.

In Genesis, God’s first words speak to a formless world bathed in shadow. From nothing, he created everything, and he began his creation with those simple, profoundly important words:

“Let there be light.”

It would be countless generations after that — after man’s fall, and his wanderings, and his exile and his despair and his sin — before light would again come into a world lost in darkness.

That was Christmas.

The birth of Christ offered us a second Genesis. Once more, with the Incarnation, God whispered words that began a new creation, “Let there be light.”

Now, the Feast of the Presentation, Candlemas, remembers that, and it does this at a moment when we might be tempted to forget. Let’s be honest: it’s 40 days after Christmas. It seems like it was eons ago. The decorations have come down. The gifts have been returned or forgotten. The toys have been broken. The last of the fruitcake has been thrown out. We’ve stopped singing carols about joy and glory and wonder. It looks like we’re back into the dead of winter.

But Candlemas says: no! Wait. You’re wrong. The light still burns. A flame defies the dark. Bring out a candle and let’s share in that light.

It’s been an ancient custom in the Church to bless candles on this feast — which explains the name. We are at the halfway point between the shortest day of the year, in December, and the spring equinox in mid-March. The blessing of candles gives us encouragement for the remaining days of winter. It offers us the profound hope that we will be sustained by holy light — and uplifted and guided by the Greatest Light, the light that is Christ.

This feast cries out to us: Christmas was just the beginning. There is more.

It says, to those who are tempted to despair during these cold dark days: there is still light.

To those who have forgotten the bright promise of a star: there is still light.

To anyone who fears, or who worries, or who wonders about what the future may hold: there is still light!

More than light, there is hope. Unto us a child has been born, a son has been given: “A light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”

Forty days ago, the angel told the shepherds: do not be afraid. Now, all these weeks later, the feast we celebrate today repeats that message.

Most of us probably haven’t thought about that in a while. But this holy day appears on our calendar as a sudden, welcome jolt that says continues the tidings of great joy. Christmas continues. What we celebrated 40 days ago is far from over.

It’s still common for some churches around the world to keep their nativity scenes up until February 2 as a quiet, persistent reminder that the child we welcomed in December remains with us. Once, there was no room for him. Now, he dwells with us, Emmanuel.

More than just the decorations in church have changed. The world has been changed.

This week, as we commemorate the infant Jesus being presented in the temple, maybe this is a moment to present ourselves to the Lord and do it with renewed fervor and faith and hope — to rededicate ourselves to keeping “the Christmas spirit” alive as “the Christian spirit.” To recommit ourselves to the generous good will that we all sang about during the holidays and that inspired us to give time or treasure to those in need.

You don’t see bell ringers on street corners anymore, and retailers will tell you the season of giving is long over.

But it isn’t. Not really. The God who came into the world as an infant, who gave himself to us in a manger and then went on to surrender himself for the world on a cross is still giving himself to us. We’re about to witness that very giving once more at this altar.

There is “glory for your people Israel.” Glory for every one of us.

God is still coming to us. Still with us. We need to hold fast to that beautiful reality and carry that gift with us — a gift that reminds us that Christmas never really ends.

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time – February 9, 2025

Readings: Isaiah 6:1–2a, 3–8 • Psalm 138:1–2, 2–3, 4–5, 7–8 • 1 Corinthians 15:1–11 or 15:3–8, 11 • Luke 5:1–11
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020925.cfm

What do you think of when you think of “vocations”?

So often, when we encounter this particular Gospel account from Luke, about “putting out into the deep,” we think of answering the call to religious life, particularly the priesthood.

Several years back, filmmaker Chris Capel took a familiar phrase from this Gospel and turned it into the title of an acclaimed short film, “Fishers of Men.” The movie told stories of men answering the call to become a priest — showing again and again ordinary men making an extraordinary choice, to follow and serve the Lord.

All these readings this Sunday, in fact, touch on that theme. There is Isaiah, a man of “unclean lips,” crying out, “Here I am! Send me!” We hear St. Paul, “the least of the apostles,” telling his readers about how he managed to be an effective messenger of the Gospel. And Luke tells of humble fishermen mending their nets, then following the instructions of Jesus and experiencing an astonishing haul of fish, one that brings Peter to his knees to declare, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

The ordinary become, by the grace of God, extraordinary. This is so often how the Lord works. This Gospel remains a great testament to the courage, surrender, and trust of answering the call to religious life.

