In the Sunday readings during Ordinary Time, we find that the first reading from the Old Testament and the Gospel are usually linked by a common theme.  The Second Reading, however, is not necessarily so, but rather offers selections of continuous readings of other books of the New Testament, usually from the writings of St. Paul.  As we are at the beginning of the Year A readings, we have been hearing from St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.  In today’s reading, St. Paul highlights the paradox of how God chooses the weak to shame the strong:

God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,
and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,
and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,
those who count for nothing,
to reduce to nothing those who are something,
so that no human being might boast before God. (1 Cor 1:27-29)

Such is the case with Jesus when He came into the world in the Incarnation.  To those who were expecting a great and powerful leader who would defeat Israel’s enemies, they were disappointed as they encounter Jesus who is “meek and humble of heart.” (Mt 11:29) Jesus seems to be weak and lowly, but St. Paul writes in his letter just before our reading for today: 

For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,
but we proclaim Christ crucified,
a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike,
Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1 Cor 1:22-24)

As mentioned above, the Gospel for today’s Mass is not intended to be explicitly connected to the Second Reading, but we can see how well-connected they are, for indeed all of Scripture is related, though not always explicitly.  The Gospel for today, the Beatitudes, follows this theme treated by St. Paul.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes the Beatitude in this way:

they are the paradoxical promises that sustain hope in the midst of tribulations; they proclaim the blessings and rewards already secured, however dimly, for Christ’s disciples; (CCC 1717)

The Beatitudes, very much contrary to the wisdom of the world, are one of the most important and succinct expressions of wisdom that Jesus preaches in the Gospel.  Both the paradoxical examples of His life and His teaching make the following invocation of the Litany of the Sacred Heart a fitting choice for this Sunday’s readings:

Heart of Jesus, in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,
have mercy on us

Perhaps you’ve had the experience of finding a book that you’ve really loved because it draws your heart up into a certain depth of joy and excitement while you’re reading it. I’ve experienced that with some writings of saints like St. Charles de Foucauld, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Bonaventure, St. Augustine, and some books of the bible like Revelation. I’ve also found it to be the case even sometimes when reading more academic theological articles that seem to “get it” about where the world is at and what could lead us all closer to God. Most recently, I think I felt that powerful heavenly sensation while reading a book called “A Song for Nagasaki” about the Japanese man, Takashi Nagai. His writings quoted in that book, words he wrote after living through the atomic bomb that fell over Nagasaki, were incredibly powerful and at times led me to tears.

This article isn’t about Takashi Nagai, though, but rather about the experience of finding words such as those he wrote. The human mind is an incredible creation of God. He made us able to express reality in words – reality that we can hardly grasp through our senses, and even reality we cannot receive at all through our senses. What is love? What is suffering? What is goodness and truth and beauty? These things can be observed in different ways in the world, but so often they are best discovered in the written or spoken word. We receive our understanding of them through stories and through the beauty of a life retold. 

When we find a book that does this for us – a book that leads us to God in our thoughts – we have found a treasure. These books, articles, poems, or texts, are real gifts that we should hold on to in our memories and read again and again. Truly, it seems the Holy Spirit often uses writings like these and stories like these to lead us into a renewed and deepened relationship with God the Father. 

Finally, I would like to share an imaginative poem about the awe, gratitude, and wonder of coming across the thoughts of a saint in the written word. May the Lord grant us all the grace to find and treasure words that lead us to him. Amen!

Within the wooded regions of this land
I found a small oak cabin, now forlorn
But bathed by amber candlelight … unmanned.
Perplexed, I turned the doorknob, smooth and worn.
Inside, door closed, I lit a larger fire
And by its greater glow saw walls of white.
Walls covered by small papers, once entire,
Held shreds of poems, scattered lines in flight.
These fragments speak of life and wisdom old
What man could know? “…a love from love divine, 
Shines forth in pure desire…” I read and know 
A saint and man of prayer composed this line.
Oh blest mysterious light that drew my heart
To this small saint’s inspir’d celestial art!

