Author: Simon Sleeman

Fr. Simon Sleeman.  They say, writing a sermon is like building a chicken coop in a high wind – you grab any flying board and nail it down… quick. This week I grabbed a few boards.

The first – from Mass last Sunday – where we prayed that, “our lives would joyfully bear fruit”. That was the last prayer we said before leaving the church.  Our lives bearing fruit – joyfully. I wondered at that  – still bearing fruit when we are old, still full of sap still green. A possibility.

The prophet Jeremiah, the second board, told me how I might do that – live fruitfully, joyfully but also how I might fail.Jeremiah was a big man, he centres an epoch – that big – he was outspoken, fearless – poor, he mourned (he was the weeping prophet) he was hated, a walking beatitude, he never flinched from setting the human agenda – a life well lived, bearing fruit.

‘Cursed are those’ he barks,  ‘who trust in humans’, who think they can make it on their own – gratifying their every desire.This cursing wasn’t mere profanity – cursing the car that won’t start or the person who cut in front of you – cursing was noble, religious, powered speech. The cursed…rootless, tumbleweed in the desert, blown around by every whim or breeze, fad or fashion. Fruitless.

A few years, wandering on our own, blown about in the desert, a few years of affluence and abundance – anxiety flares, depression soars, suicides…rootless, joyless, fruitless..Rootless… I accumulate – just one click, just one clip, just one sip  – another…. pair of shoes, another book – so much paraphernalia needed to anchor me. The serpent cursed, crawling on its belly.

Jeremiah  mellows and says… aloud … ‘Blessed’ are those who trust in God – again blessing, like cursing, wasn’t just some form of gentle encouragement – the blessed, were strong trees, deep rooted – fruit bearing.

Jeremiah rings out in our ears this morning and Jesus too, telling us, we can climb out of the ocean of self, onto dry ground, put down roots and bear fruit.   

‘Don’t wander off’  they plead, opting to live in the ocean of self, worshipping the idols your culture wants you to do, nay, needs you to do. If you do,  you will soon fatigue and need artificial aids to keep afloat- pieces of drift wood, life jackets.

Can we still ourselves and hear their urgent, now seemingly long distance call, amidst the noise, the bustle, the news. As we count and compile – our spirits shrivel – Jeremiah calls, cries, clamours –  turn, repent. Turn to the truth. Trust in God, that is the truth.

There is more than the our survival at risk here; the survival of our planet is at stake, the world hanging by a thread, for the ‘cursed’ endanger the world’s health and its sanity.

So rootage is what I am after – rootage as I pray, rootage as I work, shop, change a tyre, rootage as I get sick, have surgery and convalesce, rootage as I accumulate birthdays and anniversaries. God the great continent of reality in which I live and to whom I must answer.  It is with God we must deal if we are to become human, living fruitful joy-filled lives.

Rooted in God, in Christ, I rise from the dead – Rooted in Christ, ‘I put down roots and I put out leaves’. Amen

Fr. Luke MacNamara. Today we commemorate St Brigid, one of Ireland’s three principal patrons. Here in Munster, our St Ita, is often called the Brigid of Munster, which is an invitation to compare these two women. 

Brigid came from Faughan in Louth and founded a monastery, at Kildare. Ita came from Waterford and founded her monastery at Killeedy. When the King of Leinster refused to give Brigid land for her monastery, she asked for as much as her cloak would cover, and the king agreed. When Brigid lay down the cloak 4 sisters each took a corner and ran, with the cloak extending in every direction to cover all of Leinster. The king then agreed to give her the best land in Kildare. Somewhat differently, the King of Munster offered Ita all the best land in Limerick but she would only accept four acres by a small river at Kileedy.

The prayer of both Brigid and Ita was profoundly Trinitarian. They repeatedly invoked the Trinity in their daily prayers and especially when difficult situations arose. The prayer of St Paul in the letter to the Ephesians, they would have made their own: 

“This is what I pray, kneeling before the Father: May the Father give you the power through his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on love, until, knowing the love of Christ, you are filled with the utter fullness of God.” 

The life of both women is drawn into the mutual love of the Trinity. The knowledge and daily experience of God’s love is the bedrock of their vocation. Strengthened by that love they become like Christ, and devote their whole lives in prayer to the Father and service to many. Their biographies contain tales of mysterious fires which attest to the presence of the Spirit in their monastic life and service.

