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Our Lady - Star of the Sea |
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Homily for Epiphany Sunday - Year A: 2011
On August of 2009, I made a trip to Vietnam
after 18 years in the
United States. My sisters and I went to our
ancestor land in the
North. You should know that in 50 years, my
mom’s village has not had
a pastor. So, people in the parish are hunger
for priest. They were
happy to have me for couple of days. There was
also a group of people
from the neighbor parish came to greet me.
However, they also asked me
to come to their church to offer a Mass for
them. Some people in my
mom’s parish knew their neighbor’s
intention; they advised me not to
say Mass for their neighbor parish. The simple
reason was that their
neighbors never shared visiting priest with them
before. They kept
visiting priest for themselves. So now they
wanted to do the same.
However, I decided to offer a Mass for them.
After Mass, before I went
home, I told people in that church that the two
parishes need to share
priests, love, and grace to each other. As
human, we are selfish. We
have a tendency to keep anything special to
ourselves and we don’t
want to share it with others.
Sharing God’s love, sharing God’s salvation
is the theme of Epiphany
Sunday. Before Jesus came, the salvation was
only for God’s chosen
people Israel. But after Jesus became man like
us, God extends his
grace and salvation for all nations and races.
The Christmas story
could not finish without the adoration of the
Three Kings from the
East. God’s light and God’s love from now on
reach out to the gentiles
and all creatures on earth.
Looking at the manger scene, we can see that the
Holy Family welcomed
everyone to come to worship Jesus, the Son of
God. Mary and Joseph did
not keep Jesus for themselves, but they shared
the light and joy to
the shepherds, then to the Three Kings, and then
to the world.
Dear friends in Christ, let us open our heart to
the Lord and to
others. We should share our good news to others.
We can be a star to
lead our friends, our children and grandchildren
to Jesus. Through our
good works, they will recognize his light.
When we come here every week as a Church family,
we would put aside
all our differences of colors, languages, or
backgrounds in order to
worship God with pure heart and mind. Today, let
us imitate the Holy
Family to welcome all who come here to worship
with us. May God’s star
shine in our heart to guide us and console us in
our journey of faith.
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