From Season to Season

Jesus went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them; and his mother kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom and age and favor before God and man.   —Luke 2:51-52 Christmas is a time for family. Whether we are spending the holidays with our biological families, religious communities and parish families, or “chosen” families of friends, Christmas is a season when we come together with those whom we love to celebrate love, especially God’s love enfleshed in the gift of his Son. This truth of Christmas was brought into sharp focus this year, as the realities of the coronavirus pandemic kept us from being with our families and those we love.  Contemporary icon of the Holy Family  by Marko Ivan Rupnik, SJ (2012) The Feast of the Holy Family, celebrated on the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, is an invitation to reflect on the lives and relationships of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and on how God’s grace is at wo...

  Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word." —Luke 1:38 The Gospels do not relate a single word spoken by Joseph, the husband of Mary. He is a silent, protecting figure standing in the shadows during the Season of Advent, coming into view only in the final days of this season of watching and waiting. And, while we do hear from Mary in the gospels of Luke and John, few of her words have come down to us.  Despite the fact that we hear so little from the parents of Jesus, we can nevertheless recognize one particular virtue that both shared: obedience.  “Obedience” isn’t a particularly popular word in our culture, including within the Church. Sadly, too many people have to come to associate obedience with some sort of blind submission. Instead, if we look at the history of the word, we see that it comes from two Latin words, ob and audire , and our English word “obedience” means to listen or to hear.  This sense of l...

In the year 1871, France was being devastated by the brutality of the Franco-Prussian War. On the night of January 17, as German forces approached the mountain village of Pontmain, two young boys, Eugéne and Joseph, were helping their faith in the family barn. Eugéne looked outside and saw an apparition of a woman in the star-studded sky smiling at him. The woman, clothed in a blue gown covered with golden stars, wore a black veil under a golden crown.    A contemporary icon of Our Lady of Pontmain As the vision continued, the villagers—including two girls, Françoise and Jeanne-Marie—gathered outside the barn while the parish priest and sisters from the parish school led the people in singing hymns and in reciting the rosary; only the children of the village were able to see the “beautiful lady.” Eventually, a banner appeared beneath the woman’s feet, on which a message appeared: “But pray, my children. God will you in time. My son allows himself to be touched.” Toward...

The shepherds went in haste to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known the message that had been told them about this child. All who heard it were amazed by what had been told them by the shepherds. And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart. —Luke 2:16-19 To honor Mary as the Theotokos , the Mother of God, is to celebrate the unique role that she has played (and continues to play) in God’s plan of salvation. Today, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, and the Octave Day of Christmas, we also recall the circumcision and naming of Jesus on the eighth day after his birth (cf. Luke 2:21). In a special way, on New Year’s Day, the Church invites us to pray for peace: “It is Our desire that, every year, this commemoration [of “The Day of Peace”] be repeated as a hope and as a promise… that Peace with its just and beneficent equilibrium may dominate the development of events to come” (Blessed ...

My newest article for Aleteia​ celebrates Our Lady of Einsiedeln, whose feast is celebrated on July 16 : "It is significant that St. Luke tells us of Mary turning to prayer in times of great change, challenge, and possibility. She was sustained by the public, liturgical prayer of her Jewish faith, but beyond that, we are also given glimpses into Mary’s faith through her openness to what God was asking of her and her moments of prayer themselves." To read the full article, click here .

It isn’t by chance that the Church celebrates World Day of the Sick on February 11 each year. Pope Saint John Paul II established this day of prayer and reflection in 1992 to encourage prayer for those who suffer from illness and for their caregivers. He himself had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease only a year before and it is very likely that his own experience contributed to his decision to create this day of prayer. In his Message for this year’s World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis reflected: Wisdom of the heart means going forth from ourselves towards our brothers and sisters. Occasionally our world forgets the special value of time spent at the bedside of the sick, since we are in such a rush; caught up as we are in the frenzy of doing, of producing, we forget to give ourselves freely, taking care of others, being responsible for others… For this reason, I would like once again to stress “the absolute priority of ‘going forth from ourselves toward our brother...

On this New Year's Day, as we celebrate the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God and the World Day of Peace , I want to share with you these wonderful words from Henri Nouwen's Behold the Beauty of the Lord : The icon of the Virgin of Vladmir has gradually become for me a strong yet gentle invitation to leave the compulsive and divisive milieu of the world, and to enter the liberating and uniting milieu of God... Her eyes look inward and outward at once. They look inward to the heart of God and outward to the heart of the world, thus revealing the unfathomable unity between the Creator and the creation. They see the eternal in the temporal, the lasting in the passing, the divine in the human. Her eyes gaze upon the infinite spaces of the heart where joy and sorrow are no longer contrasting emotions, but are transcended in spiritual unity. The meaning of Mary's gaze is further accentuated by the bright stars on her forehead and shoulders (only two are visible; one is covered...

