![]() As the wise men in today’s gospel did, you too can continue to follow your faith throughout this year. A chance to discover new things and make our own revelations. And myrrh, a perfume used for embalming, which symbolized that Christ would one day die for our sins.Īs we start a new calendar year, it’s a time of rejuvenation for many of us. ![]() Frankincense, which was often used in worship, and symbolized the holiness of Jesus. They brought gifts that symbolized their revelation of his divinity: gold, which associated Jesus as a king. They embarked on a journey of faith, following the star of Bethlehem until they reached the manger where Jesus laid. Today’s gospel illustrates this revelation through the story of the three wise men who traveled to visit Jesus following his birth. In celebrating the Epiphany of the Lord, we celebrate the revelation that Jesus was born as the Son of God. Today, on the twelfth day of Christmas, we conclude this wonderful time of year by celebrating the Feast of the Epiphany. In the Church, the Christmas season actually begins the day after Christmas and ends 12 days later. But not everybody is familiar with the real 12 days of Christmas. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky.Many of you have probably heard the song “The 12 Days of Christmas.” It’s a true classic. Jim Wayne is a board member of the Passionist Solidarity Network (PSN), and author of The Unfinished Man. It might be you need to forgive yourself. It might be someone who still sticks in your craw. In your quiet moment of prayer today, when you shut out the noise of this sinful world and are alone and stilled in God, you might ask who you need to forgive. When we forgive one another, we commit the greatest act of love possible, laying the foundation for unity and tenderness among us. ![]() Our God, not the gods mentioned in today’s psalm, forgives and wipes out sin in and through the faith community. Our self-destroying way of living is scorching the planet, our common home.Īnd in every corner of this home people lack housing, healthcare, friendships, and love.Ĭan our God, the Lamb of God, really take away these sins? Recently we spent millions to try to rescue five billionaire deep-sea tourists while over 500 impoverished refugees drowned off the coast of Greece from indifference.Ī live-for-the-moment mentality reigns as we all ceaselessly spew greenhouse gases into our fragile atmosphere causing sea levels to rise, animal and plant species to become extinct, rivers to flood or dry up, hurricanes and tornadoes to kill and destroy whole communities. The threat of total destruction of humanity by nuclear weapons is a daily reality, a reality we reflexively dismiss due to it being unthinkable.Ĭorruption, greed, and apathy have created a canyon between the few rich and masses of poor. Violence rages in Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, and the streets, homes, schools, and stores in America where human beings, made in the image of God, are being slaughtered by other human beings. I have to shake my mind a bit to realize what we mean, for instance, by the Lamb of God taking away the “sins of the world.” That’s a powerful statement about an all-powerful God because the sins of our world are immense. The word sin is woven throughout our liturgy, from the opening penitential rite to the Lamb of God plea, repeated three times prior to receiving Communion. I find it so easy, especially at Mass, to gloss over the concept of sin. This presupposes the faith community, for whom the gospel of Matthew was written, forgave the sins of one another. The most important lesson is the last line: “When the crowds saw this they were struck with awe and glorified God who had given such authority to human beings.” The last word is plural, not singular. This story’s lesson is not so much that Jesus, the man-God, can forgive sins. “Who do you think you are, acting like God,” we might hear them shout in protest. The righteous scribes immediately gasped at the overstep by Jesus. In today’s Gospel, something happened that had never occurred before: a man forgave all the wrong doings of a paralytic. ![]() “I’ll forgive, but I’ll never forget.” How many times do we hear this from people who are hurt, insulted, traumatized, victimized, or violently injured by another? ![]()
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