Both exhibited the generous and selfless love of which Jesus speaks in the sermon on the plain. They showed greatest generosity to those unable to repay them, the destitute, the poor and those on the margins of Gaelic society. Brigid gave away her mother’s butter, her family’s property, her father’s sword and Ita’s monastery fed the neighbouring people in times of famine. 

Both embodied the compassion of the heavenly Father. Both had sisters who failed in their vows of chastity and yet they pardoned and readmitted them even at the risk of scandal. They both embodied the command of Jesus, “Be merciful as the Father is merciful”.

Much is made today of the prominence of Brigid, her authority as Abbess, the reach of her influence. What is most remembered in the lives of both Brigid and Ita is how, at personal risk and cost, they fearlessly exercised the Lord’s commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you”. Power and influence decline and fall. True selfless love endures forever. These two women, one who we commemorate today and Ita who we commemorated only 2 weeks ago, are models of this selfless and fearless love that knows no cost and that is nourished through a life of Trinitarian prayer. This is their truest and enduring legacy to us. May these brave mothers of the Gael inspire us to love and to pray, and may they also intercede and watch over us and all the new Irish who come to live among us.

Fr. Lino Moreira According to the Law of Moses, if a woman gave birth to a child she became unclean on account of her bleeding. If the child was a boy she was excluded from taking part in worship for forty days (cf. Lv 12:1-4), at the end of which sacrifices of atonement had to be offered (cf. Lv 12:6-7). Saint Luke relates that for her purification after the birth of Jesus, Mary availed herself of a concession made to the poor and offered only ‘a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons’ (Lk 2:24, cf. Lv 12:8). 

The evangelist also quotes another law namely: ‘Every firstborn male shall be designated holy to the Lord’ (Lk 2:23, cf. Ex 13:2). But, surprisingly, instead of mentioning that Mary and Joseph paid the prescribed five shekels for the redemption of their firstborn (cf. Nb 3:46-48; 18:15-16) he writes: they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (Lk 2:22). This means that, in the temple at Jerusalem, the place where God met his people, Jesus was offered to his heavenly Father. He was not redeemed and restored to his earthly parents, but rather he was completely given over to God, to whom he unreservedly belonged. And in this way, the oracle of the prophet Malachi was fulfilled: ‘Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come’ (Ml 3:1).

When Jesus – the Lord Christ (cf. Lk 2:26) – entered the temple for the first time, he was greeted by Simeon and Anna as representatives of faithful Israel. Filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, Simeon praised God, saying: ‘Now, Lord, you are letting your servant go in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples; a light of revelation for the gentiles and glory for your people Israel’ (Lk 2:29-32). 

In these verses, sung daily by the Church at night prayer, Jesus is identified with the mysterious figure of the Suffering Servant, whom the prophet Isaiah calls a light to the nations (cf. Is 42:6; 49:6). Indeed, the son of Mary and Joseph was chosen from all eternity to bring the light of God to the Gentiles and to fulfil the promise that the Lord had made to his chosen people in the days of their exile: ‘I will grant salvation to Zion, to Israel my glory’ (Is 46:13). But in order to carry out his universal mission as God’s Servant, and gather Jews and Gentiles alike into a single people of descendants of Abraham by faith, Jesus had to be made perfect through suffering (cf. Hb 2:10) and offer his own life on the cross as a sacrifice of atonement for sins (cf. Hb 2:17; Is 53:10).

Simeon did not elaborate on this last point, but he hinted at the reality of the cross when he said to Mary, the mother of Jesus: ‘This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too’ (Lk 2:34-35).

All through his earthly life Jesus had to face the antagonism of those who did not recognise him as the Messiah. Such relentless opposition culminated in his death on the cross, whereby he became the clearest sign of God’s love for the entire creation. That sign can never be blotted out or destroyed, but it will continue to be opposed, contradicted and even despised throughout the centuries. The light of God’s love shining from the cross is so radically at odds with human self-love that many perceive it as the greatest obstacle to their happiness and prosperity. And yet it is only by looking at the cross of Christ that we can uncover the mysteries of God’s wisdom, and that we can learn to imitate God’s love for the work of his hands. We were created in God’s image and likeness, and we can only be truly ourselves and live to the full if we become love as God is love (cf. 1 Jn 4:16).

