Jesus Christ reveals the love of God and teaches us what love means, St. Augustine says in a beautiful commentary on today’s reading from the first letter of John:
“You are told ‘Love God’. If you say to me ‘Show me whom I should love’, what can I say except what John says? No one has ever seen God. But you must not think yourself wholly unsuited to seeing God: God is love, says John, and whoever dwells in love dwells in God. So love whoever is nearest to you and look inside you to see where that love is coming from: thus, as far as you are capable, you will see God.
So start to love your neighbor. Share your bread with the hungry, bring the homeless pauper into your house. Clothe the naked, and do not despise the servants of your kin.
”What will you get from doing all this? Your light will break forth like the dawn. Your light is your God, your dawn, because he will come to you to end the night of this world — he who, himself, neither rises nor sets but is eternal.
“By loving your neighbor, by having care for your neighbor, you are travelling on a journey. Where are we journeying, except to the Lord God, whom we must love with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind? We have not yet reached the Lord, but our neighbor is with us now. So support your neighbor, who is travelling with you, so that you may reach him with whom you long to dwell.”
Today’s gospel is an interesting commentary on loving your neighbor. Jesus returns to his neighbors at Nazareth. In Luke’s gospel, they’re the first Jesus approaches with the good news of the Kingdom of God. Our reading today ends with their initial response to him: “And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.”
Christ has come, yet his glory has not yet been revealed. “For we are the children of God, and what we shall become has not yet appeared. We know that, when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” St. John says in his letter.
What shall we do till he comes? Study him as he appears to us now, as a servant. Follow him in his humanity, St. Augustine says. See him one with the leper, the poor, those cast aside. Until he comes:
“Until this comes to pass, until he gives us the sight of what will completely satisfy us, until we drink our fill of him, the fountain of life — while we wander about, apart from him but strong in faith, while we hunger and thirst for justice, longing with a desire too deep for words for the beautiful vision of God, let us fervently and devotedly celebrate the anniversary of his birth in the form of a servant.
We cannot yet contemplate the fact that he was begotten by the Father before the dawn, so let us hold on to the fact that he was born of the Virgin in the night. We do not yet understand how his name endures before the sun, so let us acknowledge his tabernacle placed in the sun.
Since we do not, as yet, gaze upon the Only Son inseparably united with His Father, let us remember the Bridegroom coming out of his bride-chamber. Since we are not yet ready for the banquet of our Father, let us acknowledge the manger of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
After the five thousand had eaten and were satisfied, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and precede him to the other side toward Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. And when he had taken leave of them, he went off to the mountain to pray. When it was evening, the boat was far out on the sea and he was alone on shore. Then he saw that they were tossed about while rowing, for the wind was against them. About the fourth watch of the night, he came toward them walking on the sea. He meant to pass by them. But when they saw him walking on the sea, they thought it was a ghost and cried out. They had all seen him and were terrified. But at once he spoke with them, “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid!” He got into the boat with them and the wind died down. They were completely astounded. They had not understood the incident of the loaves. On the contrary, their hearts were hardened. (Mark 6:45-52)
Just as the miracle of the loaves foreshadows the mystery of the Eucharist, the storm at sea foreshadows the mystery of Baptism. Two mysteries Mark’s gospel links together in our reading today.
Life is a journey. Mark presents it as a water journey, a journey we take in Baptism as we enter the water with Jesus Christ. It’s not a journey without storms.
In Mark’s account, Jesus is not asleep in the boat but on the mountain in prayer as he sends his disciples on their way. Yet he watches over them on the water.
He sees them tossed by the waves and the winds and he comes to them. He walks on the water, for he is Lord of land and sea. When they cry out for help, he says to them “Take courage, it is I, do not be afraid” and he enters the boat and the winds die down.
The sacraments are the great signs Jesus is with us. We may see him far off, but the sacraments tell us he is near. We plan to go through a life without storms, “smooth sailing”, but life is not like that.
The gospel readings reveal the sacraments to us as signs of the abiding presence of Jesus Christ who, when he entered the waters of the Jordan, became forever one with us.
