29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C

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Simply put, the message we hear in the first reading and Gospel today is that we are to persevere in prayer.  In the first reading, Moses perseveres in prayer in the battle between the Israelites and Amalekites.  When he lowers his hands from prayer out of weariness (which perhaps we might interpret as ceasing to pray), the battle goes poorly for Joshua and Israel.  When he resumes raising his hands in prayer, the battle turns, and Israel has “the better of the fight.”  We are to apply this reading to our own earthly battles: the battle between good and evil; between pride/ego and — as Abraham Lincoln wrote — “the better angels of our nature.”  We too are encouraged to persevere in prayer.  Persevering in prayer is nothing less than relying on the Lord’s help, and is an act of humility, recognizing that, as the saying goes, “God is God and we are not.”  In this way, perseverance in prayer is the antidote to pride and selfishness.  It is also our act of faith and trust in God: that God has a plan which has our best interests at heart and that God’s action in response to our prayer will happen, in the right time, God’s time, which may not be our time!  In the Gospel parable, Jesus assures us that God’s response to our petitions will be speedy, but God’s time and our time are not always measured by the same clock!  Hence, we need to persist in prayer when God’s answer to our prayers comes more slowly than we would hope for. 


What are we to make of what seems to be a delay in God’s response to our sincere prayers?  Sometimes the case may be that God has already answered our prayers, just not as we were expecting, and we failed to see the response.  However, it could be the case that God’s delay in response to our prayers is preparing us for God’s response when it comes.  St. Augustine of Hippo wrote: 


If God at times seems to be slow in responding, it is because God is preparing a better gift.  He will not deny us…Ask, seek, insist.  Through this asking and seeking you will be better prepared to receive God’s gift when it comes.  God withholds what you are not yet ready for.  God wants you to have a lively desire for the greatest gifts.  All of which is to say, pray always and do not lose heart.


So, in persevering in prayer, there is patience and trust — patience in waiting for the right time, God’s time, and trusting in God’s action in our hearts while we wait.


We should note something else that happens in the midst of that battle scene that teaches us how we are aided in persevering in prayer.  When Moses, Aaron, and Hur realize that the battle turns against the Israelites when Moses grows weary and lowers his arms in prayer, Aaron and Hur hold up Moses’ arms so that he may persevere in prayer!  We can, and should, hold each other up in prayer and in presence as we together persevere in praying, especially through difficult times in our lives when we grow weary in the battle of earthly life.  This can take the form of praying for each other, but equally if not more important, being present to each other, encouraging each other and praying with each other.  Often that companionship is exactly what we need to persevere in difficult periods of prayer!  And that should come as no surprise, for Christ himself told us that "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Mt. 18:20).  We are strengthened with the presence of Christ himself when we gather together physically in prayer.  And let us not forget that we have a God who is fundamentally a God of and in relationship — Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Holy Trinity — and that made in the image and likeness of that God, we are fundamentally wired to be in relationship with our God and each other.  It is no surprise that we would be aided in persisting in prayer by being in community with each other while we pray!  Sometimes we ourselves need to seek out the community to pray together, to push back against the choice to remain isolated, praying (or not) on our own when we are able to gather with others.  But you and I are here today, and the fact that we have chosen of our own will and ability to come into community to pray invites us to consider who in our lives is not here today, or at all recently.  Perhaps we need to seek them out, to be present to them.  To encourage them, and invite them to join in prayer with us.  Perhaps we bring presence and prayer to them, if they are homebound.  In either case, in so doing we are lifting the arms of a weary sister or brother in prayer and making Christ present to strengthen us all, a presence the world so desperately needs.   

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

By Rev. Christopher Welch • January 18, 2026
Now that we are beyond the Christmas season, we are returning to normal. In our first reading, Isaiah reminds us that we are servants. In this new year of grace, we are called to be servants. We are learning about humility; being humble means thinking less of myself and more of others. Is this what it means to be a servant? We hear the words of Isaiah as we begin the annual week of Christian unity. It is wonderful that men and women from different denominations can come together in prayer. This afternoon many will gather to remember the life and witness of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. King was a true servant to the mission of justice for all God’s people. Dr. King was a Christian who acted as a servant to the kingdom of God. Dr. King was a dreamer who shared his dream with the world. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream . . . I have a dream that one day in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today . . . This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning. “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountain side, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. Being a servant of the gospel means being a dreamer who works to make the dream a reality. With our brothers and sisters of many faiths, we are servants of the kingdom of God. Like John the Baptist, we prepare the way for the coming of God’s kingdom. Each one of us, have been baptized and received the gift of the Holy Spirit. With the spirit to help us we are servants of the kingdom of God.

