Homilies for January 2025

For January 1 (Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God), January 5 (Epiphany), January 12 (Baptism of the Lord), January 19, and January 26 

Homily for Mary, Mother of God by Rev. John P. Cush

All others by Br. Lawrence Joshua Johnson, CFR

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God – January 1, 2025

Readings: Numbers 6:22–27 • Psalm 67:2–3, 5, 6, 8 • Galatians 4:4–7 • Luke 2:16–21
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010125.cfm

This passage, “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart” (Luke 2:19), speaks to Mary’s deep interior life — a constant dialogue with God in which she ponders the mysteries of Christ’s life. Through the lens of Pope John Paul II, Pope Paul VI, and Pope Francis, we can explore how Mary’s interior reflection models the essence of faith and love.

Pope Paul VI, in Marialis Cultus, emphasized Mary’s role as a model of contemplation for every believer. He described how Mary’s heart was open to God’s mystery, and in her meditation, she pondered the unfathomable depths of Christ’s mission. He said: “She is the model of that interior life which is the prerequisite for hearing the voice of God in the depth of one’s heart and for following His call.” Paul VI invites us to imitate Mary’s “contemplative silence,” reminding us that in a world full of distractions, true understanding of God’s plan unfolds in quiet reflection.

Like Mary, we are called to keep the events of our lives in a place of quiet prayer, allowing God to unfold His wisdom within us. Mary teaches us that the journey of faith requires a listening heart, receptive to God’s ways, especially when they surpass our understanding.

Pope John Paul II, in Redemptoris Mater, explored Mary’s unique experience of faith, one of constant contemplation of her Son’s mystery. He spoke of Mary as a “pilgrim of faith,” whose entire life was a continuous “yes” to God. John Paul II noted, “In her heart, Mary awaited with deep love the fulfillment of that mystery which had been revealed to her” (Redemptoris Mater, 17). For him, Mary’s heart embodies an openness to God’s love, mystery, and will — a reflection that turns into a complete gift of self.

Mary’s contemplation teaches us that faith is not merely intellectual but involves the whole heart and soul. In times of mystery, suffering, or uncertainty, we, like Mary, are called to say “yes” in faith, trusting that God’s love will guide and sustain us, even when His ways are beyond our sight.

Pope Francis often speaks of Mary as a model of mercy and tenderness, particularly in her heart’s attitude toward Jesus and the Church. In Evangelii Gaudium, he reflects on how Mary’s heart understands the sorrows and joys of the faithful, her compassion born from deeply pondering her Son’s life and passion. Pope Francis sees Mary’s heart as an “open heart, wounded by her Son’s suffering, which makes her tender and attentive to each of us.”

From Pope Francis’s perspective, Mary’s pondering heart encourages us to open ourselves in mercy to others. Like Mary, who kept all things in her heart, we can carry the joys and sufferings of others in prayer, becoming compassionate reflections of God’s love in the world.

Through the reflections of Popes Paul VI, John Paul II, and Francis, we see that Mary’s contemplation is not passive but an active engagement with God’s presence. Her heart is a model for our faith journey, teaching us to hold all things — our questions, joys, and trials — in our hearts, trusting that God’s mystery will be revealed in time. Mary’s silent, patient love calls each of us to a deeper intimacy with God, guiding us to live our faith with an open, trusting, and compassionate heart.

The Epiphany of the Lord – January 5, 2025

Readings: Is 60:1-6 • Ps 72:1–2, 7–8, 10–11, 12–13 • Eph 3:2–3a, 5-6 – Mt 2:1-12
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010525.cfm

Have you ever arrived at a party late? Not fashionably late, but really late? In most families, some people tend to arrive late more often than others, but I imagine most of us have had this experience. Maybe it was traffic. Maybe we lost track of time. Maybe we wrote the wrong time in our calendar.