He is Lord of the storms. Companion on the journey.
A large painting of the Christmas mystery in the gathering space of St.Mary’s Church in Colts Neck, New Jersey, is worth a visit before its taken down soon. The artist commissioned to make the work evidently wants to expand the way we look at this mystery in the three panels he created.
In the right panel the shepherds coming to the Child are not the usual band of men followed by their sheep. There’s one shepherd and two women and two children and a water buffalo and two other animals who look like they may be wild mountain goats. No sheep.
Who are the women? The shepherd’s wife and maybe his sister? The women look like they’ve been summoned quickly from their homes. Did the shepherd call them to come see what the angels proclaimed in the fields? Don’t worry how you look, and bring the kids. Come and see.
Are the animals representatives of the animal world waiting , like the human world, for the angels’ message?
In the left panel, the Magi, elegantly dressed, hold their gifts for the Child as they come from a star-filled sky. Their camels finally rest from the long journey. The three represent the young and the old, and the different races called by the star.
In the central panel, Mary seated holds in her arms the Child whom she wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger after she gave him birth. Joseph stands protectingly over them. They’re dark skinned and dark haired, yet it’s hard to tell what race they belong to.
Two angels above them announce “Glory to God” and a star shines brightly over the cave dug into the mountain.
A donkey eats the straw from the manger, and a sheep lays on the ground beneath the manger. Right at Joseph’s feet there a large pig. Why is he there, so close to the Child?
In those days pigs were unclean animals. The Jews refused to eat them. On a journey to Joppa, Peter had a dream in which God commanded him to eat all kinds of food. There’s no fool that’s unclean, God said. All creation is made clean through the saving power of his Son.
The whole world is welcome to the Manger.
Artists remind us we can never exhaust the mysteries of life and the mysteries of God. There’s always more.
God loves his people and calls them to a banquet. We may remember that promise of God from Isaiah from Wednesday, the 1st week of Advent: “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples. A feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.” (Isaiah 25,6-10)
Today, the Tuesday after the Epiphany, Mark describes a holy banquet in Galilee. Jesus, whose heart is moved with pity for those who follow him, feeds a vast crowd bread and fish:
So he gave orders to have them sit down in groups on the green grass. The people took their places in rows by hundreds and by fifties. Then, taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; he also divided the two fish among them all. They all ate and were satisfied. And they picked up twelve wicker baskets full of fragments and what was left of the fish. Those who ate of the loaves were five thousand men. “And they all ate and were satisfied.” (Mark 6, 34-44)
The miracle will be performed again across the Sea of Galilee in an area predominantly pagan, “the Galilee of the Gentiles”. “All” people will eat and be satisfied.
The love of God should fill us with wonder and praise. Yet Mark’s gospel goes on to say that those who ate the loaves “did not understand” the mystery they had experienced.(Wednesday)
Still true? Do we understand the mystery of God’s love and the signs we experience here and now? One of these signs is the Holy Eucharist, the promise of a banquet for all people.
In his book ” Catholics in America, The Faithful,” ( Harvard University, 2010) James M. O’Toole, writes about Catholic history from Revolutionary times till the present. The church was largely a “priestless” church when our country began in the 18th century, O’Toole writes, “…early American Catholic lay people were very different from those who would come after them. The institutional presence of their church was always thin and uncertain. Priests and parishes were few in number and widely scattered. Catholics’ connection to their church was less than they might have thought ideal.”
That’ was the world of Elizabeth Seton and John Neumann– saints we’re celebrating in early January. So what kept a church going in “thin and uncertain” times ? O’Toole offers a lengthy analysis of the devotional and catechetical materials of the time and writes: “What scholars have come to call a ‘print culture,’ grounded in printing and distribution networks, supported the religious practice of Catholic lay people in the priestless age.” (p.33)
It looks like we are facing “thin and uncertain” times again as Catholic institutions, parishes, schools, religious groups decline, doesn’t it? What’s our version of a ‘print culture’ to be? What can we give to Catholics whose kids are not being baptized, not receiving religious formation, not going to church, whose neighbors are “spiritual but not religious,” who need an anchor themselves in these stormy times? I think we have to think hard about it.