But this weekend, it brings to mind another vocation, one that also requires courage and surrender and trust.

I’m speaking of married life.

This Sunday, the church marks World Marriage Day — a moment for us to celebrate a vocation that doesn’t get nearly enough attention, marriage. Marriage is a vocation that, like the priesthood and religious life, calls for giving up what is known, and venturing into the unknown, leaving the shore to go into the deep. It is also transformative. We remember how Christ performed his first miracle at a wedding, turning water into wine — another instance of making the ordinary extraordinary.

God’s grace changes everything.

Consider the story of John and Ann Betar, of Connecticut.

John worked as a fruit peddler and Ann’s parents had planned for her to marry someone else. But they defied her parents and eloped. They married in November of 1932.

Defying the odds . . . their marriage endured. For nearly 86 years, until John’s death at the age of 107 in 2018. At one time, they were known as “America’s longest married couple.” They had five children, 14 grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren.

They lived through the Depression, a World War, recessions, personal struggles, the ups and downs that are part of every life, every marriage. But as one of their daughters put it: “They were going against the odds . . . but when you make the choice they made, there is no other way but love.”

It is safe to say that John and Ann Betar “put out into the deep.” They understood: that’s where you find a good catch.

If you want to hold onto that catch, be prepared to work at it. Luke tells us that the fishermen struggled with what they caught. They had to fight to hold onto it. In the end, Peter was so overwhelmed, it brought him to his knees before the Lord.

It is that way with fishing. It can be that way, too, with marriage.

The fact remains: every great undertaking in life needs to begin on our knees. Every great undertaking in life can be a kind of prayer. That includes marriage.

Marriage, the Liturgy of Every Hour, the prayer of a lifetime.

It is an ongoing prayer of praise, a psalm of thanksgiving. It is a prayer that involves commitment and humility. Sometimes, it is a petition. Sometimes, it is a plea. Sometimes it is a hymn of hope.

But more often, the prayer is something much simpler.

Thank you, God, for giving me another person to share my life with.

Please God, let the biopsy be negative.

Dear God, help me find a job.

Father, watch over our children.

We are worried. We are afraid. Keep us strong.

God, be with us on our journey.

Every day in marriage is a journey. Every couple that marries leaves the shore and head into uncharted waters — adjusting the sails to meet the wind, scanning the skies, following currents, no matter how high the waves or how fierce the storm.

And it so often involves a journey into the deep.

A deep empathy for one another.

A deep desire — as the marriage rite puts it — to give and to forgive.

A deep commitment to be more closely united, truly, as one heart, one mind, one flesh.

A deep dedication, very simply, to love.

Married life has never been easy, especially today. As we prepare to receive the Eucharist at this Mass, we pray for those married couples gathered around the Lord’s table. We pray for marriages facing uncharted waters, far from the shore, where storms happen and where the weather is unpredictable and where it is easy to feel frightened.

We pray for God to be near.

We pray, in a special way, for grace.

In marriage, that means the grace to endure together, to hope together, to sacrifice together, to bear life’s storms together.

Years ago, in an interview, John and Ann Betar said there was no one secret to a long and happy marriage. But John summed up his own marriage this way:

“We just live with contentment and we don’t live beyond our means,” he said. And he added some wisdom that has served them well.

He said: “Just go with the flow.”

That demands a certain amount of faith.

Faith to go where the current takes you, and faith to believe that God will get you there safely.

This World Marriage Day, that is a lesson for every marriage — and, by extension, for every vocation.

Trust in God’s will and in prayer.

Be willing to say “Yes” to a call you never expected.

Sacrifice more than you thought you could.

And: be willing to put out into the deep.

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time – February 16, 2025

Readings: Jeremiah 17:5–8 • Psalm 1:1–2, 3, 4 & 6 • 1 Corinthians 15:12, 16–20 • Luke 6:17, 20–26
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021625.cfm

Did you hear that?

Listening to Jesus’s words in this Sunday’s Gospel, we can’t escape feeling that something is different.

Then we realize: this time, it’s personal.

This Sunday, we begin hearing Luke’s account of Jesus delivering what scholars commonly call “The Sermon on the Plain.” Unlike the more familiar “Sermon on the Mount,” Jesus chooses a humbler setting, walking to a “stretch of level ground,” where he is able to speak to his disciples, his followers, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, person-to-person.