At a dinner party, there may be a point in the night where our late arrival is more of an embarrassment than a relief. Did the host remove our place setting to make more room for the guests who were there? Have some guests begun to leave already? The real turning point comes when we are no longer expected or the host is no longer prepared to receive us.

Sometimes in my religious community a traveling brother may say he will arrive in time for dinner, but when dinner begins, he still hasn’t shown up. Maybe there was traffic. Maybe he lingered at an event talking with people at the door. Maybe his flight was delayed. We set aside exactly an hour for dinner each evening, so when I realize that I will arrive late it is fairly easy to predict at what point they will have cleared the food and the plates, and at what point in the night they will have begun to clean up. At some point I have walked into a kitchen to find the table cleared, the dishes washed and dried, the lights turned off and the floor swept. It would seem that I had definitely arrived too late if it weren’t for the small note under the night light on the kitchen counter: “Brother, we left a plate for you in the oven to keep warm.”

Today, we celebrate latecomers. Almost two weeks ago we celebrated Christmas. The angels were there and the shepherds, and even the ox and the ass. No wise men from the east, though. They weren’t there that night. Some of us act this out in our nativity sets: late on Christmas Eve baby Jesus arrives, but the magi are still on the other side of the room!

For many centuries the Church has recognized this as significant. Israel knew that she was chosen, and that God had prepared a place for her. The other nations, the Gentiles, did not know this. All of us are born with a desire for something we cannot fully grasp or comprehend, with a desire for God. The children of Israel knew His name. The other nations did not. They did not know about God’s promises, or how to know Him.

The other nations thus sat in darkness. Isaiah tells us that “darkness covers the earth, and thick clouds cover the peoples.” This is the darkness without the light of Christ. It is a darkness that even today covers many people and many of us at different points in our lives. Maybe some of you have been living under a thick cloud, wishing for at least a star of light to pierce through the darkness of the night sky in a land far away from the Lord.

The Magi desired that light and sought it. When they arrived in Bethlehem, that light shone directly on them for the first time. Yes, Jesus had already been born some time before, but on the night they met Him, His light shone on their faces and their hearts for the first time. For many of us it may seem that Christmas is already over. Maybe the tree is already on the curb and the needles have been vacuumed up. But it is not too late to ask ourselves: has Jesus been born in my heart? Has His light pierced the darkness of my own heart?

Perhaps to some observers the Magi encountering the light of Christ late seemed like an afterthought. But in the history of our Church this is a big deal. The focus was on God’s promises to Israel and how Jesus’ coming fulfilled all of these promises. Then like these Magi, people from other nations showed up. As St. Paul began to realize, this was not a divine afterthought. God was not hurriedly adding other place settings for unexpected guests. This was part of the “mystery” that was hidden before but now becomes clear and in the open: the other nations were part of God’s plan all along!

I imagine that when they saw the star, the magi felt hope — hope that something good was happening. Something unknown, but good: something worth setting out on a journey for. For those of us who maybe think we are not part of God’s plan or that we have somehow missed it, the star the Magi followed should fill us with a similar hope today.

Even when thick clouds cover the peoples, the light of Christ always penetrates, at first not illuminating everything, but giving us enough light to set out on the first step of our journey.

You might say, “I lost my chance for that journey many years ago.” No! His light welcomes latecomers. Here in Bethlehem there is room for people who are not super-Catholics, for Catholics who feel they have to play catch-up, for Catholics who have wondered whether perhaps God might have given up on them, stopped waiting for them.

You might wonder whether anything will be left when you arrive. Trust me, the light of Christ waits for you. The flickering candle of the tabernacle lamp is but a small indication of the burning love Christ has for you. His merciful light waits for you in the confessional and at the altar.

This Sunday Christ has prepared a place for each one of you. Whether our prayer here this morning is the dawning of hope and the beginning of a journey or the moment we come home to His Supper to bask in His light, His light shines on you. You are part of His plan.