Fr. John O’Callaghan.Today’s Mass started with a procession – and pride of place was given to the Gospel book. Encased in silver, it was reverently carried high up and placed on the altar and, later, it was brought to this ambo, honoured with candles and incense. We stood for it and the choir sang alleluia. After its proclamation we acknowledged it as Gospel, the Good News of the Lord, saying “Thanks be to God!”. This speaks volumns!  We recognise Jesus’s word being communicated to us; and as Jesus came from God we understand God has communicated with us. And similarly, after each of the preceding two readings, the reader announced it as “The Word of the Lord” and we acknowledged this with “Thanks be to God!”.  We acknowledge that God reveals himself through through human speech. God breaks the silence and reveals himself in many ways, through the marvels of nature, through marvellous people, but he also reveals Himself through the medium of words. This is the theme of today’s readings. 

In the first one we heard the priest Ezra reading the Law of Moses to people assembled in Jerusalem.  He was reading the Ten Commandments given on Mount Sinai. That was an exceptional  and foundational moment of communication between God and the human race. It is said that God even wrote out the Commandments. It could not have been expressed in a clearer and more profound way that God really did enter into communication with us and taught us how to live. We don’t have to believe that the words were actually chisseled out on stone tablets by God; that was a manner of speaking; it is most likely a simple metaphor but we do believe God to be their ultimate source and that he revealed his teaching through Moses. 

This is actually a very important point about biblical literature and it distinguishes Catholics from, for example, fundamentalists: what we read in the Bible must be interpreted in the same spirit in which it was written. The account of creation, for instance, as happening over six days does not mean that the universe just popped up, after six times twenty-four hours! The serpent in the Garden of Eden did not actually speak to Eve in Hebrew, and nor are we being asked to believe that God got hold of a hammer and chisel. We recognise poetic language can communicate deeper truths than words taken literally. The word of God uses many literary genres, and it doesn’t come flowing unalloyed, like water through a pipe, from the mouth of God, as some people say; no, it comes mediated by human beings! That is what makes interpreting scripture hard: the truth in it is not always easily recognizable. 

Today’s gospel is also an instance of God communicating with us and we heard a very telling example. Jesus is in the synagogue; he unrolls the scroll of Isaiah and finds the passage which is widely recognised as the summit and quintessence of the prophetic tradition and he applies it to himself, saying: “This text is being fulfilled today, even as you listen”. Jesus is saying that he himself is the one to ‘give freedom to captives and make the blind see’. He did that, in a literal sense to many people, sick in mind or body, but he also did it on a far deeper level for us all. He destroyed the finality of death and opened the way to eternal life, when he rose from the dead. It is in this way that Jesus fulfilled the scriptures, on a deeper level. The whole Bible can be read and interpreted from this perspective and thereby gives convincing testimony to Christ as fulfilment of the scriptures and traditions of Israel, so that we may believe intelligently. 

The word of God is not just understood, as the Jewish scribes saw it, as a guide for living but as a truth test, an authenticity test for Jesus as Messiah and coming from God. God revealed Himself progressively through his words, spoken by Moses and the prophets. These words culminated in the incarnation, the coming into the world, of God’s own self, most appropriatly known as ‘the Word of God’. “The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.” Jesus Christ the man is God’s greatest self-expression. It is through him that we can get to know better than ever the truth about God.  

When dealing with such heady matters it is reassuring to know that our own interpretations of the word of God are subject to correction. We are part of a church community where, as the Second Letter of Peter says: “the interpretation of scriptural prophecy is never a matter for the individual. For no prophecy ever came from human initiative. When people spoke for God it was the Holy Spirit that moved them.”  May our listening to the word of the Lord brings us, slowly but surely, to a greater knowledge and love of God!

Fr. Simon Sleeman. John loved weddings – early in his gospel we have the wedding in Cana and in his last book, the Book of Revelation, he ends talking about the ‘marriage of the lamb.’ There are eighty eight weddings in the bible if you include Adam and Eve.

Today, John gives us a report on the wedding in Cana of Galilee – tells us that Jesus was there with his Mother and a few friends, no sign of Joseph. And he tells us they ran out of wine. Jesus, after some persuasion by his Mother, turns six stone jars of water into the finest wine  – the guests were none the wiser – but Mary, Jesus and the servants knew. No fanfare, no three cheers for the wine maker. Just a line saying – this was Jesus’ first sign, revealing his glory.

I find this account a bit thin – it has none of the details I want.      