What they hear — and what we hear today — cuts to the heart.

“Blessed are you,” he begins. You! With his first words, we realize that this is a message for every person who carries the label “Christian.” It is for every one of us. He explains.

“You who are poor . . . you who are hungry . . . you who are now weeping . . .” He doesn’t speak about people, but to them. He mentions the hated, the excluded, the insulted. This is a sermon delivered by a preacher who is personally invested in every person hearing it. Jesus knows his followers so well, he knows not only how they feel but what they need to hear, a message of hope amid hardship: “Your reward will be great in heaven.”

But then in the same way, he speaks directly — personally — to “you who are rich . . . you who are filled . . . you who laugh . . .” with phrases that are both an indictment and a warning. “You will be hungry, you will grieve and weep . . .”

The piercing directness of Christ’s words is unmistakable. What undoubtedly challenged, comforted, and provoked his disciples, the first people who heard this message, should make all of us sit up and listen.

This is only the beginning. So much of the “Sermon on the Plain” is a powerful lesson in what it means to be a disciple of Christ, to share in his kingdom. Jesus will go on to speak about sacrifice, charity, compassion and suffering — giving up a cloak, turning the cheek, loving your enemies.

It’s a daunting, challenging message.

And yes: this time, it’s personal.

But there’s more.

The first reading this Sunday offers a startling contrast. The passage from Jeremiah begins with curses and ends with blessings.

Jesus turns that around. He begins with blessings and ends with woe.

Not only that, he turns around our expectations. Those facing hardship are the blessed. Those facing contentment and worldly success will face woe. They are the ones who will be cursed.

And again, where Jeremiah speaks of “the one” who trusts or hopes, Jesus gives “the one” a clear identity.

“You.” Every one of us.

This must have come as a shock.

Imagine being there. Hearing those phrases. Having Christ look into your eyes as he speaks, addressing his words directly to you, reversing everything you held to be true and just.

I’m talking to you, he says. You who are following me. You who are trying to change your lives. You who believe. You who want eternal life in the kingdom.

You.

Which means, of course, each of us.

His message is blunt and bold and designed to upset the status quo. Live differently, he says. Take nothing for granted. Don’t believe you have all the answers. Be prepared to have your expectations turned upside down. Choose to sacrifice, dare to have faith, and live for something, Someone, beyond this moment. Live for God, not the world.

Here and now, it is still a message we need to hear, challenging us to do something radical and rearrange our priorities.

This is just the beginning of the Sermon on the Plain — we’ll hear more of it next week. But these readings couldn’t come at a better time. This section of Luke arrives just two weeks before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, as we get ready for that time of penance, reflection, fasting and almsgiving. With these readings coming at this moment, the Church challenges us to reflect more deeply on our lives, our choices, our assumptions — saying, as Jesus did, get ready. Prepare to give up what makes you comfortable. Prepare to follow another way.

This is a moment to begin taking stock.

Preaching on this passage, Pope Francis once said, “This Gospel invites us to reflect on the profound sense of having faith, which consists in our trusting completely in the Lord. It is about demolishing worldly idols in order to open our hearts to the true and living God.”

The “true and living God” still invites us to open our hearts — and he extends that invitation to us again at this liturgy, in the Eucharist.

It is an invitation to the hungry, the weeping, the grieving. Christ holds out the promise of being filled, being comforted, knowing joy. And to those who already feel filled and satisfied, he offers this caution: don’t take anything for granted. It can change. Hold fast to what truly matters.

Jesus has much more to say about that — and what we need to do to fulfill God’s plan for our lives. We’ll hear more in the continuation of this Gospel next Sunday.

Attention must be paid.

This isn’t abstract. Jesus isn’t speaking about a Samaritan or a vineyard owner or someone we have to imagine.

Did you hear that?

This time, it’s personal.

This time, it’s every one of us.

Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time – February 23, 2025

Readings: 1 Samuel 26:2, 7–9, 12–13, 22–23 • Psalm 103:1–2, 3–4, 8, 10, 12–13 • 1 Corinthians 15:45–49 • Luke 6:27–38
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/022325.cfm

If you wanted to find the most challenging passage in the Gospels, this just might be it.

