Homilies

Epiphany – Fr. Smith Homily

| St. Charles Borromeo

 

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from ONE LICENSE with license #A-730437.

Transcript:

We have been called “A Nation of Seekers”. Whether by covered wagon or moving van Americans have shown a great willingness to pick up for someplace else. This has been not only physical but spiritual as well. The number of sects and fads that we have initiated and the spiritual practices we have practiced over the years bewilders almost everyone else. As this nation of seekers, the Epiphany should be our national feast and the magi celebrated as our great forbears.  

Now we need to get two things out of the way immediately. The first is the star. An extraordinary amount of time and effort has been spent in determining when and how this star appeared. Was it a comet, a supernova or the alignment of planets? I neither know nor care. The important thing is the something got these men so curious that they travelled long and far to find the answer.   Continue reading “Epiphany – Fr. Smith Homily” →

Events

No Hate, No Fear March

| Mike McGowan

Please join with New Yorkers of all backgrounds and religions this Sunday, January 5, 2020, in a united march against hate and fear.

#StandTogether starting at 11 AM in Foley Square and march across the Brooklyn Bridge to Columbus Park (near Cadman Plaza) arriving around 1:30 p.m.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio will be in attendance representing the leadership of New York’s Catholic community.

Homilies

Epiphany Sunday – The Best Interpreter of Scripture and of Life

| St. Charles Borromeo

The Adoration of the Magi, Pieter Fransz De Grebber, 1638, Musée des Beaux-Arts (Caen)

Epiphany
Isaiah 60:1–6
January 5, 2020

It is fitting that our final reading from Isaiah this Advent/Christmas season be from the third person to choose the name. Third Isaiah lived in Jerusalem around 500 BC and witnessed first-hand the attempts to rebuild Jerusalem and its temple. Second Isaiah, who flourished 40 years before, promised that those Jews exiled in Babylon who accepted the call to return to their ancestral home would have God’s full support. Some interpreted this that the rebuilding would occur as if by magic. Things not unsurprisingly did not go as well as they hoped as Third Isaiah exhaustively reports.

He did however take the name Isaiah for a reason. Although the rebuilding has been much slower than expected, Third Isaiah still believed the LORD is the Master of History. The LORD would never abandon his people but must chasten them when they act unjustly. We will find throughout his writings the insights of both his predecessors.

This section begins with chapter 56 and he spends both that chapter and chapters 57 and 58 excoriating the people for their lack of faith and the leadership for its incompetence. Like First Isaiah, he sees injustice as the root of their problem: Continue reading “Epiphany Sunday – The Best Interpreter of Scripture and of Life” →