In 2019, Pope Francis declared that, beginning in 2020, the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time each year was to be observed as the Sunday of the Word of God.  In instituting this celebration, the Holy Father noted the importance of the Word of God to our identity as Christians:

The relationship between the Risen Lord, the community of believers and sacred Scripture is essential to our identity as Christians. Without the Lord who opens our minds to them, it is impossible to understand the Scriptures in depth. Yet the contrary is equally true: without the Scriptures, the events of the mission of Jesus and of his Church in this world would remain incomprehensible. Hence, Saint Jerome could rightly claim: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” (Commentary on the Book of Isaiah, Prologue: PL 24,17B). (Aperuit illis, 1)

As we continue our reflections on the various aspects of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we acknowledge that what we can say about His heart has been revealed to us through the written Word of God, which enables us to be united more closely with the Word of God, Jesus Christ, who is the second person of the Holy Trinity.  It is therefore fitting that we focus our reflection this week on the following invocation from the Litany of the Sacred Heart:

Heart of Jesus, substantially united to the Word of God, have mercy on us.

The use of the word substantial is key.  One of the definitions for substantial is to convey that something has a considerable importance, size, or worth.  A person who wins the lottery can be considered to have a substantial amount of money.  But this is not the definition that is being used here.  Rather, substantial in this case coneys that something belongs to the same substance of something, not just its accidents.  Those are philosophical terms, and we understand them best when we speak about the Eucharist.  After the consecration at Mass, the bread and wine undergo a change of substance.  They may look like bread and wine (accidents), but what they really are is the body and blood of Jesus.  The substance of the Eucharist, what it is, is Jesus.  So too with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The heart He had as a human being, while being fully human, was also fully divine, so it shares in the very same substance of the heart of the Word of God who has existed from all eternity in a communion of love with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

By extension, the words that Jesus spoke, which are given to us in the Gospels, are not merely human words.  Rather, they come forth from that humanity being substantially united with His divinity.  According to our Trinitatian theology, every action of God involved all three persons of the Trinity, so every word that we encounter in the Scriptures are not mere human words.  Sure, they have been communicated through the instruments of human authors, but God Himself is the source of all.  As such, the Word of God that we encounter when reading and listening to the Scriptures is substantially united to God Himself, so that we believe that when we hear His Word, He is truly speaking to us.  Since the image of the heart connotes the love of God for us, every word that He speaks to us is from that love, and it is in an invitation to receive it with love, so as to be more fully united to the One who is love.

In St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, we read, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (3:16). This command of St. Paul was directed toward those Christians at Colossae, but is a very timely message for every Christian for all time. It is perennially the task of the Christian to allow the Word of God to penetrate ever more deeply into the recesses of the soul. What this looks like is not some abstract “moving and coming” into the depth of the heart, but rather, a changed and transformed life. 

When the Word of Christ dwells in us richly, our actions take the mold of the life of Jesus and we begin to look like him. Our thoughts, feelings, and desires take on the shape of the thoughts, feelings, and desires of Jesus himself. We begin to want to serve others in the way he wants us to serve others. We begin to act in the way he acts in the world, and in doing so, we truly become what we are meant to be as “members of his body” (Ephesians 5:30). 

This transformation occurs in very concrete ways. When St. Paul calls the Colossians to “let the word of Christ dwell in [them] richly,” he isn’t simply asking them to think about Jesus coming inside of them. He is asking them to allow the life of Christ to be lived over again in them – in their actions, thoughts, and lives – by intentionally changing their lives. 

St. Paul mentions a few of the ways that Christ’s own life can begin to be lived in ours. He mentions “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” as one of the ways. Praying and singing the Psalms has always been a fundamental way for Christians to take on the mind of Christ. These are the prayers inspired by the Holy Spirit to lead us into the heart of God. Because of that, the more we repeat the words of the Psalms with our voices and in our minds, the more our minds and bodies take on the mind of God. We could say the same about any part of the scriptures, but for reaching the heart and mind of God, the Psalms and canticles of scripture truly hold the pride of place. The repetition of the Psalms teaches us to think like Jesus. 

St. Paul also mentions teaching and admonishing one another. As we teach our faith, whether to our children, our peers, our elders, or those entrusted to us, we become more attentive to the truths of our faith. As we admonish those who are doing wrong, it actually causes us to be more attentive to our own moral life. Living the moral life is a primary way that we take the Word of God into our lives and hearts. 