This week, we continue hearing the “Sermon on the Plain” from St. Luke’s gospel, with Christ’s direct, bold, uncompromising lessons. And what we hear on this particular Sunday could be considered downright radical.

But it is also fundamentally Christian — because it is a passage that calls on each of us to be the most like Christ. More than that, it calls on us to be “perfect, like the Father is perfect.”

That is a tall order.

Just look at what it entails. If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one. If they take your cloak, hand over your tunic. Give to everyone who asks.

And the most radical and counter-cultural idea of all:

Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors.

We can only imagine how that sounded to Jesus’s listeners. They knew that David had spared Saul — as we hear in the reading this Sunday from Samuel. But Jesus suggested something more — not only sparing your enemy, but loving him and praying for him.

Do we realize the implications?

Take a moment. Reflect on your own life. We’ve all been there. At one time or another, we’ve all been hurt, stabbed in the back, betrayed.

Consider the friend that you trusted, but who betrayed you. The co-worker who broke a confidence. The person whose name you’d rather forget who wounded you, or disrespected you, or took advantage of you and your good nature. Look back on the people in your life who have left bruises and scars, sometimes with just a word or a look.

Life is full of heartaches, disappointments and aggravations that can leave us angry or full of rage.

But then: imagine doing what Jesus commands. Consider your enemies and your persecutors, and then . . .

Love them.

Love them and pray for them.

Pray for their good. Pray that grace will come into their lives. Pray that their eyes may be opened, and their hearts may be healed. Because the chances are, if someone has hurt you or persecuted you . . . it’s probably because someone once did the same to them.

It is a vicious cycle. As Shakespeare put it: “Sin will pluck on sin.” Or as a former colleague of mine used to say, in a familiar phrase, “Hurt people hurt people.”

That fundamental truth of our humanity — the painful reality that the cycle just keeps going — may be one reason why Jesus in this Gospel passage says in effect: “Stop. Enough. Break the cycle. Let it go. Live differently.”

Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors.

It isn’t easy. Our human nature makes us want to do the opposite — to hate those who hate us and to wish the worst on our persecutors, to enjoy their setbacks and suffering, to take some satisfaction in their misery.

But that kind of thinking is not only self-destructive; it dismisses charity, disregards the possibility of mercy, and ignores the fundamental teaching of Christ, which is to love one another.

Jesus knows we can do better. He knows we can aim higher.

Be perfect, he says, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

In the final moments of his life, he showed us that perfection.

He taught us what he meant. Surrounded by his enemies and his persecutors, he hung on the cross — stripped, bleeding, gasping, as they gambled for his clothes and waited for him to die. And in that moment, Jesus pleaded and prayed: “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

Here is Christian perfection — our model for living, captured at the moment of death.

Here is love beyond measure: a prayer for a broken, cynical, and merciless world.

At one time or another, each of us has been suspended on our own cross, feeling helpless, or hopeless, facing cruelty or injustice.

Maybe some of us are there now, angry at what life has done to us.

How do we pray for, and love, those we hold responsible?

How do we begin?

A popular Protestant preacher during the Depression, Emmet Fox, once explained it in a way I think we all can understand. It starts with something so simple, but so hard: forgiveness. It is a necessary first step.

He says: by not forgiving we “are tied to the thing [we] hate. The person perhaps in the whole world whom you most dislike is the very one to whom you are attaching yourself by a hook that is stronger than steel. Is this what you wish?”

I think we all know the answer.

We need to detach ourselves from that hook. Then, and only then, can we begin to heal, and to love, and to pray for those who have hurt us so deeply.

We need to discover our capacity to forgive like Christ, to love like Christ, and to pray, like Christ, for those who would wish us harm.

Approaching the altar to receive the body of Christ this day, we pray to become closer to the perfection of the Father. We pray to detach ourselves from the damaging and destructive hooks of life.

We pray for the grace to love the unlovable, to forgive the unforgivable, and to remember in prayer those we would rather forget.

I have a long way to go to achieve that. I think most of us do.

But only in beginning that journey toward love, only then can we dare to approach the perfection Christ spoke of — a perfection we can never fully attain, but to which we all have to strive, day by day, prayer by prayer.

Work to be more than what you are, Christ said.

Strive to be perfect, like the Father.

Jesus showed us the way.

How could any of us not try to follow?