4th Sunday of Easter - The Voice of the Shepherd

Location: Basilica of Saint Francis Xavier (Dyersville, IA) – 7 a.m. Sunday Mass

                Saint Paul Catholic Church (Worthington, IA) – 9 a.m. Sunday Mass

Date: Sunday May 11^th, 2014 (4^th Sunday of Easter, Year A; World Day of Prayer for Vocations)

READINGS:

1^st Reading: Acts 2:14a, 36-41

Resp. Psalm: Ps. 23:1-2a, 3b-4, 5, 6

2^nd Reading: 1 Peter 2:20b-25

Gospel: John 10:1-10

FOCUS: To embrace our vocations means to hand our life over to Jesus, the Good Shepherd.

FUNCTION: Follow Jesus faithfully; do not be afraid where He will lead – it is abundant life. 

            Today marks several important events: first, it is the 4^th Sunday of Easter.  The 4^th Sunday of Easter always stands out because the readings aren’t centered on the Lord’s resurrection, like the rest of the Easter season; instead, we hear the passage from St. John’s Gospel about Jesus as the Good Shepherd; and that’s why the 4^th Sunday of Easter is often called “Good Shepherd Sunday.”  Today is also the World Day of Prayer for Vocations and Mother’s Day. 

          All of these events are very important; however, my homily today will focus more on Good Shepherd Sunday and the World Day of Prayer for Vocations than on Mother’s Day.  But I haven’t forgotten about Mother’s Day; all the mothers here will get a special blessing after the intercessions, because we love them and want to recognize all their hard work, dedication, and love for their families.

          So what are we to make of a day like today, Good Shepherd Sunday?  It’s a very comforting thought, picturing Jesus as the Good Shepherd; we’ve all seen the images – Jesus is holding a sheep on His shoulders, with a flock of sheep following behind Him.  It’s soothing to think about – shepherds take care of and watch over the flock entrusted to their care; but maybe the analogy seems a little ridiculous – we are not sheep, and maybe it’s kind of insulting to think of ourselves as sheep.  After all, we’re trained by society to be independent, original, our own person, and not just a follower.  So maybe “Good Shepherd Sunday” doesn’t always make a lot of sense to us.  But on the flip side, it’s not easy being a shepherd – the sheep have a mind of their own, and aren’t always interested in following the shepherd’s lead.  Sometimes they wander off where they shouldn’t; they don’t always fall in line; and they don’t always come when they’re called.  Sometimes sheep are stubborn – maybe a little like us, sometimes.  Maybe the analogy isn’t so far off after all.

          Ultimately, the point is more about the person of Jesus than it is about us; yes, we are compared to sheep; and no, that’s not always a flattering comparison.  But the point is that the Lord is looking out for us, watching over us, shepherding the flock of God with a shepherd’s care.  Why?  Because the Lord loves us; we are the Church, His Body; we belong to Him; He ransomed us from sin by shedding His precious Blood and gave us new life by His resurrection.  Today is about Jesus.  But it’s also about us.  It’s about us trusting Him. 

          When I was in college, I got to be an RA or Resident Assistant in the dorms.  Training was always a lot of fun.  We RAs got to hang out with each other a lot and we practiced how we would respond in different scenarios if we had to knock on someone’s room while we were doing our nightly rounds in the residence halls.  Part of our training happened at the Four Mounds ropes course in Dubuque.  Not only was it a way for us to build community with each other, but we also learned to how to work with each other.  The goal was to develop trust with each other, and to know we had each other’s backs – much like a soldier or a police officer might take care of one of their own.          

          One of the activities we did at the ropes course was a “trust fall.”  Some of you may already be familiar with this idea, but some of you may not.  A trust fall is an exercise where one person, with their hands across their chest, stands in front of another person who stands behind them.  Without looking at the person behind, the person in front is supposed to fall backward, trusting that the person behind will catch them and not let them fall to the ground.  Now, if the person standing behind wants to be a practical jokester, they could let the person falling simply fall; however, that would not help to establish trust; just the opposite – the person who was doing the trust fall would grow to distrust the person supposed to be catching.  That didn’t happen among us – whether we did the trust fall or we were the ones doing the catching, we were faithful, so that the trust fall would be a success and a way to develop trust. 

