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John the Baptist came one day to the Jordan River to begin his ministry of preaching and baptizing. His message was very simple: ”God is about to do something big. Don’t be caught unprepared. Turn from your sins and be baptized”.

There was also something simple about John. People came from all over to hear what he had to say. Soon some people began to wonder. Could this unusual man be the promised Messiah? John answered them: ”One mightier than I, is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.”

John, of course, spoke about Jesus. “I have baptized you with water….He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

John’s point was that his baptism with water was only a baptism of repentance. It was only a “sign” that people who stepped into the river to be baptized by him repented their sins of their past. They wanted to have them washed away and begin new lives.

Jesus’ baptism with Spirit, on the other hand, would be something different. It would be a baptism of rebirth. It would communicate to people the new life they were seeking.

My Dear Sisters and Brothers

The Solemnity of the Baptism of our Lord also speaks to our own baptism. We are baptized into this same Jesus Christ. We become one with Him after our sacrament of Baptism. We are one with the Lord and yet we do not always choose to live from that unity with Him. Today’s solemnity can remind us that we have a power: the grace to live in the Lord if we are baptized.

There are two aspects of living in Christ: dying to ourselves and living in Him. These aspects cannot be separated except in our thinking. As we die to all that is darkness, sin, and brokenness within us, we come to new life in Him.
We are invited today to live our baptism. We are invited today to wonder at the Lord’s baptism. Jesus is baptized unto death. Jesus dies so that we might live. Jesus rises and changes the whole earth.

Let us rejoice in Him.

On this feast Epiphany of the Lord we remember the Magi, Three Kings; they arrived to the Bethlehem to see new King of the Jews. The Magi came to the house where Jesus was with Mary, bowed down and worshipped Him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold and of incense and myrrh. Next they went back to their homes to reveal what they had seen.

We can imagine what might have motivated these Kings to leave their homes and countries to follow the star.
In today’s Gospel we see that Herod has an entirely different motivation. He is greatly troubled by news of the child and feels his position may be in danger. Rather than wanting to reveal the Lord’s presence he would like to get rid of it. He pretended to the magi that he also wanted to pay homage. Fortunately the magi heard the message of danger and returned to their homes and country by another route.

My dear Brothers and Sisters

When we leave Church on Sundays we are called to go home and “make known” what we have heard, seen and received. We are to reveal the very presence of God to our family members. When we leave our houses, we are to take the presence of the Lord with us and be reflections of God to our co-workers, friends and all we meet through the week. We mark our doorways this weekend to help us remember that.

The traditional names of the Magi or Kings were Balthazar, Melchior and Kaspar. We mark above our doorways: K + M + B + 2009 to remind us that in this year of 2009 we are called to reveal the Lords presence as the Magi did two thousand years ago. We can gather as a family and tell the story of Epiphany. We can ask God in our own words to bless us and our families, to remind us that our house is also God’s house, and that when we leave we take God’s presence with us. When people come to visit, they can expect to experience God’s love within our homes as well.

This week we can gather to bless our homes. We can also look at our prejudices and help one another to take another look at the brothers and sisters God calls to be co-heirs and members of the same body. We can strive to make know the presence of the Lord by the way we live our lives. Have a good week!

Welcome my brothers and sisters in Christ to today’s celebration of the Holy Mass on the last Sunday of the year. This last Sunday of the year 2008, we celebrate the Solemnity of Humble Shepherds.

During today’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, we heard the words of the shepherds who said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”

How many times have we Catholics repeated similar words? How many times have we said, “Let us go to the Church to hear the Word of God which has been made known to us.”

As the shepherds went to Bethlehem to adore Jesus in His physical body, you faithful believers come to Church to adore Jesus Who is physically present in the Sacred Tabernacle.

Your acts of adoration are a continuation of the footsteps of the shepherds. Your children shall continue in these footsteps. And so will their children and their grand-children, etc… all for the glory of God.

When the shepherds returned, they glorified and praised God for all they had heard and seen, as it has been told them. They glorified and praised God for the fulfillment of the promises of the Old Testament, believing that through Jesus, the promised Messiah had finally arrived.

We so have much to glorify and praise God for. We praise and glorify God because we now know beyond any doubt that Jesus was the Messiah. He fulfilled the hundreds of Old Testament prophecies that were made regarding His coming. He died for us. On the third day, He resurrected. He sent His Spirit to teach and guide us. He instituted the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church for our spiritual well-being. He gave us the Sacraments to feed our spiritual lives and to maintain our righteousness.

What the shepherds faithfully hoped for, looking back in time, we now know that their hopes have been fulfilled.

As we continue with the celebration of the Holy Mass, let us be thankful to God for having revealed His many mysteries to us, the example of the Mother of God, His incarnation through Jesus, the wealth of spiritual blessings that are found in the Holy Church and the endless blessings that we received throughout our lives, some that we have seen, others that passed us without notice.

Let us always be thankful to the Lord God who holds our lives in His hand.

In today’s Gospel we heard how Mary was troubled when she heard the angel. What was going through her mind? Perhaps she thought: If I accept it than people will think that I am out of my mind, they will laugh at me, and they will put me on the bottom of the society. But despite that fear Mary accepted God’s will.

What would you do if today an angel would appear to you and ask of you few things? Would we say yes or no to God?

My dear Sisters and Brothers

How many times in our life we want to escape from God, from Christians responsibilities? And we escape from God because we do not have time in our life for religion, because God is not priority in our life anymore. Sometimes we are angry at God because we asked God for something, and we never received it, and we would say that God does not like us anymore!!

Once upon a time a farmer placed a weather vane on top his barn. It bore the inscription “God is love”. “Does that mean, a neighbor asked that God is fickle as the wind?” “Not in the least – replied the farmer, – it means that God is love no matter which way the wind is blowing.”

Indeed God is love; He gave us his Son whose birthday we will celebrate in the few days. But we have to remember that even though God truly loves us, we must acts as well, to accept God’s will as Mary did. And whenever we are scared to accept God’s will, let’s try to remember about Mary and Joseph. They were scared too. And we do not know if they struggled to accept God’s will, but we do know that they accepted it.

So, the message for the next few days of the Forth week of Advent is that we have to be open to God’s will, that we have to open our hearts for Jesus’ birth. Christ has to be born again in our hearts even if it is tough to live with His rules. And as Christians we have to give the good example to others, and through our deeds we will be able to open other people’s hearts for Jesus Christ. Amen.