This reflection on the Holy Family is slightly adapted for one written for the community at Seaside Community Church, UCC, in Torrance, California,  for their service on the Sunday after Christmas (the Feast of the Holy Family), December 28, 2014. Merry Christmas! There’s lots of talk about family these days. And, I don’t only mean this “holiday season” of Thanksgiving and Christmas. For years now politicians, churches, and civil rights groups have been debating how we can and should define the important realities of marriage and family. These are important conversations for all of us to be having and they have to continue. But, even with these ongoing conversations about family, Christmas brings “family” into focus in a special way. Think about how many holiday movies center on family: “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “A Christmas Story,” “The Family Stone,” “White Christmas,” and pretty much everything on the Hallmark Channel. And all of these movies celebrate some of th...

His mercy is from age to age to those who fear him. He has shown might with his arm, dispersed the arrogant of mind and heart. He has thrown down the rulers from their thrones but lifted up the lowly. - Luke 1:50-52 Our tradition has ascribed many titles to Mary. But I don’t believe there are many of us who would call the Mother of God a revolutionary. But in her Magnificat , which is re-told in today’s Gospel , we hear Mary speaking as a prophet: The One who has done great things in and for her is also changing the order of the world. The poor will be lifted up, the hungry will be fed, and the least of all the peoples will be glorified. There is no embrace of the status quo in her words. Instead, they celebrate the seismic shift that the Incarnation caused in hearts and in the world itself. John Howard Yoder , a Mennonite theologian, describes Mary’s words in this way: What it says is the language, not of sweet maidens, but of Maccabees: it speaks of dethroning the m...

When, in 1854, Blessed Pope Pius IX solemnly defined the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he was giving full voice to an ancient and venerable tradition: “The Virgin Mary, in the first moment of her conception, by a singular privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin” ( Ineffabilis Deus ).   Although it might seem out of place to interrupt the quiet, dark procession of the days of Advent with today’s joyous celebration of the Immaculate Conception, this solemnity, as Henri Nouwen has observed, embodies the promise of Advent. “In this feast,” he writes, “it seems that all the quiet beauty of Advent suddenly bursts forth into exuberance and exultation. In Mary we see all the beauty of Advent concentrated. She is one in whom the waiting of Israel is most wholly and purely manifested; she is the last of the remnant of Israel for whom God shows ...

Watch, therefore; you do not know when the Lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning. May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: “Watch!” —Mark 13:35-37 If there is one thing that can be said about the season of Advent, it is this: Advent is not Christmas. The blue-purples of vestments, hangings, and candles, the emphasis on preparation and expectation in Advent Scripture readings and carols, and the pervasive themes of judgment, restoration, and re-creation have little to do with the sights and sounds that fill shopping malls, homes, too many churches, and most hearts these days. We love Christmas and our secular culture, which really only gives a polite nod to the seasons and feast of the Christian Year, has enabled us to forget that we can really only celebrate the new-born light of Christmas after we have dwelt in the darkness of Advent. Sadly, we church types aren’t all t...

Mary calls me back to where I most want to be: to the heart of God which, as you know, is also the heart of the world. She calls me to let the passion of Jesus become my passion and his glory to become my glory. She calls me to move beyond the dos and don’ts of the morally correct life into an intimacy with God where I can live the sadness, pain, and anguish of this world while already tasting the gladness, joy, and peace of the glorified Lord. —Henri Nouwen   Several years ago, I was attending daily Mass with a community of Benedictine monks. After making the Sign of the Cross and extending the greeting, the celebrant declared, “Today we are celebrating something that never happened.” It was November 21, the Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The name for this particular feast of Mary is based on a tradition found in the Protoevangelium of James . This is an early Christian text which was circulating at the end of the second century and which be...

Icon of Mary, " Seeker of the Lost " "Mary experienced uncertainty and insecurity when she said yes to the angel. She knew what oppression was when she didn't find a hospitable place to give birth to Jesus. She knew the sufferings of the mothers whose their children being thrown in the air and pierced by bayonets; she lived as a refugee in a strange land with a strange language and strange customs; she knew what it means to have a child who does not follow the regular ways of life but creates turmoil wherever he goes; she felt the loneliness of the widow and the agony of seeing her only son being executed. Indeed, Mary is the woman who stands next to all the poor, oppressed, and lonely women of our time. And when she continues to speak to people it is the simple and the poor to whom she appears: Juan Diego , the simple old Mexican Indian of Guadalupe; Bernadette , the poor sickly girl in Lourdes; Lucia, Jacinta, and Francesco [ sic ], the unspectacular children o...