Finally, St. Paul counsels the Colossians to let the Word of God dwell in them richly by living in thanksgiving. Gratitude is that attitude of the heart that recognizes that all we have received is a gift, and it becomes a prayer when we recognize that it is a gift from God. This recognition leads us to speak out in prayer, whether out loud or in our hearts, to God himself and thank him. Entering into this relationship with God our Father is a way of joining Jesus in his eternal thanksgiving to the Father for the gift of his very being (an eternal gift in the relations of the Trinity that we share through adoption). 

On this Word of God Sunday, we remember that that Word has come and dwelt among us. He teaches us the way to the Father, and he desires to dwell in us richly. We see that this indwelling is no abstract reality, but a very real and concrete transformation of our lives from a life lived outside of a relationship with the Father to one where we begin to think, feel, desire, and act as the Word of God himself does, as a member of his body on earth. May the Lord strengthen us in our union with him, and may he dwell in us ever more richly. Amen!

As we begin our reflections on the various invocations of the Litany of the Sacred Heart, we do so having spent the past several weeks reflecting on the mystery of the Word becoming flesh in the Incarnation.  For that reason, it seems that a good place to start is with the second invocation of the litany: 

Heart of Jesus, formed by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mother, have mercy on us.

This invocation expresses what the Angel Garbiel reveals to both Mary and Joseph, that the child in Mary’s womb was to be conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Mt. 1:20, Lk 1:35) From Mary’s womb, Jesus, the Word made flesh, receives His human nature.  But this humanity in Jesus is united consubstantially with His divine nature, such that we can speak of Jesus as true God and true man.  Mary’s “yes” to God makes this union possible, as she gives her permission to have her womb be the very place where God joins Himself with our humanity.

As Jesus’s humanity develops in the womb of Mary, it follows the same pattern of every human life, including the development of organs, including the heart.  One of the most exciting moments for a woman who is pregnant is to hear the heartbeat of the child in her womb for the first time.  Unfortunately, there was no ultrasound technology at the time of Mary’s pregnancy, but we know that Jesus’s heart was indeed beating.  Unlike an embryo who is not yet conscious, the beating Sacred Heart of Jesus was already an expression of the love He has for each of us, for the divinity of God, who is love, is constantly loving all whom He has created from all eternity.  As that heart would grow and develop, inside and outside of the womb of Mary, it remained a human heart, while always united with the divine heart of God.  

Trying to understand the mystery of what is called the hypostatic union – that in Jesus, there is one divine Person, who has two complete natures, human and divine – is beyond what we can consider in this brief article.  Yet, it is a mystery that is central to our faith, and central to the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  In the last major document that he wrote before his death, Pope Francis offers the following explanation that makes this point:

Since the heart continues to be seen in the popular mind as the affective centre of each human being, it remains the best means of signifying the divine love of Christ, united forever and inseparably to his wholly human love. Pius XII observed that the Gospel, in referring to the love of Christ’s heart, speaks “not only of divine charity but also human affection”. Indeed, “the heart of Jesus Christ, hypostatically united to the divine Person of the Word, beyond doubt throbbed with love and every other tender affection” (Dilexit nos, 61)

Of all human beings, Mary’s Immaculate Heart was most in union with the Sacred Heart of her son, both physically and spiritually.  We can ask her to help us to better appreciate the gift of the Sacred Heart, and that by our union with Him through grace, our hearts will beat more consistently with His with love for Him and for our brothers and sisters.

Every year as the Church comes back into Ordinary Time after the Christmas season, or later on after the Easter Season, it can feel a bit like letting out a long breath after a strenuous exercise. We’ve just finished celebrating a lot of major feast days right in a row: The Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Holy Family, Mary Mother of God, Epiphany, and the Baptism of the Lord. These are incredibly meaningful feasts and are deep mines of truth for reflection. They console us with their simplicity and reveal to us the humility of God, who came among us as a child born from the pure womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 

Still, despite the beauty of these feasts and the joy we experience celebrating them, it can be a real spiritual “exercise,” in every sense of the word, to reflect in a profound way, feast after feast on the mystery of God’s love. There is thus a certain sigh of relief given by the Church in the liturgical rites as we come back into a simpler season. It is with peace and readiness that we enter back into Ordinary Time.

As we breathe this sigh of relief, I think we’re due also for the yearly reminder of the exact meaning of that term, “Ordinary.” Does it mean plain, boring, and monotonous? No! 

While there is a sense in which this season is filled with a simplicity not found in other seasons, that is not the reason this word is used to describe the seasons. 