          I think our relationship with the Lord is supposed to be like the “trust fall” exercise that my fellow RAs and I did during our RA training; we are supposed to trust that the Lord is standing behind us, ready to catch us when we fall.  How “good” would a “Good Shepherd” really be if we were falling and He were not there to catch us?  Recognizing Jesus as the Good Shepherd means that we allow ourselves to trust Him.

          We can bet that King David, the author of Psalm 23 (today’s responsorial psalm), did a kind of “trust fall” with the Lord; otherwise he would never be able to say, “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.”  David placed his trust in God.  Psalm 23 has been a source of encouragement for countless Jews and Christians down throughout the ages.  And it should do the same for us.  God will not leave us or abandon us; He will not allow us to fall, even if it seems like we’re falling for a while before He catches us. 

          Embracing our vocation is very similar; it involves trusting in God and putting our lives in His hands; it means that we trust Him to lead us and guide us toward the right path.  To embrace our personal vocation means to hand our life over to Jesus, the Good Shepherd.  It means stepping out on the water, like Peter, trusting that the Lord will allow us to stand on the water.  We must not be afraid.  Right now, the Church needs good men and women to answer the call to follow Jesus, the Good Shepherd, as priests and as consecrated religious men and women.

          It starts at home.  Pray together as a family every night; encourage whatever vocation other family members feel drawn to, but especially the vocations to priesthood and religious life.  Try to follow what Jesus taught – love others like He loved us; turn the other cheek; go the extra mile; forgive over and over again; pray as He taught us to pray; be open to the coming of the Holy Spirit; and be willing to follow where the Spirit leads. 

          Embracing a religious vocation means trusting God and following the path that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, lays out for us; and never forget what He said to us – “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”  Jesus is our Good Shepherd, and He will always lead us to full and abundant life, and finally, to eternal life with God in heaven.                                   

Faithfulness in the Midst of Imperfection - Holy Family 2013

Location: Basilica of Saint Francis Xavier (Dyersville, IA) – 8:30 & 10:30 a.m. Sunday Masses

Date: Sunday December 29^th, 2013 (Feast of the Holy Family)

READINGS:

1^st Reading: Sirach 3:2-6, 12-14
Resp. Psalm: Ps. 128:1-2, 3, 4-5
2^nd Reading: Colossians 3:12-21 (OR 3:12-17 {short form})
Gospel: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

 FOCUS: The Christian family is called to be a “domestic church” where children learn the faith.  

FUNCTION: Make prayer a priority in the home; take an active role in teaching the faith to kids.  

            For many of us, family is very important this time of year.  We all have different families, and maybe some our family gatherings are relatively peaceful, while others are perhaps a bit more contentious.  No family is perfect – not even the family we celebrate today, the Holy Family.  St. Joseph often gets the shortest straw when it comes to describing the imperfection of the Holy Family, because Mary was conceived without sin and Jesus is the Son of God and that leaves poor Joseph, the sinner, with all the blame for the Holy Family’s imperfection J  That’s more of a joke than anything, because actually the Holy Family (like all families) experienced not only the imperfection of family life, but also the imperfection of human life, generally speaking.

          Being an imperfect person – such as we all are – is tough; and being an imperfect person who’s also a member of an imperfect family which is living in an imperfect world is likewise tough.  In every family there are differences of opinion and arguments and resentments and unresolved conflict that build up over time; every family faces some measure of dysfunction because none of us are perfect and there is no such thing as a perfect family. 

          Consider the imperfections of the Holy Family – Mary conceived Jesus (through the power of the Holy Spirit) before she was officially married to Joseph; in the Gospel reading for today, the Holy Family had to retreat to Egypt in order to escape King Herod’s persecution and the slaughter of the Holy Innocents; when Jesus was 12 years old He decided not to return home with Mary and Joseph and instead remained behind in the temple talking to the elders, causing his parents much anxiety; Joseph probably died before Jesus began His public ministry, making Mary a widow and one of the most vulnerable members of society; and when He became an adult, Jesus abandoned his money-making business as a carpenter and instead embraced His vocation to be a poor, homeless preacher; Mary watched her only Son suffer a horrible death by crucifixion at the age of 33; and finally, after His resurrection from the dead, Jesus ascended into heaven and Mary went to live with St. John the Apostle for the rest of her days.