Compare to this to the Examiner’s, ‘Wedding of the Week’, on a Saturday. “There was a wedding in Killorglin, Co.Kerry.  Kathleen with a K and Kevin were the bride and groom. The bride looked super elegant in a ‘Prea James’ dress and the groom was stylish, thanks to Massimo menswear. Paradise Flowers created the floral arrangements. The Jugglers, arrived from Galway and set the toes tapping. …The bride said, ‘Our wedding was like something out of a movie, the weather was amazing. The ceremony was very emotional and both mothers were in tears and the wine flowed.”

Now that’s more like it! We get the scene…no shortage of wine here and mothers in tears…

If you were assigned to cover that wedding in Cana and came back with John’s report, I can imagine the editor saying, ‘listen, I have work to do, a paper to produce, people to see. Get real. Give me a report I CAN PUBLISH, that PEOPLE WILL READ.’

And yet John’s version has lasted 2000 years….why? what was John up to? …can we mine some meaning from his report?

You could look it as an interlude between the heady opening to his gospel and the unsavoury business of cleansing the Temple. I don’t think it was a filler.

He was/is trying tell us a truth; something that has existed since the beginning, that we have heard and we have seen, that we have touched with our hands, the Word who is life…but telling it slant – in a miracle – the quiet operations of grace – in the background – in an abundance of wine.

Isaiah, the prophet, told people to watch out for an abundance of wine. It would be a sure sign the Messiah had come..

Grace, miracles, God in action – we are not used to this …we are not used to living by invisibles. ‘Listen, I am busy’ …the editor comes back at you, ‘I have a deadline to meet, photographers to see….I don’t need this. I’ll settle for water. For being my own god. The snake promised I could do it’ – ‘you will be like God’ (Gen 3:5).

The editor didn’t want miracles – we don’t want miracles – they disturb us – they break open the reality we thought we understood, give us a glimpse of the ‘more’ of life – THE WORD –  they disrupt routine, break through the superficial – the dress, the hats, the flowers. We are not in control of things…sometimes it takes a miracle to get in behind – and crush the grapes.

So there is something more. And loads of it…more wine than you could drink…the larger world of God – the world of grace – glimpsed –  a world where the priority is not to get the facts but to obey – follow him. It is hard to believe there is someone greater than me here – even if he can turn water into wine or wine into blood.

Life is probably easier for the editor, go it alone – live in a small, controlled, miracle-less world…where you are god.

For us, who were neither in Cana or Killorglin but are here, in Murroe, this morning, not expecting miracles, the invitation stands… to open ourselves – just a crack – to the quiet operations of grace.

The invitation stands …to fill, maybe, just one stone jar with whatever needs changing in my life – pain, sadness, sin …and ask humbly …that it be changed.

The invitation stands to become the finest of wine – holy and divine…  The key – ‘do whatever he tells you’…

Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman. Today is the feast day of the Baptism of the Lord. What is happening here that is of interest to us? We know relatively little about Jesus Christ until he reaches the age of thirty. The angels, the manger, the straw, the magi, the star, the shepherds, the ox and the ass, these are all images which later generations plastered on the bare walls of fact. We know that he was born in Bethlehem, which still exists and which is now a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of Palestine, located about six miles south of Jerusalem; and at a particular time, in human history, ‘the time of Caesar Augustus, to be precise, when Herod was king of Judea.’ These are verifiable facts. At some point in his life, probably during his adolescence, the Gospel suggests at the age of Twelve, this remarkable human person, this boy similar to ourselves, at about the same age as many of you sitting listening to me at this moment; this person, who had been brought up as a Jew, who had his relationship with God filtered through the normal channels of Temple worship, yearly feasts and traditional prayers, experienced a traumatic transformation, a psychic upheaval.  He became aware that his relationship with God was different from anything that had ever been experienced by any other person who ever existed on this planet. 

Something strange had happened when he was twelve years old. He was in Jerusalem with his parents and a whole load of other people who had travelled there, as they did every year for the Festival of Passover. When the whole group, including his parents, left the city to travel home, He somehow knew that he had to stay behind without telling any of them. Three days later after agonising worries about his safety, they found him in the Temple arguing with theologians and experts about the God question. 

Today we are focusing on a later moment in his career. He is out in the desert beside the river Jordan. His cousin, John, is baptising people in acrowd. Suddenly he knows that he must be baptised also. When he goes into the water, something happens to him and something happens to the river. 