“Ordinary” refers not to the “feeling” or “vibe” of the season, but rather to the simple fact that the weekends of Ordinary Time are numbered in a way we call “Ordinal.” This is a seldom used word. Its antonym is “Cardinal.” An ordinal number is listed in reference to a list and the number’s place in the list, whereas a cardinal number is simply the number as such. A list of ordinal numbers, for example, looks like: First, Second, Third, etc., and a list of cardinal numbers looks like: One, Two, Three, etc.. 

As we move through ordinary time, then, our weekends are numbered as “The Second Sunday of Ordinary Time,” “The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time,” etc. What we reflect on in this time is deeply profound and exciting yet so varied that it doesn’t fall into its own seasonal designation. We delve deeply into the mystery of the life of Jesus Christ in his public ministry. We hear stories of his miracles, his teaching, his parables, his disciples, and his encounters with the Jewish people and authorities. 

We reflect, in other words, on every action of the life of God made man. There is nothing more exciting than this; there is nothing more extraordinary than this. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us! The evangelists were excited men, and present to us in writing the exciting message of salvation. 

True, the Lord does so often come to us precisely in the ordinary moments of everyday life. True, the life of Jesus was overwhelmingly filled with ordinary human moments. Yet, Ordinary Time is not named so because of that. We enter an ordered time in which to reflect on the most extraordinary occurrence known to man. Rejoice and be glad! Breathe deeply – we have met the Lord at his baptism and now we enter his public ministry. We walk with him toward the cross and receive God’s steadfast love. Jesus, lead us in your love. Teach us your humility!

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been asked by a few people if I had plans for the next series for my bulletin articles.  I answered that nothing specific had come up, but I was certainly open to being nudged by the Holy Spirit, as happened with the last two series.  Well, that nudge came the week after Christmas while I was with our seminarians for their annual Christmas gathering.  It has been our practice to have Bishop Paprocki meet with them as a group the morning before they depart.  This year, he brought up a few different topics, one of which piqued my interest.  He shared with the men that at November’s gathering of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops voted to consecrate our country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 2026 as a part of our country’s 250^th anniversary.  This will likely take place in June, which is the month of the Sacred Heart.  The idea that formed in my mind as Bishop mentioned this was to focus on the Sacred Heart for the next several months as a way of preparing ourselves for this important moment in the life of the Church here in the United States.

In 1846, the Bishops of the United States had approved the decision to place our country under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception, which was approved by Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1847.  In this most recent decision to consecrate our country to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the bishops do not see any conflict, for Mary is intimately united with Jesus, and it was in light of the Incarnation of Jesus that she was given the special privilege of the Immaculate Conception.  This mystery only makes sense in light of Christ, the Word made flesh, who came to us through the humanity of Mary.  Therefore there is no problem with this proposed consecration.

Personally, in addition to devotion to Mary, especially in the Rosary, my other favorite devotion is to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so I was very excited to hear about this decision.  I have always been fascinated by the heart, having grown up making regular visits to the cardiologist to check on my heart which had been affected by a congenital defect to my aorta, the major artery that delivers oxygen-rich blood to the rest of the body.  When I discovered devotion to the Sacred Heart in my mid-twenties, it was something I immediately was drawn to and has continued to be a rich source of reflection for my spiritual life.

In particular, I love the Litany of the Sacred Heart, a prayer which includes 33 invocations that describe various qualities of the Heart of Jesus.  The number 33 is intentional as it corresponds to the 33 years in which Jesus lived among us from His birth in Bethlehem to His Ascension into Heaven following His Resurrection.  Each of these invocations offer an image that invite us to reflect more deeply on the gift of Jesus’s love for us.  

Here is what I am proposing.  Each week, I would like to reflect on one of the invocations from the Litany of the Sacred Heart.  The number of Sundays between now and the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart (June 12) is less than 33, so I will not be able to touch on all of them.  I need to do some more praying about which ones to include, to see if there is a pattern I want to follow, or if I want to just choose the ones that I like the best.  We will see what the Holy Spirit has in mind, but in the meantime, we can pray the final invocation, which is technically not part of the 33, but which, in some ways, summarizes the whole prayer, and it just happens to be my favorite part of the prayer:

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto Thine!