Baptism of Our Lord – January 12, 2025

Readings: Is 42:1–4, 6–7 or Is 40:1–5, 9–11 • Ps 29:1–2, 3–4, 3, 9–10 or 104:1b–2, 3–4, 24–25, 27–28, 29–30 • Acts 10:34–38 or Titus 2:11–14; 3:4–7 • Lk 3:15–16, 21–22
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011225.cfm

“A voice came from heaven.” I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds quite helpful. My heart and mind can often be full of noise and distraction and it is difficult to hear the voice of God there. It would be nice to hear a loud voice that breaks through my distraction and that lets me know: “Pay attention to this. This is important.” Like a particularly large headline in a newspaper or a gold star by an email, it draws my attention to what matters.

And we do sometimes miss things, important things. Some married couples remember exactly when they met for the first time. Sometimes they remember even minute details about the day and the encounter. Others, though, find it more difficult to remember the first meeting or first interaction. Perhaps they remember the first time they noticed their future spouse, but the first time they met they may have missed the importance of what was happening. They did not know who that person was or what he or she would come to mean to them in the future.

For those who do remember, they often hold onto that memory because they relatively quickly began to realize that it was significant. Even if one of them was distracted or awkward. Even if the interaction was superficial. Even if one or both of them was focused on something else, expecting something else, that first meeting became important. In some cases, the unexpected encounter turns out to be more important than whatever else one expected to happen that day.

Today we hear not just the voice from heaven but the voice of God’s prophets and apostles speaking to us about the importance of an encounter, of a first meeting. The voice of Isaiah cries out: “Prepare the way of the Lord!” Israel, “here is your God!” Israel and the world needed to hear this voice because they did not expect to see God arrive as an infant lying in a manger. We need to hear the voice of the prophet so that our hearts know where to look with expectation: Yes, this is your God. Yes, this is your king. Yes, the one wrapped in swaddling clothes is the one “clothed with majesty and glory, robed in light as with a cloak.” The infant lying helpless in the manger is the Savior who redeems us by lying exposed on the cross.

At the Jordan that day the people were indeed “filled with expectation” but with an expectation that John, not Jesus, was the Christ. Perhaps they walked to the river expecting that they would encounter John, that they would listen to John’s preaching and that maybe they might be baptized and leave having become John’s disciples that day.

But what mattered was that they met Jesus for the first time. What mattered was that He was baptized, because He is the one who in turn baptizes, who cleanses us. And today we hear in the letter from Titus what that encounter means for us. This is the voice from heaven speaking to us so that we do not miss it, saying that “because of his mercy, he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our savior.”

Many of us at our baptism did not realize we needed a savior. We did not realize we needed washing and renewal. We did not realize we were becoming beloved sons and daughters of God. We did not realize we were being justified by grace and not by anything we had done or that we now had a right to inherit eternal life.

And today maybe we expected something else. Perhaps our “expectations” center on who we will meet later in the day, who we will tease when their team loses or rejoice with when their team wins. But what matters is that Christ now lives in us and we in Him. His descent into the water that day was completed by his descent into death for us; His immersion in water was completed by his immersion into the depth of human sin and suffering.

Today we are invited to return to what matters: to fall in love with Jesus, whether for the first time or all over again, and to thus view that first encounter of our own baptism in a new light. It was in baptism that you were made a member of the family who belongs here at the table, at the Eucharistic altar where Christ gives Himself to us. In baptism Christ has made you his own. In confession, in communion, He invites all of us to a deeper relationship with Him, a relationship that throws new and perhaps unexpected light on the grace of that first encounter in the baptismal font.

The voice of God speaks to us today so that we do not miss it. This is what important: who Jesus is, and who we are because of Him and in Him.