He comes up out of the water and he knows that he is the Son of God. This is no longer a hazy intuition, it is a certain conviction. He hears a voice from heaven saying: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’  

In a few moments from now, during this Mass, one of you will bring a flagon of wine to the altar. One drop of water will be poured into the chalice as these words are said: ‘By the mystery of this water and this wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.’

My dear friends: we are that drop of water, we are the Jordan  river; we are invited to share the same light-bulb moment that Jesus Christ experienced as he came up out of the water. 

One of these mornings
You’re going to wake up singing
going to spread your wings
And  take to the sky

That’s the kind of feeling when the message sinks in: You are being asked to hear these same words we have just had read in the Gospel passage addressed to you personally this morning: ‘you are my beloved, you are the one and only; and I am with you for ever more.’ 

If you are still looking for a New Year resolution: make it to find the switch to that light bulb and turn it on. No one else can do it for you, that is the meaning of free will. It should change your life and it should  make the year 2025 the most significant and the most creative you have yet to live.

Fr. Luke McNamara.  Most of what happens in life we don’t notice. Even if we do notice, the significance of what happens mostly passes us by. Today’s celebration of the Epiphany allows us to look again at the birth of Jesus, and what it signifies for us.

The Epiphany, which celebrates the manifestation of Jesus to the world over 2,000 years ago, is not a historic celebration. The antiphons that we sing repeat the word hodie or “today”. The manifestation of Jesus to the world is happening here and now in 2025. We don’t have to wait until the final coming of Jesus or even until the next visit of a new star or comet.

To avoid missing out on discovering Jesus and the love that he brings, today we have the opportunity to follow the Magi. Tradition says that they are 3 wise kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, and that they are from three different continents, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Gospel is silent on all this. For the early Irish monks, the Magi were a large group of ordinary people, men and women, young and old, who travelled to see Jesus. Our ancestors understood that everyone has the possibility of going to see Jesus.

The Magi look for signs of Jesus’ coming – the star in the sky. They go on a long journey. They find at Bethlehem an ordinary sight, an infant with his mother. Yet, by observing the natural world (the star), by being attentive to those around them (the people of Jerusalem) and to the word of the Lord (the prophecy of Micah), they recognise the Saviour in their midst, as shown by the gifts they bring and by their worship. They are the first in a long line of disciples who come and worship Jesus.

They bring gifts of gold signifying his royal status, frankincense his priestly role and myrrh for his burial. The gifts, especially the myrrh point to the extent of Jesus’ love for us. Jesus will give his life for us that we might live. The Magi recognise the extent of Jesus’ love, as shown by their gifts and their worship.

We all need the power of God’s love in our lives. The question of the Magi, where is the newborn king of the Jews becomes our question. The search of the Magi becomes our search. The presenting of gifts and worship of the Magi becomes our worship, even at this very Mass. The transformation of the Magi who walk the earth in a new way, is also ours as we are sent forth from this Mass renewed with the gift of God’s love manifested to us in Jesus.

I conclude with a traditional Irish prayer for this time of year: 

A Íosa naofa, a Chara caomh, 

A Réalt na maidine, A Ghrian álainn an lánlae, 

A Bhreo ghil na bhfíréan agus na firinne, 

A Thobar bithnua, tabhair dúinn do ghrá.

Holy Jesus, gentle friend, 

Star of the morning, glorious sun of the noonday, 

Bright light of believers and of truth,

Well of everlasting life, grant us your love.

Fr. Fintan Lyons. This morning shortly after 9, the great double door of St Paul’s Basilica in Rome, was pushed open by the Archpriest of the Basilica, Cardinal Harvey, in the last of the symbolic acts initiating the Holy Year 2025. The Holy Year tradition is based on an Old Testament practice described in the book of  Leviticus 25:10: ‘Thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee’. In the Old Testament it was realised that things could come to a breaking point in people’s lives and God in his mercy would intervene. 

The year of jubilee was revived in 1300, and in the course of the centuries the interval was changed to 25 years. In 1300, as now, the Jubilee began with the opening of the door of St Peter’s so that pilgrims could come seeking the mercy of God, it was an era when human misery was seen as the result of universal sinfulness, and hope for the future was grounded in being freed from sin. In addition to the spiritual benefits, the hardships involved in many pilgrimages can have a transformative effect on a pilgrim’s lifestyle. 

Besides Rome, there are many other places of pilgrimage and Ireland has its quota; Jerusalem would be the ideal destination but for many centuries it has been accessible only on an individual basis and the holy places are not accessible at all at present.. 