One of the most well-known Psalms is Psalm 23, beloved for its first words: “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.” These words and the imagery of the rest of the Psalm remind all of us that Jesus is watching out for us in every part of our lives. He is there in the good times and in the bad times, and he leads us to himself into eternal life. That is one of the reasons this Psalm is so often used at funerals – it gives us a chance to remember how Jesus shepherded us throughout our lives and continues to do so into death. 

One of the primary ways that our Good Shepherd, Jesus, leads and guides us is by bringing us to the sacraments. A shepherd leads his sheep to food, water, and shelter, and nourishes and heals his sheep when they need medicine of any sort. Jesus works similarly with us. He brings us to life-giving water in Baptism, feeds us with his body, the Eucharist, brings us into the shelter of the life of the Church, and offers us healing through Penance and Anointing. 

The sacraments can be seen in the different imagery used throughout the Psalm, but because today is the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, I will focus on the first image used – water. In verses two and three of the Psalm, we pray, “He leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.” One may interpret this in many ways regarding the various comforts that God gives to his faithful people in this life – the consolations in the soul during prayer, good people he places in our lives to be refreshing streams, good books, good scenes in nature, actual cool springs of water when we find ourselves thirsty, etc. – God refreshes us because of his goodness and even brings us a solace of his presence while we are suffering, or, at the very least, a recognition that we are not alone whether we feel it or not.

One way to interpret these verses that we find in the tradition and which is arguably the best interpretation in terms of its messianic fulfillment, is that the Good Shepherd leads us beside the restoring waters of Baptism. This interpretation is the one used by St. Augustine in his very short commentary on this Psalm. St. Augustine notes, “He has nurtured me beside regenerating water: this means that he nurtured me beside the water of baptism, where those who have lost their soundness and strength are made new” (Expositions of the Psalms, 22.1-2, translated by Maria Boulding). In the sacrament of baptism, our souls are restored to new life and filled with the life of God!

Really, as St. Augustine explains elsewhere, “God could have granted no greater gift to human beings than to cause his Word, through whom he created all things, to be their head, and to fit them to him as his members” (ibid. 85.1). It is the grace of Baptism that causes us to be joined into that body, which is the greatest gift God could give us. To be joined to the body of Christ is to share in his divine life – his relationships with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Before baptism, a human being is a child of God in the sense of being created by him and loved as such. After Baptism, however, a human being is a child of God as one adopted into the Son, the second person of the Trinity. This is a far greater sonship or daughter-ship than before. The Father looks on us and loves us as he does Jesus. That is a great gift. 

We call this grace “filiation” – from the Latin, filius, meaning “son.” We also call this gift, “divinization.” In the sense that we are drawn into the life of the Trinity, we share the divine life of God. We don’t become God himself, but he gives us a share in his divinity by adoption (see 2 Peter 1:4). Today, we celebrate the institution of this great sacrament of new life. We thank Jesus for the gift of this adoption and our ability to call out “Our Father!” Praise be Jesus Christ. Amen!

As we celebrate the Epiphany of the Lord, we always hear the account of the visit of the Magi to Jesus after His birth in Bethlehem.  Guided by the star, they sought to see the “newborn King of the Jews.” (Mt. 2:2) As they set out, they prepared for this encounter, bringing with them “gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh” (Mt 2:11) which they presented to Him when they finally reached their destination.

In a homily on this feast day, the Church Father St. Peter Chrysologus reflected on this scene, emphasizing how these gifts were an expression of the belief in what they encounter:

Today the Magi gaze in deep wonder at what they see: heaven on earth, earth in heaven, man in God, God in man, one whom the whole universe cannot contain now enclosed in a tiny body. As they look, they believe and do not question, as their symbolic gifts bear witness: incense for God, gold for a king, myrrh for one who is to die. (Sermo 160: PL 52, 620-622)

These three gifts invite us to reflect on what we bring to the Lord each time we encounter Him, as they are an expression of what we believe of Him.  The gift of gold acknowledges that Christ is a king.  He is our King, and yet there are no doubt areas of our lives where we have yet to let Him rule in us.  What aspect of our lives are we still clinging to, unwilling to let Him be in control?  As we begin this year, let us present to Him our lives, giving Him freedom to reign in us in a way like never before, a reign that takes nothing from us, but gives us the gift of peace, joy, and freedom. 