          As you can see, there is all kinds of imperfection present in the life of the Holy Family; they experienced uncertainty about the future, sorrow, anxiety, fear, and so much more; they were a human family, and although we know them now as the Holy Family, they weren’t a perfect family.  And yet, despite all the imperfections they experienced, the Church proposes them to us as a model for Christian family life, not because they were perfect, but precisely because they weren’t perfect and still remained faithful in the midst of it all.

          The Church calls every Christian family to be a “domestic Church.”  That means that the Church envisions the Christian family to be the first and primary setting where children learn to forgive, to share, to respect the property of others, to pray, to worship, and to know God as a loving Father; this is the ideal for every Christian family, although every Christian family struggles to live up to this ideal.

          In describing the family as the Domestic Church, I want to offer a section from the Catechism of the Catholic Church; they are paragraphs 1656 and 1657:  

1656) In our own time, in a world often alien and even hostile to faith, believing families are of primary importance as centers of living, radiant faith.  For this reason the Second Vatican Council, using an ancient expression, calls the family the Ecclesia domestica.  It is in the bosom of the family that parents are "by word and example … the first heralds of the faith with regard to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each child, fostering with special care any religious vocation."

1657) It is here that the father of the family, the mother, children, and all members of the family exercise the priesthood of the baptized in a privileged way "by the reception of the sacraments, prayer and thanksgiving, the witness of a holy life, and self-denial and active charity."  Thus the home is the first school of Christian life and "a school for human enrichment."  Here one learns endurance and the joy of work, fraternal love, generous – even repeated – forgiveness, and above all divine worship in prayer and the offering of one's life.

          The Christian family is called to be that place where we not only learn that our parents love us, but where we learn that God loves us, too; the Christian family is called to pass on the faith to children by word and example, to foster within each member of the family the God-given vocation unique to that child, and to be the first center of learning for human and Christian virtue. 

          But what does this look like?  As I’ve said before, I do not come from a perfect family; we have many flaws and imperfections in the Diehm family; but I’m thankful that my family tried hard to be a Christian family – we always ate and prayed together before meals as a family, we went to Church together every Sunday as a family, Mom and Dad always came in, said a prayer at our bedside, and tucked us in every night, and they made financial sacrifices so that my sisters and I could all receive a Catholic education.  I’m positive it all helped lay the foundation for me embrace my vocation to be a Catholic priest. 

          I’m not saying every family needs to be like mine; but I think we all need to find a way to imitate the example of the Holy Family and embrace the call for our families to become domestic churches, where children grow up knowing that they’re loved by their parents and by God.  Start with regular prayer in the home – pray together before meals and before bed; teach children basic Catholic prayers or pray a Rosary together as a family once a week; and pray for specific family, parish, or community prayer intentions.  Read Bible stories or stories from the Lives of the Saints together as a family.  Encourage children to think about and pray about their vocation, especially a possible religious vocation.  When children have questions about their faith, help them find the answers by reading together a children’s catechism.  But most importantly, take an active role in passing on our Catholic faith to the next generation and remember that Christian parents are the first and primary teachers of their children in the Christian faith.     

          With the help and intercession of the Holy Family, may our families become sanctuaries of faith for our children; and may God continue to bless our families, today and always.                    

      

The Benefits of Being Thankful

My homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time.  Questions, comments, etc. are all welcome!

Location: Basilica of Saint Francis Xavier (Dyersville, IA) – 8:30 & 10:30 a.m. Sunday Masses
Date: Sunday October 13^th, 2013 (28^th Sunday in OT, Year C; Vocation Awareness Sunday)

READINGS:
1st Reading: 2 Kings 5:14-17
Resp. Psalm: Ps. 98:1, 2-3, 3-4
2^nd Reading: 2 Timothy 2:18-13
Gospel: Luke 17:11-19
FOCUS: There are many benefits to having an attitude of gratitude for God’s gifts.  
FUNCTION: Make prayer a daily habit; spend at least 5 minutes a day talking to God.  