There is a special significance about today’s ceremony at St Paul’s, because Pope Francis, in the document inaugurating the year, quoted extensively from St Paul – his Letter to the Romans – and used four words from it as the theme for the year: ‘Hope does not disappoint.’  

Overall, this Jubilee year, is meant to encourage us at a time when everywhere, you can say, there is foreboding about what the year holds in store. In the Old Testament the nature of the jubilee was legislated for, it brought remission of debts, the liberation of prisoners. 

Today the pope can only make an appeal regarding prisoners in the world’s overcrowded jails or countries sunk under the weight of debt:

I propose that in this Jubilee Year governments undertake initiatives aimed at restoring hope; forms of amnesty or pardon meant to help individuals regain confidence in themselves and in society; and programmes of reintegration in the community. 

Pope Francis actually and very symbolically pushed open the door of one of Rome’s prisons the day after Christmas.   

How does this opening of the door touch the lives of all of us? For some, life can be experienced as a door closed against fulfilment – the way forward in a career blocked, a relationship aspired to denied, being held in the grip of addiction. Pope Francis acknowledges this when he says: ‘uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt.’

Is it really helpful then, to continue the quotation from St Paul, ‘Hope does not disappoint’ to its conclusion – ‘the love of God has been poured into our hearts’, because today many have no sense of this inpouring of God’s love?  Or if the passage in the second reading doesn’t seem to apply: ‘God chose us to belong to Christ before the world was created.’

But in fact, there is hope for all, though many today may not experience the power of the traditional Irish conviction: Is giorra cabhair Dé ná an doras. Instead of our having to knock we have only to open, because in the Book of Revelation Jesus says: ‘I am standing at the door, knocking. If anyone hears me calling and opens the door, I will come in and share a meal with them’. In the gospels this is what Jesus actually did, with the marginalised of society.

The initiative has always come from God, it is for us to open the door of our hearts. The door of the church here is open, encouraging all to enter and open our hearts to an encounter with God’s grace – of forgiveness, of healing, of encouragement, of faith itself, whatever our need is.

Fr. Jarek Kurek  It is rather perplexing that on the feast of the holy family of Mary, Joseph and Jesus we get a picture of their family that is far from perfection. It seems rather like an experience of any of our own families. Jesus leaves his parents, which leads them actually to a desperate search. Jesus who should be a model of human behaviour for us comes across as seemingly unkind, or inconsiderate to put it differently.

Not without reason then Mary asks her son ‘Child, why have you treated us like this?’ 

And Jesus gives her this bewildering response ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’

He leaves his human family to be with his Father, Jesus leaves Mary and Joseph to stay in his heavenly Father’s house. An important step towards manhood, towards his spiritual maturity takes place. And yet, having asserted his independence, Jesus returns obediently to his parents. 

Now this desire to be and stay with the Father is in us also, I believe, perhaps not as clear and compelling as in the twelve-year-old Jesus. We want to be in our Father’s house, but maybe we are not as determined to step out of our human family, and the human conditions we live in. There may be a feeling in us that we are stuck there, we are not moving on…

But… think of what happened in your life four days ago. On the day of Christmas all of us here renewed this very important desire to be with the Father, the Father of Jesus and our Father. It happened in a very solemn way when we reverently knelt at those powerful words of the Creed, while speaking of Jesus: ‘who for us, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, and was made man’. 

Something of a tremendous importance took place. On that day once again we were given power by God to become his children. A good reminder that what we perform here is not in vain, it has its far-reaching and wonderful consequences.

That’s how the desire that was in Jesus at the time is aroused also in us, with Jesus we want to stay in his and our Father’s house a little longer, maybe we’ll do so after this celebration of Mass? 

Jesus was also happy to please the Father and to do what he commands. And what is God’s commandment for us today so we can please our Father too? Something we apparently heard so many times before: ‘love one another’. But today, if we truly recognise that Jesus’ story is in fact ours, step by step we may be able to uncover a deeper meaning of that commandment. Slowly but surely, we’ll realise that the story of Jesus’s family is ours and that it is in the God’s house that we can learn the best lessons about love and family.

And my last thought, or rather a sort of wishes for you gathered here and for those who join us through the webcam: today, when we say Our Father together as one family during this Mass, may it have a different, somewhat renewed, and hopefully deeper sense for all of us. 

May everyone find their own way, in the depth of their heart, to address him truly as My Father.