The gift of incense acknowledges that Christ is God.  As such, He is worthy of our adoration and prayerful worship.  As we begin this year, we can consider the place that prayer and worship to God have in our lives.  Are we giving Him our very best when we come to Mass, the place of worship par excellence? Do we prioritize going to Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation?  Are we mindful of how we prepare for Mass?  Are we intentional about trying to be as attentive as possible, with that full, active, conscious participation the Church asks?  Perhaps we are not where we desire to be with our worship of Him, and that is okay.  Let us ask Him for the grace to love Him more with a love that overflows into a more fruitful expression of our praise, especially at Mass.

The gift of myrrh acknowledges that Christ, while being fully God, is also fully man.  As such, He will one day die.  The myrrh is used for preparing a body after death.  As we begin this year, we might want to consider those places where we are dead or dying and in need of the new life that Jesus offers us.  I have in mind here our relationship with the Sacrament of Penance, or Confession.  When we go to confession, we present to the Lord those places in our lives which cause us pain, guilt, and shame.  We would rather not bring them to Him, but they cannot be healed and brought back to life unless we bring them to Him, whose death alone can destroy sin, and whose Resurrection promises us new life not just after we have confessed, but also for eternal life.  Perhaps this year we can make a more firm commitment to frequent the Sacrament of Penance and so experience the more abundant life that comes from experiencing His healing mercy.

As we begin this new year, let us seek to imitate the Magi in our adoration of this newborn King and offer Him the gifts of our obedience, our worship, and our desire to live anew in the life of grace He offers to us.

When a gift is given, the full and proper response of gratitude is not always automatic or quick. Depending on the quality and type of gift, it can take some time to truly appreciate the magnitude of the generosity and love that were involved in the offering. St. Thomas Aquinas even reflects on this truth when he writes about gratitude in his Summa Theologiae (this section is in II.II.106.4). To truly give thanks, one often needs to take some time after the gift is given in order to reflect and recognize just how meaningful the gift was. This time taken allows the gratitude to be full.

This weekend, we celebrate the appearance (epiphany) of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, to the magi, or the men commonly known as “the three kings.” They offer him gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh. These gifts are kingly and meaningful, and it was only after a great deal of reflection that the Christian community saw the true significance of the gifts. Practically, they may have been a huge support to Mary and Joseph as they escaped to Egypt. 

More symbolically, however, these gifts are seen as prophetic signs revealing who Jesus truly is. He appeared as an ordinary baby boy, and yet he was the Messiah and the God of Israel, the second Person of the Trinity. The Gold, therefore, signified his kingship and royalty. The Frankincense symbolizes his Divinity and his Priesthood. Finally, the Myrrh signified his future death. The darkness of that “hour” at the end of his earthly life overshadows even his beginning as an infant. 

Our understanding of a gift matures upon deeper reflection.

This weekend at Cathedral, we celebrate our Epiphany party. It is an annual chance for parishioners to come together, enjoy fellowship, and celebrate the gift of Christmas. At this point we’ve had some time to relax after the festivities, and we can look back over the past year and give thanks together. 

I look back over this past year with a good deal of happiness. In particular, I am grateful for my assignment here at the Cathedral. In the context of the Epiphany party and this reflection on gratitude, I want to express my own deep thanksgiving to God and to all of you at this parish for the gift of my time here. 

I arrived here right before July 1, 2024, after my ordination as a priest. It’s kind of hard for me to believe but it has been a year and a half now that I’ve been both a priest and a priest at the Cathedral. I’d say that’s a good amount of time for my sense of the gift of this place and God’s goodness to me here to begin to mature and deepen. I certainly am not finished, and after I leave here someday, I’ll be able to look back and truly (or at least as much as I can in this life) realize just how great a gift God gave me in sending me here. 

Truly, I can say I love the people, the priestly fraternity, the prayer, the Masses, the hospital visits, time in the office, time at SHG, weddings, funerals, and so many other gifts that God has blessed me with that I don’t have room to list here. This first assignment has been a true gift from God and is exactly where God knew I needed to be. I pray I have served you well in this time and that God continues to grow and shape me through my time here to serve well all those he will send me to in the future. I could say much more, but I hope that as you enjoy the party this weekend, or if you celebrate the Epiphany elsewhere, you look at your life with the Cathedral family with gratitude. It is a gift from God. May he bless you today and every day!