Today, the Church celebrates the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord and She gives us two scenes in our readings that clearly belong together. First, in this passage from Isaiah, God is speaking about His servant, someone who isn’t a political figure or some brutal conqueror. Instead, the servant the Prophet mentions is one…
Today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family and it invites us to look at the home of Nazareth, to look at the lives of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph and to see it not as something distant or idealized, but as a real family. They were real people, living ordinary life but with extraordinary…
The story of the birth of Jesus, of God becoming man, is a story of redemption and salvation. But it is also something more than that. It’s the story of God stepping directly into the brokenness of our world. It’s God choosing vulnerability, entering fully into the human condition, so that He can lead us…
Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, our Gospel gives us two very different responses to the birth of Jesus, to the revelation of the Christ Child. On the one hand, we have the Magi; on the other, King Herod. Both heard the news of a newborn King, but their reactions couldn’t be…
As we heard at the beginning of our liturgy this evening/morning, today we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family, a day when we look to the family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as a model for our own families. But we also look to them to be the model for our parish, especially as…
This morning, the world wakes up to the best news: Jesus Christ is born! The long-anticipated promise of salvation has been fulfilled. Heaven has come down to earth, and the Word of God has been made flesh. That’s the essence of Christmas. We’re being invited to think about not the noisy celebrations of the world,…
Growing up, so many of my favorite television shows focused on the family unit. Shows like Family Matters, Full House, Home Improvement, 7th Heaven. I even would watch reruns of those classic television shows like The Andy Griffith Show, The Brady Bunch, and Leave it to Beaver. Why was I – and likely why were…
The story of Christmas, that beautiful story from 2000 years ago. It is so familiar to all of us. It is the story of God becoming man, stepping down from His throne in Heaven, stepping into the reality of humanity, choosing to make His dwelling among us. It is the story of God working for…
Homily for the Saturday before Epiphany Tomorrow, we will celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, the revelation that the child born in Bethlehem is indeed the Promised One, He is indeed the Messiah. As we look at the crèche this morning, we see the Wise Men, the Magi who have come from the East bringing…
Homily for the Friday before Epiphany Those of you who follow along with the readings for Mass see that we had a couple of options for our Gospel this morning. I decided on the option from Matthew, it happens to be Matthew’s account of the Baptism of the Lord, a feast we will celebrate on…
Fr. Tom Pringle 