We certainly need to look at social media, our new print culture. but let’s also not forget the old print culture – devotional prayerbooks without the “thees” and “thous”. In the past I noticed when I rode the New York subways how many people I’d see reading little prayerbooks. Now they’re glued to iPhones.
Besides our devotional tradition the liturgy of Vatican II is the treasure we need to look to . The lectionary, the feasts, the spirituality of the liturgy can give us what we need – if we can make it what it should be in the church of our day. How can we do it?
We will have what we need in our “thin and uncertain” times. God will provide, but we have to do something too.
Shrine of St.John Neumann, St. Peter’s Church, Philadelphia
Today’s the feast of St. John Neumann,. “The sacrament of Holy Orders is at the service of the communion of the church.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church). John Neumann served the church in an heroic way as a priest and bishop. He’s one of the founding figures of the church in the United States.
Born in Bohemia in 1811, John Neumann was drawn to serve the church in the new world as a young seminarian. Arriving in New York City in 1835, he was immediately accepted for ordination by Bishop Dubois and ordained at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Canals and railroads were transforming the new nation then. The Eire Canal, completed in 1828, connected New York harbor and the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes region, causing an explosive population growth in the cities and towns along its route. Bishop Dubois sent the newly-arrived priest to minister to the many Catholic immigrants settling there.
First as a diocesan priest and then as a Redemptorist religious, Neumann founded numerous parishes and missions in the cities and towns along the canal and railroad lines in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Maryland and New York.
He spoke a number of languages and learned to speak others, even Gaelic, as he reached out to the diverse immigrant population, many poor Irish workers on the canal. He wore himself out in his tireless efforts and joined the Redemptorist Order looking for the support and stability that a religious order provided, yet as a Redemptorist he continued establishing churches and parishes through the northeastern United States as a preacher and catechist.
In 1852 Neumann was appointed bishop of Philadelphia, where the Catholic population was rapidly growing. He was a tireless shepherd, building over 100 new schools and 50 churches, until his death in 1860. Convinced that young people needed good formation in the faith, Neumann fostered Christian education and wrote two catechisms. He preached continuously, administered the sacraments and encouraged the Forty Hours Devotion and other devotional practices in his diocese.
John Neumann served the church as a zealous priest and bishop. He left his own homeland to work tirelessly to build the Catholic Church in the United States. He was a true missionary of Christ.
We need priests and missionaries like him today. Not only priests who leave their own homeland to minister in different countries, but priests who minister in an evolving church where the boundaries are not fixed.
O God, who called the Bishop Saint John Neumann, renowned for his charity and pastoral service, to shepherd your people in America, grant by his intercession that, as we foster the Christian education of youth and are strengthened by the witness of his brotherly love, we may constantly increase the family of your Church. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
The gospel readings at Mass after the Feast of the Epiphany are connected to that great feast.
The Magi represent the nations, the Gentiles, seeking Jesus as their Savior. In our reading for Monday Jesus after his baptism by John goes into Galilee. Matthew’s gospel calls it “The Galilee of the Gentiles.” Jesus brings light “to a people who sit in darkness.” (Matthew 4,12-17,24-25) In Galilee Jesus fulfills the promise made to the Magi.
He repeats the words John used to define his ministry: “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Yet, while John speaks to the Jewish world, (Saturday, John 3,22-3); Jesus calls a Gentile world as well to turn to God, for the kingdom of God at hand.
Humanly speaking, it wasn’t a good time for such a mission. It’s “after John was arrested,” a dangerous time. Galilee, when Jesus began his mission, was ruled by Herod Antipas, who imprisoned John and then beheaded him. (Matthew 4, 12-25)
It probably wasn’t a good time either for the Magi to come to Bethlehem, in the days of Herod the Great. But God’s time is not our time; God’s ways are not our ways. We can miss the opportunities of grace when we think of time in too human a way.