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time – January 19, 2025

Readings: Is 62:1–5 • Ps 96:1–2, 2–3, 7–8, 9–10 • 1 Cor 12:4–11 • Jn 2:1–11
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/011925.cfm

Sometimes Biblical scholars talk about a “Messianic secret” in the first three Gospels. Many times we see Jesus will perform miracles and then tell people to stay quiet about it. It seems that the miracles are something that could be misunderstood, which is another way of saying that they mean something, something important. Something Jesus really wants us to get.

John, however, wants to focus instead on the ways that this secret began to be revealed through the signs that Jesus performed. Today, therefore, we see this “secret” run into a problem: Jesus’ mother. If Jesus seems concerned with how his power will be understood, Mary seems far more focused on the particular situation and on her Son’s capacity to change it. If Jesus seems hesitant to show who He is, Mary is eager to light the way for others toward Jesus and His identity. Mary’s heart seems to resonate with what we heard from the prophet Isaiah: “For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet.” And it is also not all that difficult to imagine a mother who wants the world to know how great her son is. Perhaps some of us sensed how our response to the Psalm could echo the desire of a mother’s heart: “Proclaim his marvelous deeds to all the nations!”

How, then, do we make sense of Jesus’ apparent caution and Mary’s discreet boldness? Here Mary has her own “secret” wisdom to share with us: how do we respond when we bring problems to God and yet nothing seems to change and we do not understand why?

As much as we appropriately venerate Mary, we must never forget that she is fully human and not divine. She was not omniscient and did not know in advance how and where Jesus’ miracles would be performed and how his entire ministry would play out. I strongly suspect that as she walked to the wedding in Cana, she did not know that her words with her son at the edge of the wedding reception would be publically proclaimed in pulpits for centuries to come. She may not have really understood what Jesus meant when he said that his hour had not yet come.

One traditional title for Mary is “Star of the Sea” or “Stella Maris” and I think this title may be a good window into what is going on here. We can easily imagine a captain asked to navigate a ship to a country he or she has never been to before, has perhaps never seen. In the dead of night on the open ocean, the sailors can see neither their origin nor their destination, just various shades of darkness. And then there is the unpredictability and instability of the sea as the ship is moved about by the waves and the wind. The captain does not need to see the destination, though. He or she only needs to see one key star. One point of light is all that is needed in order to point the ship in the right direction.

Mary had this point of light. She did not know God the Father’s plan. She did not know how Jesus’ ministry, passion, death, and resurrection would unfold. She probably did not know why Jesus responded the way He did.

But Mary knew something of her son’s heart. She did not know what He would do, but she knew Him.

And because she knew Him she modeled and counseled both complete candor and complete confidence. Speaking to her son, she felt no need to mince words or employ euphemisms. Nor did she feel a need to sandwich her observation with pious platitudes. Instead she just told him plainly, “They have no wine.” And when her frank description of a distressing reality seems ignored, Mary perseveres in confidence and therefore counsels total obedience. “Do whatever He tells you.”

As we look to Mary today in the midst of our own journeys through sometimes uncertain seas, she offers us that model of both complete candor and complete confidence in the midst of our daily problems, both large and small. She serves as that point of light for us, that “Stella Maris,” that star of the sea, that points us to Jesus, because she herself knew how to keep her eyes on Him in the midst of real-world problems and uncertainty.

We ask for peace in the world even though it seems to be an hour of war. We ask for peace in our homes even though it may seem to be an hour of tension or bitterness. We ask for health when it seems to be an hour of sickness and for virtue when it seems vice has the upper hand.

No matter what the hour is, we ask for grace, because like Mary, we know only He can do what needs to be done. We know we must turn to the fountain from which all grace and blessing flow. Our cup may run dry, but His never does. We need His hour to come now.

Mary is the Mother of the Church and her faith is our faith. Our faith is not blind to the problems in the world, in our communities, in our own hearts. Our faith means that we bring them to Jesus, and keep bringing them to Jesus, not knowing what will happen, but knowing Him.

And today with Mary we turn to Him in confident trust together, offering Him our own needs and joys together with the hopes and needs of the whole world.

Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Sunday of the Word of God) – January 26, 2025

Readings: Neh 8:2–4a, 5–6, 8–10 • Ps 19:8, 9, 10, 15 • 1 Cor 12:12–30 • Lk 1:1–4; 4:14–21
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012625.cfm

Perhaps you have heard the phrase “the pen is mightier than the sword.” This phrase requires some qualification, though. Some written words are easily forgotten, and others are immediately rejected. A letter may arrive from a king or an emperor as a “dead letter” that has no effect. Other words, though, wield immense power and influence that resonate through the ages.

I can easily think of examples of such “dead letters” in our world today. I love to read books, but some books quickly lose their relevance and no one wants to read them anymore. How many term papers and dissertations were written only to be read once? What about the public announcements read on airplanes or the “fine print” below advertisements? We take it for granted that most of the letters we receive in the mail are junk mail, and on screens of various sizes we may see headlines, emails and text messages that remain unread or quickly fade from memory.

Some written words, though, seem to have a life of their own. For some of us it might have been a book or a poem printed on paper that seemed to come alive, striking a chord in our hearts and filling us with wonder. Maybe you’ve noticed that your hands were trembling as you prepared to open a life-changing letter, whether it was the results of a medical test, a college admissions decision, or a love letter. Sometimes even a short email or text message can seem to come alive and reverberate within us long after we’ve read it. It may have been as simple as “I’m home now,” “I miss you,” or “I’m sorry.” All of these living words do much more than communicate data and information.

Today we just heard words that shed light on why we gather every Sunday to listen to Scripture. We hear in both Nehemiah and the Gospel of Luke about people gathered to listen to a reading from Scripture and its explanation.

One immediate question, then, is: why do these people listening to Nehemiah “from daybreak to midday” not seem to find a six-hour sermon boring? That is, why do they find this to be a living word and not a dead letter? I see two reasons.

For one, the people were able to receive “spirit and life” in these words because Nehemiah was not simply speaking his own words, but God’s words addressed to them. Their hands were trembling because these words would change the course of their life. The words reverberated in their hearts because they struck a chord and infused life into them. When God wields the pen, it is without a doubt mightier than any sword and stronger than any earthly weapon.

These words were living words because God spoke them, but also because those who received them were people hungry for hope. The crowd gathered around Nehemiah was a small rag-tag group that had returned to their homeland from exile. They felt poor, humbled, and vulnerable. The words they heard gave them life because these words meant that God still cared about them. It meant a relationship with Him was still possible. By receiving the law, they were learning what it meant to stop being exiles, what it meant to truly return home.

When Jesus proclaimed the words from the prophet Isaiah, both of these realities were also present. The words He proclaimed were living words, words which gave life to the poor and vulnerable who were hungry for hope.

Just as Isaiah’s words become those of Jesus, so the words of Jesus become our words today. Today, too, those who hear the word of God with joy are those who are small and humbled, those who need a word of comfort and of hope. This is “good news for the poor.” The good news is that God still wants to have a relationship with us, even when we have messed up or gone astray. Even when in our hearts we have gone into exile, God has a place for us where we belong and a way for us to return home.

Jesus’ preaching explains this. Jesus was able to say “today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing” because of His very presence. Words become alive because of the living presence of a person behind them. And as Jesus preached there in Capernaum, His living presence made all of Scripture come alive. He Himself is the way to the Father. Our way home is to know Jesus, believe in Him, receive Him, and remain in Him.

The words of Scripture are living words because Jesus is present to us in them here today. Even when we are distracted during a reading or the homily falls short, we still know that today these words are fulfilled in our hearing because Jesus is present here. His living presence is here in His Word and in a very special way in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

We therefore gather today to drink in the word of God as those who thirst for His presence. We receive it with joy and thanksgiving, recognizing that when these words of Scripture are received by humble hearts they become living words that give us “Spirit and Life.”