My trip to Haiti this past February continues to resonate with me.  Having never been to a third world country before, it was truly an eye-opening experience – to see the local people walking to and from the stream just outside of the town to wash what few clothes they have and bathe; to see the humble conditions in which the local townspeople live; and to see them walk several miles just to get to Mass on Sunday – it was all pretty amazing.  And it made me think about a lot of things that I sometimes take for granted – the luxury of having clean and running water, the ability to take a shower in the privacy of my own bathroom, being able to go to the grocery store to buy food, having a car to help me get places, having a regular and reliable source of income, and having a decent place to sleep, just to name a few of the things that I sometimes take for granted. 

 

          Life is much different in Haiti; they don’t have all the luxuries that we have here in the US.  When you really stop and think about it, we’re living the high life; we’re living better than probably 90% of the world; we have much that we should be thankful for.  And yet we still complain; I’m as guilty of this as the rest of us.  Many of us take our modern luxuries for granted.  I did, and I know that I still do.  I still need greater spiritual conversion in my life.  I still need to work on being thankful for what I do have rather than focused on what I don’t.  Going to Haiti helped me realize I need to develop “an attitude of gratitude.”

 

          And I think that’s what the readings are all about this weekend – developing “an attitude of gratitude.”  How often do we ask God for things, and then forget to say “thank you”?  God must think we’re terribly ungrateful once in a while!  It’s a vice we’ve all been guilty of at one point or another.  We ask, we ask, we ask, and then we forget to say thank you.  I suppose it’s part of our fallen, human condition; we know how to be needy, but we don’t always know how to be thankful.

          In both the first and the second reading, people were cleansed of the awful, flesh-eating disease of leprosy. As a side note, one of the best-known people to have worked with lepers is Saint Damien of Molokai.  He was Born in Tremelo, Belgium, on January 3^rd, 1840, and joined the Sacred Hearts Fathers in 1860.  He was born Joseph and received the name Damien in religious life.  In 1864, he was sent to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was ordained.  For the next nine years he worked in missions on the big island, Hawaii.  In 1873, he went to the leper colony on Molokai, after volunteering for the assignment.  Damien cared for lepers of all ages, but was particularly concerned about the children segregated in the colony.  He announced he was a leper in 1885 and continued to build hospitals, clinics, and churches, and some six hundred coffins.  He died on April 15^th, 1889, on Molokai.  He was declared venerable in 1977; Pope John Paul II pronounced him “blessed” on June 4^th, 1995; and Pope Benedict XVI canonized him on October 11^th, 2009.  His feast day is also October 11^th.

 

          To be cured of leprosy was no small feat; anyone identified as a leper was segregated from society, because it was possible to get the disease through close, personal contact.  Lepers were considered ritually unclean, and had to go around announcing themselves as such.  The fact that Jesus cleansed them enabled them to return to social life; it was a gift of matchless value.  He cleansed all ten of the lepers, and only one returned to give Him thanks.  And that one former leper was now doubly blessed – not only had he been cleansed of his leprosy, but by his act of thanksgiving, he was now closer to his eternal salvation because of his faith and his act of thanksgiving.

 

          Maybe we haven’t received a gift from God like being cleansed of leprosy, but we’ve still received much from His generous hands – we have the gift of our family; the gift of being able to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell; the gift of all these luxuries around us; and most importantly, the gift of life.  That doesn’t mean life will always be easy; but even when life’s hard, and we have to face things such as failing health or broken relationships, God is still good even if we realize we’re living in a broken world. 

 

          So we might make a little examination of conscience: have we thanked God today for the good things we have?  Have we recognized the many blessings we’ve received, or have we allowed ourselves to be consumed with jealousy and envy?  Now’s the time to be thankful for what we have; and if we are thankful, we might not think so much about what we don’t have.  I think being thankful helps us realize that there are a lot of things that we don’t actually need; being thankful helps us be satisfied with less; it helps us to live simply and be more mindful of the needs of others; and it puts us in right relationship with God, who cares for us and provides for our needs.