Accounts of the miracle of the loaves and the crossing of the Sea of Galilee from Mark’s gospel are read on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Commentators note that in Mark’s gospel the Sea of Galilee is a stormy path Jesus takes to reach the Gentile world of his day. The other side of the lake, the western side, was predominantly a Gentile area. They are given the same Bread he provides for the children of Israel.
It’s to “all of Galilee” that Jesus goes and consequently “his reputation traveled the length of Syria. They carried to him all those afflicted with various diseases and racked with pain: the possessed, the lunatics, the paralyzed. He cured them all.” (Matthew 4, 23-25)
Jesus brings good news to both Jew and Gentiles in Galilee, the”Galilee of the Gentiles.”
Visiting Elizabeth Seton’s New York? Start with a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. It’s free and offers a view of New York City that takes you back to the city’s beginning.
Early European explorers sailed into this harbor. In 1524 Giovanni Verranzano reached New York harbor and thought it was a lake. The Verranzano Bridge stands at the entrance to the harbor today. He thought the Hudson River might be a passage to the Pacific, but never went further than the harbor.
In 1609 Henry Hudson, exploring for the Dutch, sailed up the river that bears his name as far as Albany. The Dutch realized how valuable the place was and started a trading post on Manhattan Island. They called it New Amsterdam and traded with Indian tribes here and along the Hudson River.
Before the Europeans came, the harbor was a favorite place where the native tribes fished, hunted and traded.
The English had their eyes on the place too and in 1642 took it over. New Amsterdam became New York, and remained under English control till the American Revolution in 1776.
Millions of immigrants have come through New York harbor since then. The harbor was their gateway to the new world. The Statue of Liberty stands on the harbor’s western side along with Ellis Island, a major center for processing immigrants.
New York harbor became the place where early New York City traded with the rest of the world. Elizabeth Seton and her family were closely connected to the harbor. Her husband, William Seton, invested in the ships that made the city one of the richest ports in the world. But ships were a risky investment; they brought handsome profits yet could also bring bankruptcy if they didn’t come in. The Setons experienced both the riches and the risk.
I suppose you could call William Seton one of Wall Street’s first venture capitalists. In 1801 the Seton’s went bankrupt after the loss of a ship at sea and the family moved to the rented house on State Street, our first stop off the ferry.
Elizabeth Seton’s father, Doctor Richard Bayley, was the first Health Officer for the Port of New York (1796), caring for many of the first immigrants and travellers arriving here.
His job was to keep New York City safe from disease and keep travellers who were dangerous health threats isolated. So, quarantine stations were set up in the harbor for immigrants with yellow fever, cholera and small pox.
Within the harbor are some of the city’s early quarantine stations. Bedloe’s Island (1758-1796), Governor’s Island (1796-1799), Thomkinsville in Staten Island (1799-1858), just south of the St. George ferry station.
In the summer of 1801, Elizabeth was staying with her father at the Thomkinsville quarantine station when a boatload of sick Irish immigrants were brought in. She describes the dreadful conditions in a letter:
“I cannot sleep–the dying and the dead possess my mind. Babies perishing at the empty breast of the expiring mother…Father says such was never known before: twelve children must die for want of sustenance…parents deprived of it as they have lain for many days ill in a ship without food or air or changing…There are tents pitched over the yard of the convalescent house and a large one at the death house.” (Letter July 28, 1801)
That same year, Richard Bayley himself died from yellow fever contacted from the Irish immigrants off Thomkinsville. He’s buried in the family plot next to the Episcopal Church of St. Andrew in Richmond, Staten Island.
Seton Shrine, State Street, South Ferry
Arriving back in the city you can see the Seton house and a shrine near the ferry terminal at the end of Manhattan Island where Elizabeth Seton and her family lived for a short time. Stop in for a visit; many mementoes of her are found there. Most of Elizabeth Seton’s New York years were lived in this early section of the city.
From Mother Seton’s shrine and house on State Street walk up Broadway to Trinity Church and then St. Paul’s Chapel, the Anglican parish she belonged to until her conversion to Catholicism in 1805. She lived her early years as a happily married woman with five children on Wall Street and Stone Street, close by these colonial churches.