The Epiphany of the Lord, Year A

By Fr. Christopher Welch • January 4, 2026
 From Pope Leo’s Christmas homily: “For millennia, across the earth, peoples have gazed up at the sky, giving names to the silent stars, and seeing images therein. In their imaginative yearning, they tried to read the future in the heavens, seeking on high for a truth that was absent below amidst their homes. Yet, as if grasping in the dark, they remained lost, confounded by their own oracles. On this night, however, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined” (Isaiah 9:2). Behold the star that astonishes the world, a spark newly lit and blazing with life: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Into time and space — in our midst — comes the One without whom we would not exist. He who gives his life for us lives among us, illuminating the night with his light of salvation. There is no darkness that this star does not illumine, for by its light all humanity beholds the dawn of a new and eternal life.” Stars are what this season of Christmas is all about. We look at the night sky and see the stars that remind us of the nativity of our Lord. At night God comes to speak to us in dreams. Sometimes the dreams tell what to do as they did for Joseph and the Magi. The star in today’s celebration is a star that points out the birth of the Christ child. Each child is born with a divine spark. Each human person has the dignity of being a child of God. I am reminded of the words of Leonard Bernstein. He calls his poem Greeting : “When a boy is born, the world is born again and takes its first breath with him. When a girl is born the world stops turning round and keeps a moment hushed wonder. Every time a child is born, for the space of that brief instant, the world is pure." This time of year, we celebrate the birth of our God. The stars on our trees remind us of our connection with our God. The words of Frost are appropriate here: O Star (the fairest one in sight), We grant your loftiness the right To some obscurity of cloud— It will not do to say of night, Since dark is what brings out your light. Some mystery becomes the proud. But to be wholly taciturn In your reserve is not allowed. Say something to us we can learn By heart and when alone repeat. Say something! And it says, ‘I burn.’ But say with what degree of heat. Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade. Use language we can comprehend. Tell us what elements you blend. It gives us strangely little aid, But does tell something in the end. And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite, Not even stooping from its sphere, It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height, So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may choose something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid. Like Mary, we ponder all these things in our heart. As we begin this new year, we are to be like the star who ponders all things. Sometimes it will mean to burn, it will not always be clear, but with the heart of Christ to guide us we will make sense of it. On this New Year's Day, we look to the stars and ponder what this Christmas 2025 has meant to us.

Christmas Day, Year A

By Deacon Paul Cerosaletti • December 25, 2025
Isaiah prophesied: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone. (Is 9:1) John the Evangelist wrote: ...the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it…(Jn 1:5) The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world (Jn 1:9) And Jesus said: ...I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life…(Jn 8:12) Beginning with Isaiah’s prophecy of the Light of Emmanuel — God-with-us — some 2,800 years ago, through to Christ’s entry into this world of darkness in Bethlehem as the Child of Light, to his ministry of Light and Life, and racing through the millennia to us today throughout the world, to us here in St. Mary’s parish, to the family whose children were baptized at St. Mary’s this past weekend: The True Light of the World, the Dayspring from on high, the One Morning Star that never sets, the Word who existed in the beginning with God and who, from the beginning, was God, Jesus Christ the Light continually breaks into the darkness of our world and dark nights of our lives. At each Christmas, in the dark night of the world, we celebrate the daybreak of the Light of Christ coming into the world. At each Easter, we celebrate the breaking forth of the Light and Life of the Resurrected Christ from the darkness of the tomb of sin and death. And at each baptism, we recall and celebrate both, as we light the baptismal candle from the Paschal candle (that is, the Christ Candle) and say to the newly baptized, “Receive the Light of Christ.” We then give the parents and godparents, but frankly all of us , a solemn charge: This light is entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. This child…has been enlightened by Christ. [They are] to walk always as a child of the light. We are to walk not only as children of God enlightened by Christ, but we are to walk also — each one of us — as bearers of Christ and His Light into the world. We can each bear a torch of the Christ Light as we walk with one another through the dark valleys of the night of each other’s lives, illuminating the darkened path for our sisters or brothers, walking with them as long as we can, until another bearer of Christ’s Light joins us to journey with them further. Never underestimate the brightness of Christ’s Light in the smallest of actions, a kind word or simple deed. In fact, St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata counselled that the smallest of our actions may be infused with the brightest light of love. She said: Don’t look for the big things, just do small things with great love…the smaller the thing, the greater must be our love. And never forget that a light appears as its brightest in the deepest dark of night. The Christ Light in the smallest of our actions may be the brightest light in the darkest part of the night of someone's life. My sisters and brothers, the Light of Christ has been entrusted to us to be kept burning brightly, not for ourselves alone, but for the life of the world. Let us walk with one another, sharing the Christ-Light entrusted to us with each other and with the world outside the walls of this Church!