 

          One thing we all have to be thankful for is the gift of our personal vocation; God has placed a unique calling on each of our lives.  And since today is also Vocations Awareness Sunday, it would do us good to stop and think about our vocation in life, especially if we feel like we haven’t yet answered it.  Many of you here today are called to marriage – and many of you have embraced that vocation because you’re already married; but God may be calling others here in a different way – some of you here might be called to the priesthood; others might be called to religious life; still others here may be called to the diaconate; and some of you might be called to life as a chaste, single person.  Whatever your vocation, God has a plan for your life – a plan to bring you a sense of peace and fulfillment; a plan to make you happy in this life and help lead you to “the life of the world to come.”

 

          I think it all starts with prayer: ask the Lord to show you your vocation; and even if you’ve already responded to your vocation in life, spend at least 5 minutes a day talking to God in prayer – ask Him to lead you and guide you, and thank Him for the ways in which He’s blessed you.  And you just might find yourself happier, more content, and closer to the kingdom of God.                

 

14th Sunday in OT - How's God Calling You?

Here is this Sunday's homily - sorry I've been so terrible about not adding them (tempus fugit).  I welcome any comments you might want to make or checking any of the ratings boxes immediately below the post.  God's blessings to each of you! 

 

 

Location: Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church (Earlville, IA) – 8 a.m. Sunday

                  Saint Boniface Catholic Church (New Vienna, IA) – 10 a.m. Sunday

Date: Sunday July 7^th, 2013 (14^th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C)

READINGS:

1^st Reading: Isaiah 66:10-14c
Resp. Psalm: Ps. 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20
2^nd Reading: Galatians 6:14-18
Gospel: Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 (OR Luke 10:1-9 {short version})

 FOCUS: Promoting vocations is the work of the whole Church.

FUNCTION: Pray for vocations and support them within your own family and the community. 

          At the beginning of his ministry as a prophet, the Lord said to the Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you,” (Jeremiah 1:5).  This verse is a good reminder that God knows each of us from the first moment of our conception in our mother’s womb, and even before our conception since He is outside of time.  And it also reminds us that God has a plan for our lives.

          But what is God’s plan for our lives?  Does God really have a plan, I mean, for everyone?  Doesn’t it seem a little far-fetched?  We have to remember that He is God – He is not like us; He is perfect: all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good.  And because He’s perfect, God has a wise and loving plan for each of us – a plan that respects our freedom: a plan we can say “yes” to (like the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation) or “no” to (like Judas Iscariot who betrayed the Lord for thirty pieces of silver).  And God gives us that freedom – the freedom to say “yes” to His plan, and the freedom to reject it. 

          God has a plan for each of us; each of us has a “vocation” or a calling in life – a plan that, if we say yes to it, will bring us an immense amount of joy and peace, perhaps in this world, but especially in the next.  And it’s up to us to say “yes” to that vocation in life – no one else can say “yes” for us.  We can’t “pass the buck” – we can’t say to ourselves, “Someone else will do what I feel called to do.”

          Have you ever heard of the idea of “diffused responsibility”?  It usually happens when you have a large group of people: each individual in that group believes that someone else is going to take action – for instance, helping someone in distress – which often results in no one taking any action at all.  So it could happen that someone on the streets of Chicago or New York falls down and has a seizure and no one in the crowd calls 911 or offers the person in distress any aid.  It’s a pretty scary thing when you stop and think about; it reminds me of a quote often attributed to Edmund Burke – “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”

          Sometimes the same thing happens in our spiritual life – God inspires us to perform a good work, but we brush it off, thinking that someone else can do it.  But the reality is often the opposite – God didn’t inspire someone else; He inspired YOU.  And in that moment, YOU have to respond.  Think of how much poorer our world would be if no one responded to the inspirations they felt – we wouldn’t have the Statue of Liberty or the Mona Lisa or the Declaration of Independence or the Panama Canal or automobiles or any of the other things – big and small – that we so often take for granted; these things wouldn’t exist if someone didn’t take the initiative and create them.

          My point is there’s important work to be done in the world; and part of that important work is the work of evangelization – the work of proclaiming the Gospel to the next generation and passing on the Catholic and Apostolic faith to the people of tomorrow.  In the Gospel, Jesus said, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”  Jesus is saying there’s a need – a need to gather in the harvest (a harvest of souls for the kingdom of God); He also points out that there aren’t that many laborers (priests, catechists, evangelists, etc.) to gather in the harvest, so we need to ask the master of the harvest (God) to send out laborers for His harvest.