St. Paul’s Chapel
As a devout Anglican, Elizabeth devoted herself to her family and to the poor. In 1797 she and other public-spirited church women began an aid society for destitute women and their children. “The poor increase fast: immigrants from all quarters come to us. And when they come to us they must not be allowed to die.” (Description of the Society for the Relief of Poor Widows and Small Children.)
Looking eastward down Wall Street from Trinity Church on Broadway , you can see many of the institutions the fueled America’s economy: the docks and slave market (newly marked) on the East River, the New York Stock Exchange and the Federal building, a short walk from Broadway, and finally Trinity Church and King’s College on the western side of Manhattan. King’s College built on lands belonging to Trinity Church became Columbia University after the Revolutionary War, and later relocated in northern Manhattan.
St. Peter’s Catholic Church
Our final stop visiting Elizabeth Seton’s New York is St. Peter’s Catholic Church on Barclay Street, near to World Trade Center. Here she was received into the Catholic Church. Notice the beautiful painting of the crucifixion above the altar. Elizabeth Seton mentioned how moved she was as she prayed before that painting after becoming a Catholic.
In June 1808, she left New York City with her family for Baltimore, where she founded a school on Paca Street, the beginning of the Catholic parochial schools system in the United States. Shortly after, Mother Seton moved to Emmitsburg, Maryland, where other women gathered around her and took vows as the Sisters of Charity. Her religious followers continued her work through schools, orphanages and hospitals found throughout the United States.
Mother Seton died at the age of 46 in 1821. She was canonized on September 14,1975. There’s a good biography of Mother Seton written by Catherine O’Donnell, Elizabeth Seton: American Saint, Blackstone, 2018
Today’s the feast of St. Elizabeth Seton (1774-1821), a woman born at the time of the American revolution and a founder of the American Catholic Church.
The United States Catholic Catechism for Adults sees her as a woman searching for God. We find God through Jesus Christ, but also through creation, through human relationships and through various circumstances of our lives.
Elizabeth Seton found God in all those ways. As a little girl after her mother’s death she was neglected by her father and at odds with her stepmother, and she found God in the beauties of nature, in the fields around New Rochelle, NY, where she played as a child.
Then, as a young woman, she married a prominent New York business man, William Seton. They had five children and Elizabeth enjoyed a happy married life, lots of friends; she was active in her Episcopal church, Trinity Church, on Wall Street in New York City.
New York was a city inspired by the optimism and the Enlightenment, a movement that believed life was for pursuing human knowledge and progress more than the pursuit of God. Alexander Pope summed up the time in his famous couplet in “An Essay of Man” (“Know then thyself, presume not God to scan/The proper study of mankind is man”)
In a society and a church largely influenced by those values, Elizabeth felt drawn to Jesus Christ, whom she searched for in the scriptures and found in the care of the poor. Her life changed when her husband’s business failed. After his health also failed, Elizabeth took him to Italy to see if a better climate could revive him. As they arrived in Livorno, Italy, he died in her arms in a cold quarantine station at the Italian port.
Some Italian friends took Elizabeth and her daughter into their home and there she began to think about becoming a Catholic. Her conversion after her return to New York City caused her to lose old friends and left her to face hard times as a widow with small children.
She moved to Baltimore, then Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she opened her first Catholic school and gathered other women to form a religious community. She is one of the great saints and founders of the American Church. She’s also a woman who had an important role in establishing the Catholic Church in America.
Her quest for God was many sided, touched by sorrows and joys. She’s a good example of how our relationship with God is formed by creation, by the people around us, and the varied circumstances we face as we go through life and the times in which we live.
People like Mother Seton show how faith grows in us. That’s why the U.S. Catholic Catechism for Adults sees her as an example of how we find God in real life. More important than books, people tell us what believing means. They’re good catechisms.
Happy Feast Day to all her daughters throughout the world who continue in her spirit. They are following her and their journey isn’t over.
The Victor's Place 