Bulletins from January 2023

The Beatitudes has been called Constitution of the Reign of God. Through them, Jesus taught the values, virtues and attitudes to his followers. It is not that Jesus instructed his listeners to be meek or mourning or persecuted or insulted. Rather, the Beatitudes are lessons on how to live when bad things happen to people, as they do to every person. What distinguishes the followers of Jesus is how we react to the presence of suffering in our lives. Jesus teaches us to find blessedness or happiness even during the difficulties we experience, and He promises heavenly rewards. In the end, the question to each of us is whether we try to evade the trials of our lives or do we learn to grow through them, even remaining hopeful and faith-filled in bad times? This weekend – Friday through Sunday – our Diocesan Assembly for the Synod gathers at Santa Clara University. From the 8000 comments and suggestions received from throughout the Diocese, there are now 96 proposals, organized around 8 themes. Please keep the delegates from our parish and from throughout Santa Clara County in your prayers, that all of us will be guided by the Holy Spirit in our listening, discussions and deliberations.

One of the major themes of Christmas and Epiphany is that Christ is the Light of the World. Now that the Christmas Season is past, and we have returned to “Ordinary Time,” we hear again part of the Old Testament reading from Christmas Eve Mass: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. . .” (Isaiah 9:1). Near the beginning of His public ministry, Jesus quotes this passage, in obvious reference to the work He had begun. And then he began calling the disciples to Himself, so that they could share his ministry, bringing light to all those in the dark places. This weekend’s second reading puts the ministry of the apostles in the context of the early Church, where factions had begun to surface. Saint Paul repeats some of what the first believers were saying: “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” And he asks this question: “Is Christ divided?” The Lord’s followers are still divided in many ways. During “Christian Unity Week,” we focus on that which unites us in the Lord. We are asked to recommit ourselves to the vision of the Lord Who prayed that “all may be one.” And within our own Church, we should strive toward unity, which is a gift from the Lord. In that way, we can let the Lord’s light shine on all.

Some of the followers of Saint John the Baptist clung to the hope that John himself was the Messiah; obviously, Jesus’ followers (then and now) believed the same about Him. But it is not a case of one faction triumphing over the other. The disciples of Jesus (who eventually produced the gospels as we have received them) held John in the very highest esteem, as can be seen in this Sunday’s gospel passage: John the Baptist saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. He is the one of whom I said, ‘A man is coming after me who ranks ahead of me because he existed before me.’ John is hailed as the “last and greatest” of the prophets and even as the sole prophet of the New Testament. His message is clear: He points to Jesus and not to himself. As we leave the Christmas Season and observe these weeks of “Ordinary Time,” we can ask ourselves if we follow John’s example. Is it Christ to whom our lives point, or would we rather draw attention to ourselves?

The Feast of the Epiphany is a reminder to us that God is a God of surprises. Most certainly, the magi did not anticipate that their journey to the “newborn King of the Jews” would lead them to the backwater town of Bethlehem, where they found Jesus. It is also amazing that this revelation was made to foreigners, in keeping with today’s responsorial: All kings shall pay him homage, all nations shall serve him (Psalm 72:11). On Epiphany 2023, we can also expect the unexpected; God seldom fits into the categories we erect. Neither does the Lord abide by the limitations that we attempt to place upon Him. There are epiphanies of God’s presence all around us and sometimes these are in people and situations that truly surprise us. In the same way, each of us is called to be to others real signs of the loving presence of God in their lives.