Dec 26 Tuesday: St. Stephen: For a brief biography, click on https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-of-the-day/saint-stephen/Matthew 10: 17-22: Mt 10:17-22:
Life and death of St. Stephen: Today’s first reading, taken from theActs of the Apostles, describes the death of Stephen, the first martyr in the history of the Church. Stephen was a zealous Greek convert from Judaism to Christianity. He was chosen by the community and accepted by the Apostles to serve as one of the seven earliest deacons in the Church. These Deacons were meant to help meet the material needs of Greek Christian widows in Jerusalem who had complained that they were being slighted in favor of Hebrew Christian widows in the matter of Church assistance. Stephen was chosen for this ministry of helping the poor because he had good character and was filled with the Holy Spirit. But he was arrested by the Sanhedrin because he was converting numerous Jews to Christianity, and the Jewish leaders could not win against him with arguments. The jealous Jews arranged false witnesses against Stephen. These men accused him of blaspheming against Yahweh and Moses. In his final defense speech before his judges in the Sanhedrin, Stephen, inspired by the Holy Spirit as Jesus had promised all His disciples they would be when called to bear witness to Him, bravely and eloquently defended his belief in Jesus as the promised Messiah. He accused the Jews of unbelief and explained that the sacrifices and sacrificial Laws given by Moses were temporary. When Stephen suddenly announced that he could see Jesus standing at the right hand of the Father, the infuriated Jews mobbed him, dragged him out of the city, and stoned him to death. During the stoning, Stephen bore heroic witness to Jesus, first praying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” and then, obeying the command of Jesus, prayed loudly for his executioners, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” With that, he “fell asleep.”
Life message: St. Stephen teaches us how to bear witness to Christ bravely in our lives, when our Faith and its practice are questioned or challenged. St. Stephen’s martyrdom is celebrated on the day following Christmas to remind us of the consequences of giving our lives to Him who was born an infant in Bethlehem — that we must give Him everything, holding nothing back, even if it means persecution and death.
Fr. Tony (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Dec 27 Wednesday: St. John the Apostle:
St. John, Apostle and Evangelist: John was the son of Zebedee the fisherman and Salome, a close relative of Mary. John and his brother, James the Greater, were fishermen, partners of Peter and Andrew; they were disciples of John the Baptist before they were called by Jesus as his Apostles. John’s name is mentioned always after his brother’s name in Matthew, Mark and the Acts of the Apostles. John was the Apostle beloved by Jesus and one of the three constituting Jesus’ inner circle of friends who witnessed Jesus’ raising of the daughter of Jairus from the dead, His Transfiguration on the mountain and His agony in the garden of Gethsemane. After fleeing with the others from Gethsemane, John returned. He remained faithful to Jesus at the palace of the High Priest during Jesus’ trial by the Sanhedrin, and he had the courage to be at the foot of the cross, supporting and consoling Mary. He was entrusted by Jesus with the care of His mother, and, after the Resurrection, John was the one who first recognized the risen Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.
Missionary activities: With Peter, John played a prominent role in founding and guiding the Church. John was with Peter when the latter healed the lame man (Acts 3:1), was in prison with him (Acts 4:3), and was with him when Peter visited the new Christians in Samaria (Acts 8:14). John left for Asia Minor and Ephesus when King Herod Agrippa I started persecuting Christians. He returned to Jerusalem in AD 51 to attend the Jerusalem Council. According to tradition, when the attempt of Emperor Domitian to murder John by putting him in boiling oil failed, John was exiled to Patmos Island. As an Evangelist, John wrote five books of the New Testament: The Gospel according to John, three epistles and the Book of Revelation. He preached always about God’s love in his old age. Returning to Ephesus, John lived there, dying when he was one hundred years old. John reminds us of the greatest commandment of love given by Jesus: “Love one another as I have loved you.” (Fr. Tony)
Dec 28 Thursday: Feast of the Holy Innocents
The Holy Innocents whom this Mass commemorates were the children slaughtered by the soldiers under the the orders of Herod the Great in his fruitless pursuit of the “newborn king of the Jews.” In our times this Mass includes the the untold numbers of innocent babies slaughtered by abortion. The Feast also reminds us of Pharoah’s murder of the male children of the Hebrews at the time of Moses’ birth.
The context: Herod the Great had been made the king of Judea by the Roman Empire although he was not even a Jew: his father was an Idumean, his mother an Arab. This cruel king was kept in power mainly by the Roman army. He brutally executed all suspected rivals to his throne including his wife, brother, and two brothers-in-law. No wonder he was terrified at the news that a rival king, a descendant of King David, had been born somewhere in Bethlehem, for this child could someday claim to be the legitimate king of Israel and Judea! Herod’s anger intensified when he realized that the Magi had not returned to his royal palace to report the whereabouts of the Child Jesus. Matthew says that the slaughter of the Innocents was in fulfillment of a prophecy of the prophet Jeremiah: “A voice is heard in Ramah, lamenting and weeping bitterly; it is Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.” Ramah is a hill near Bethlehem and the burial place of Rachel, the wife of the patriarch Jacob. The Jews believed that she wept bitterly in her tomb when the Jews were taken as slaves by the Assyrians and later when Herod massacred the babies. The most likely scenario is that Jesus was born around 4 BC; the wise men (by their own account) arrived in Jerusalem two years later in 2 B.C., and in that same year Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fled to Egypt. When Herod died, they returned. So, the length of their sojourn in Egypt was probably about a few months.
