Church of St. Mary at Clinton Heights

We are all familiar with the three gifts of the Magi: gold, frankincense and myrrh.  Some say that they are symbols of who Jesus is:  the gold acknowledges his royal dignity as the King of the Universe, frankincense proclaims his divinity and myrrh is the foretaste of His redeeming death and burial.  But, what do the gifts mean for us today?

St Gregory the Great was Pope in the late 500’s and early 600’s and offers us another way to view the gifts.  Gregory challenges us to see that these are the gifts expect from us everyday of our life’s

“Jesus wants us to give him “gold” by “shining in his sight with the light of wisdom”.      This gift of the Holy Spirit is the gift to understand life and creation as God does.  When we strive to see the world as God does, we are able to make decisions based on the values of the Gospel.   We offer God the gold of our lives by serving him with every moment of our lives.  All our actions, all our decisions, our views, everything is for the honor and glory of God.

Gregory tells us the “frankincense, the incense used at Mass, symbolizes prayer”.  The incense we use here at Mass is a sign of our prayer rising before the Lord.  We burn it to honor the sacred among us.  Notice what is incensed: the altar: the image of Christ among us the Gospels: The Word of God among us you: the living Body of Christ

God asks us to offer the fragrance of our prayer every single day.  We are called to offer God the very scent of our lives; we are to offer to God the smoke of our joy and sorrows, our hopes and dashed dreams, all every moment of our lives. 

Finally, from Gregory, we learn that the “myrrh is symbolized mortification of the flesh.  We offer myrrh when we offer up the desires of our flesh”.  So, what does that mean to us?  This means we give up the things that get in our way of following Christ even when it causes us discomfort.  Fasting from the computer, our phones, etc. are not comfortable for us today, but when all this gets in our way as growing in the spiritual life, then we need to make a choice.  We fool ourselves into thinking that the only time we give something up or do without is during Lent.  However, it is a necessary part of our spirituality every day.  Not because we must, but, because we want God that much in our lives.  Abstaining from meat on Friday was a mortification to prepare for Sunday, the one hour fast before Communion is doing with out to receive something greater and more important than food.  It is interesting that we all can agree that going on a diet is good for our physical health, Gregory and the gift of myrrh asks us to see that going without is vital for our spiritual health, too.

The mystery of the gifts is a challenge for us today.  As a community of faith, may the wisdom of God direct every moment of our lives as disciples of Jesus.  Let us offer the sweet smell of our prayer at home and here at our worship of the altar.  Finally, may the sacrifices we make for God be a sweet offering to the One who gives us all.

Over the last few days, most of us have been around our families.  There have been laughs, tears, arguments, disagreements, some of the normal drama has arisen to the surface; but, no matter what, whether we like them or not, they are our families.

The Christmas season reminds us that Jesus was born into the messiness of time and life.  He was born into a human family of a mother and father, aunts and uncles, grandparents and cousins, and family friends.  They had the same laughs we had over the last few weeks and the same arguments; they shed the same tears and laughed as we did.   Like them, the holiness of our families is found in the reality that Jesus is in the middle of it all even when he is not acknowledged.

The family of the church is no different than our families and the family of Jesus.  What makes the Church a Holy Family is the reality that Jesus is the foundation of the family of the Church.

It is from our families we learn how to pray and know Jesus; it is here in the family of faith we learn to pray and to know Jesus.

At our dinner tables at home we share a meal; here we share the banquet of life.

It is in our homes we learn to say:  I forgive you, I love you; here God says that to each of us in the life of the sacraments.

Family life is intrinsically linked to the life of the family of faith: the Church.  Each depends on the other; they can never be separated.  Remember the saying of Fr Peyton: The family that prays together stays together.

In the new year, we need to beg God to touch the hearts of the families of those who do not come to worship.  We need to ask the Mother of God and our Mother to wrap them in her mantle of care, so they know the Love she brought into this world.  We need ask St Joseph to lead them like any father into a life that will bear fruit.  Without our absent brothers and sisters, we cannot be the whole Body of Christ. The family of the Church misses and cares for them.  We need to let them know exactly that.

However, we also need to look at how we live as the family of faith so that when people return, we do not fall into old and unhealthy ways; just like any other family.   St John gives us the yardstick to measure who we are as a holy family of faith:

And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them, and the way we know that he remains in us is from the Spirit he gave us.

To believe in Jesus and be proud and open about it, to love as He loves, and to keep his commandments are what will make us a Holy Family of faith.

May the Lord grant us the grace to be transformed into the mystery of the Holy Family of Nazareth.  May Jesus always be the very rock and center of all we do as a family of faith; here and now.