          We often talk about vocations when we hear this passage, and rightly so.  The Church (and the whole world) needs priests, because without priests, there is no Mass; and without the Mass, there is no Eucharist; and without the Eucharist, there is no Church; and you cannot have the corporate Body of Christ, the Church, without the sacramental Body of Christ, the Eucharist.  We are the Church of the Eucharist – the Church founded upon faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the Church nourished and strengthened to live out her mission by the grace of the Eucharist, the Church who daily feeds on the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

          We need priests; and we can no longer afford to think, “Someone else will answer the call.”  Unfortunately, the no. 1 obstacle to a person embracing a vocation to the priesthood or religious life, from what I understand, is often the disapproval of parents.  Do parents make a sacrifice if one of their children wants to become a priest or nun?  Yes – it means that they will never have grandchildren from that child, or that their child will have to move far from home, or that they might not get to speak to or see their child as often as they would like.  But it’s still a big deal to have a child say “yes” to a vocation to the priesthood or religious life.

          When I was ordained, there was a custom for new priests to give their parents something from their new priestly ministry – I gave my mom the cloth that was used to wipe the oil off my newly-anointed hands and I gave my dad the stole that I used to hear my first confession.  The tradition is that the parents of a priest are then buried with these things after death, and when they go before the Lord and the Lord asks them what they did for Him, they can respond by saying that they gave Him their son as a priest.  Now, we priests are not perfect – far, far from it; my parents can easily attest to that.  But, we live an awesome life – able to be with people at key moments in life: celebrating a baptism or a wedding or sending a soul home to God in a Funeral Mass; and there are other graces, too – being able to proclaim the Gospel and preach and celebrate Mass and absolve sins in the sacrament of reconciliation and lead people closer to heaven.  It’s a great life.

          As we know, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few...” Now’s the time to heed Jesus’ words – “…so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for His harvest.”  Promoting vocations is uniquely a priest’s job; but it’s also the work of the whole Church – we’re all responsible for promoting vocations.  And so let’s promote it – in our families, among our relatives, to our friends, and in our parish community; and one day our community can have the joy of saying, “We gave the Lord one of our own.” 

           

 

 

 

The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Model for Spiritual Growth

Homily for the Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God (January 1st, 2012)

READINGS:
First Reading: Numbers 6:22-27
Responsorial Psalm: Ps. 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8
Second Reading: Galatians 4:4-7
Gospel: Luke 2:16-21

FOCUS: Mary teaches us about how to respond to God’s vocation in our lives. 
FUNCTION: Imitate Mary’s contemplative example of prayer to achieve spiritual growth.

The Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Model for Spiritual Growth

          Well, we’ve made it!  2011 is (nearly) over and we now stand on the threshold of 2012, a whole new calendar year: a year of new opportunities and possibilities, a year to make better choices than we did last year, a year to celebrate the hope that we have for the future.  For so many people (and for so many of us), a new year brings with it new hope.  Many people choose to make a “New Year’s Resolutions.”  Some might say, “This year, I’m going to eat more healthy food,” or “This year, I want to exercise more and stay in better shape,” or “This year, I want to devote more time to prayer and works of charity,” or “This year, I’m going to try harder to get along with the difficult people in my life.”  Certainly there are many more resolutions that people might make.  And some people might even make more than one if they’re feeling ambitious and motivated.    

          How about a simple show of hands?  Alright, raise your hand if you’ve already come up with a New Year’s Resolution.  OK, very nice.  Some of us have a New Year’s Resolution in mind, and some of us are still thinking.  It’s easy to find plenty of articles and stories and tips online about making New Year’s Resolutions.  But since we’re all here in Church on New Year’s Day, let’s consider what the Church proposes for how we should celebrate the New Year, because there’s a lot of wisdom to be gained from the Church’s perspective.     

