25th Sunday B * September 22, 2024

25 th Sunday B

September 22, 2024

My father was often telling my brother, sister, and I, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.”  I am not sure this came from him, but he liked to say this.  As I look back on his life, it seems to me he followed this advice himself. I rarely heard him say a bad word about others.  (He may have, but maybe I have chosen not to remember those occasions.) 

As I get older it seems harder to follow this advice.  We turn on the radio or TV and someone is being critical about a politician or a political party.  It is easy to criticize the boss or someone who is in authority. The words “I could do better" slip out, without thinking about what we are saying.

In the gospel today the disciples are talking about who is the greatest.  When Jesus asks him about their conversation, they feel like the boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.  Just as long as they thought Jesus couldn’t hear it felt ok to talk about who is greater, but once they find out Jesus heard them they are shamed into silence.

How often do we speak ill of someone else when they are not around, but would never consider doing so to their face?  Trash talk seems ok when the person is not there to defend themselves, but we are silent when they are around.  This is how a bully acts. A bully is all bluster and wind when with his cronies, but if confronted he is silent.  This was what happened to the disciples. When their words were spoken back to them they were shamed into silence.

“If you don’t have anything good to say, say nothing.”

In the section of Mark’s gospel we are reading from this month, Jesus is giving important teachings to the disciples.  This section of the gospel is the “listen up” section.  Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and the cross and he wants to make sure his disciples can continue on without him when he is gone.

Last week Jesus spoke to the disciples about the cross, “Can you carry a cross?" 

Today we hear him speaking about what it means to be a disciple.

Mark tells us that Jesus sits down to speak with the disciples.  When a Rabbi or teacher sat down it was recognized that his words would be important.  This is the “listen up” position.

Today Jesus teaches about what it means to be a disciple.  A disciple is about service.  A disciple is like a child.  A child in the time of Jesus was one without a voice or authority.  The child was just above a slave and the child would be about helping out others.  A child would not question “who is greater”; a child knows he/she is powerless.

The disciple in Jesus’ kingdom is a disciple who thinks of the other first and is of service to others.  Pope Francis said; “if we are to be shepherds we must smell like the sheep.”  To serve is a willingness to be one with the poor and needy.

I am reminded of the words of President John Kennedy, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.”

Maybe part of being a disciple is making a decision to speak only the good news to others. Trash talk or criticism can be just fodder for the rumor mill.  The book we read from each week is called The Gospel, The Good News.  What we need is more good news, not trash talk.  Let us speak in such a way that we would not mind the one we were speaking about hearing what we said.

Jesus reminds us, again and again, that being a disciple is not easy.  One way we can school ourselves in discipleship is to be quiet.  We watch our words and are careful not to speak about another in a way we would not be comfortable speaking to his/her face.

My father was not perfect, but maybe he hit upon a good way to live life.

“If you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all.”

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!