Life message: We need to raise our voice against the 21st century massacre of the Innocents: As in other advanced countries, the cruel massacre of the innocents, though now illegal in America since the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturn of the Roe vs Wade Supreme Court’s decision of 1973, continues elsewhere in the world, and in America, the proponents of Abortion on demand are have shifted their fight their fight in the mid-year elections for members the Senate and the House of as well as in the legislatures of the individual states. While Herod killed at the most a hundred children, nearly four thousand unborn babies are slaughtered in the United States every day. They are killed because, like the infants of Bethlehem, they are inconvenient. Children are sacrificed also for the most powerful king of the twenty-first century, Science. Babies are killed in their embryo stage to harvest their “stem cells” for medical experiments intended to heal the illnesses of their parents and grandparents. Along with prayer, let us do everything in our power to stop this brutal murder of the helpless babies.
(Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Dec 29 Friday: St. Thomas Becket Luke 2: 22-35: The context: Today’s Gospel presents the head of the Holy Family, Joseph, faithfully obeying God’s law given through Moses concerning the purification of the mother and the redeeming of the child by presenting Mary and the Baby Jesus in the Temple. The events recounted are those we traditionally celebrate on February 2nd with the Feast of Presentation of Jesus. We celebrate them today in order to group all the events of Christ’s Infancy within the Octave of Christmas. Today (and on February 2nd), we celebrate a combined feast, commemorating the Jewish practice of the purification of the mother 40 days after childbirth and the presentation of the child in the Temple. It is known as the Hypanthe feast or Feast of the Purification of Mary (by the offering two pigeons in the Temple), the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (by prayers and a sacrifice offered in the Temple to redeem or buy back the firstborn male child from the Lord), and the Feast of Encounter (because the New Testament, represented by the Baby Jesus, encountered the Old Testament, represented by Simeon and Anna). On February 2nd we celebrate these events as a formal ending of the Christmas season. On that day we also celebrate the Feast of Candlemas (because candles are blessed then for liturgical and personal use).
Purification and redemption ceremonies: The Mosaic Law taught that, since every Jewish male child belonged to Yahweh, the parents had to “buy back” the child (“redeem” him), by offering lambs or turtledoves as a sacrifice in the Temple. In addition (Nm 18:15), every mother had to be purified after childbirth by prayers and an offering made to God in the Temple. Joseph kept these laws as an act of obedience to God.
The encounter with Simeon and Anna: By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the old, pious and Spirit-filled Simeon and Anna had been waiting in the Temple for the revelation of God’s salvation. Simeon recognized Jesus as the Lord’s Anointed One, and in his prayer of blessing, he prophesied that Jesus was meant to be “A light for Revelation to the Gentiles and for Glory to Your People, Israel” While he blessed Mary, he warned that her child would be “a sign of contradiction” and that her own soul would be “pierced with a sword.” Simeon was prophesying both the universal salvation that would be proclaimed by Jesus and the necessity of suffering in the mission of the Messiah.
Life message:1)Every Holy Mass in which we participate is our presentation. Although we were officially presented to God on the day of our Baptism, we present ourselves and our dear ones on the altar before God our Father through our Savior Jesus Christ at every Holy Mass. Hence, we need to live our daily lives with the awareness both that we are dedicated people consecrated to God and that we are obliged to lead holy lives. (Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
Dec 30 Saturday: St. Egwin Luke 2: 36-40
The context: Today’s Gospel presents Anna the prophetess who greeted the Baby Jesus as the Redeemer when Joseph presented Mary and the Infant in the Temple for the purification of the mother and for the “redemption” of the Baby Jesus.
Anna and her testimony: Anna was an eighty-four-year-old widow who spent her days in the Temple in fasting and prayer, waiting for the promised Messiah. She was rewarded with the joy of seeing her Redeemer as a Baby. In her excitement she praised God and introduced the Infant to others around her as the expected Messiah.
The Child Jesus’ growth in wisdom and the favor of God: Commenting on the last sentence of today’s Gospel St. Bede says: “Our Lord Jesus Christ, as a Child clothed in the fragility of human nature, had to grow and become stronger. But, as the eternal Word of God, He had no need to become stronger or to grow. Hence, He is rightly described as full of wisdom and grace.”
Life messages: 1)The Holy Spirit uses ordinary men and women with simple Faith as His instruments to bear witness to Christ, His ideals and teachings. 2) We need praying Annas in all our parishes to offer prayers for all the members of our parish families. Let us cooperate with the Spirit in everything. 3) Anna’s prophetic life tells us that we each must live our lives in constant preparation for meeting our Divine Lord in the Temple of Heaven, remaining alert, as Anna did, to recognize, love, and serve Jesus hidden in the people we encounter. 4) Like Anna, we must all foster an interior life of ongoing prayer and penance, and we must direct all our actions in life to the praise and glory of God and the salvation of our souls. Anna’s life is a symbolic prophecy of every vocation. (Catholic Daily reflections).
(Fr. Tony) (https://frtonyshomilies.com/)