          The first thing we should notice is that, every January 1^st, the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.  It’s the same every year: January 1^st will always be the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God.  In this way, the Church tells us at the beginning of every year, “Do you want to celebrate the New Year appropriately?  Look to Mary!  Do you want to make a change in your life this year?  Look to Mary!  Do you want to become a better, more virtuous person this year?  Look to Mary!” 

          But why do we or should we look to Mary so often?  Why does the Church celebrate so many Marian feast days over the course of the year?  Why does the Church always hold up Mary as the model for us to imitate?  It’s because she always…without fail…leads us to Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior!  And since the Church celebrates the Solemnity of Christmas with an octave (a single celebration extended over a period of eight days), it’s only fitting that on the eighth day we should honor the Mother of Jesus our Savior: Mary, the Virgin of Nazareth, the “handmaid of the Lord” that God the Father chose and blessed, among all women, to be the mother of His only-begotten Son.

          And so here on the threshold of 2012, we look to Mary for our inspiration and our model as we move forward into the New Year.  Here’s one New Year’s Resolution we might consider making in regard to our faith: “This year, I will focus on how I can continue to grow in the spiritual life.”  And what a beautiful example and model of continual spiritual growth we have in Mary, the Mother of God!

          The Gospel for today gives us one simple sentence…one simple verse so worthy of our consideration and imitation: “And Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”  In this one simple verse, we gain a small glimpse into the interior, spiritual life of Mary, the Mother of God.  At her deepest core, Mary was a contemplative.  She wasn’t someone who just went through life without thinking and reflecting on things.  No, just the opposite: throughout her life, she constantly reflected on what God was doing both in and through her and in and through her only Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the One destined to be the world’s Savior and Redeemer.  Mary had a deep and rich interior prayer life.  It was there, in the inner recesses of her Immaculate Heart, that she treasured what God was doing in the world and reflected on how God was active in her life.

          We might call this kind of prayer “theological reflection,” a discipline that involves a concentrated examination of life, through prayer, to see and understand how God is at work.  God is living and moving and active in the world, and if our prayer is going to be fruitful and if we want to grow spiritually, we need to be able to see and understand how God is at work in our lives.  Theological reflection is really a matter of living our lives with eyes of faith. 

          So we might ask ourselves: do we make seeing and understanding how God is at work in our lives a priority?  Are we on the lookout for God’s activity?  Are we looking at our lives with eyes of faith?  How we answer those questions will determine to what extent our spiritual lives grow in 2012.  Mary’s example gives us a kind of “game plan” for spiritual growth in the New Year.

          Let me detail for you some elements of that game plan.  First, we have to be in relationship with God through prayer to see how God is at work in our lives.  Offering a brief prayer to God in the morning (or sometime near the beginning of our day) is a good practice: “God, please give me eyes to see You today.  Help me to be mindful of the ways in which You are at work in the midst of my daily life.”  Secondly, we have to go through our day believing and trusting that God is always present to us: while paying bills, while doing dishes, while taking care of kids, while working in the office, while working outside, while we eat, and so on.           

Third, we have to allow ourselves to be present to God.  This also involves prayer, and spending at least some time during the day for silence and reflection, allowing our hearts and minds to be present to God who is present to us.  And fourth, we might conclude with the “examen of consciousness,” a prayer developed by St. Ignatius of Loyola as a way to find God in all things and to cooperate more fully with His grace.  It’s a practical examination of the day where we prayerfully examine the ways in which we either responded or failed to respond to God’s grace in our lives.  A simple search online would allow you to find out more information about the “examen of consciousness” prayer. 

          Doing these very practical things could make a big difference for our spiritual growth in 2012.  Not only that, it could also help us live our vocation more fully or help us understand what vocation God is calling us to.  Mary, the Mother of God, gives us a beautiful example of responding graciously to the vocation that God has planned for us.  And since we’re beginning the Vocations Crucifix Program this weekend in the parishes of our Spires of Faith cluster, now is an excellent time to follow Mary’s example of prayer so that we, too, might respond more fully (or for the first time) to our God-given vocation.

          And so as we stand here on the threshold of 2012, let us pray to Holy Mary, the Mother of God, that she might help us grow in our spiritual lives, find God in the midst of daily life, and truly live our vocation, as together we pray:

          “Hail, Mary….”