Would you say that John Paul II was the most travelled Pope in modern ear? He did travel a lot, it was calculated that during his 25 years as Pope he spent more than 2 years outside Rome. However there was another Pope who during 23 years of his papal ministry spent more than 5 years outside Rome. His name was Pius VII. He was elected in 1800. Nine years later he was imprisoned by Napoleon Bonaparte, the emperor of France. The next five years Pope Pius was being moved from one location to another as a prisoner, as Napoleon tried to control the Catholic Church. I suspect that such an experience could break the resistance of many people. However God equipped the Holy Father well for his exile. Who was Pope Pius? As a fourteen old boy he chose to be a Benedictine monk. Later in his life he was appointed a bishop and a cardinal but deep down he reminded a Benedictine monk. Like all monks he was accustomed to life of solitude, poverty, and spending long hours in a monastery cell praying and meditating. Napoleon managed to dominate many countries in Europe but he couldn’t break the old and fragile Pope. God equipped Pius VII well to put up with the long years of imprisonment by calling him first to be a monk in a monastery and later to be the Supreme Pontiff.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers!
            We believe that the Bible tells us the story of God but even when we study history, if we want to, we can discover the hand of God, like it became apparent at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Similarly God equipped well the prophet Jeremiah as we could hear in our first reading: “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you came to birth I consecrated you; I have appointed you as prophet to the nations.” God doesn’t send random people. On the contrary he prepares them well for the mission they are going to be entrusted with. Sometimes we don’t understand what is happening to us, but what is important is to treasure the belief that God’s plan is already unfolding in us and through us. The people is Nazareth, as we could hear it a few minutes ago, were so close to discover the divine presence among them, because St Luke tells us that “they were astonished at the gracious words that came from Jesus’ lips.”
Can you think about some examples of gracious words? If you are still thinking I can give you a hint: it has nothing to do with the words our politicians produce.
Listen to these examples:
“Your sins are forgiven. Get up and walk…
Courage my daughter your faith has restored you to health…
Get up, pick up your stretcher and go off home…
Be cured…
Follow me…
Ephphatha. Be opened…
Go home you son will live…
Go away and don’t sin any more…
Lazarus, here. Come out…
Simon Son of John, do you love me…”
Can you recognise these words? Have you heard them before? Those gracious words Jesus speaks. Those gracious words of Christ bring God’s graces into our lives. They are expressions of God’s mercy for us. God doesn’t speak empty or useless words. On the contrary he speaks to us as the one who knows what’s going on in us and around us. If we don’t get it is because we expect a different solution. We don’t want God to solve it his way but our way.
Remember my Friends that Jesus Christ has been equipped best to deal with the matters we face and the matters the world faces. Listen to the words which come from his lips and tressure them.

In these days when the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate give thanks to God for 200 years of the Congregation I would like to share with you some precious treasures which have shaped us Oblates in the way of our Founder St Eugene de Mazenod. I will start with the morning prayer which St Eugene was taught while in the Seminary in Paris. After being ordained a priest on December 21, 1811 he returned to his home town of Aix en Provence in the Southern France. There he threw himself into a hectic ministry but at the same time he strived to be faithful to the prayer rhythm he developed as a seminarian. One of those prayers was the morning prayer to the Blessed Trinity. This prayer nurtured his developing desire for evangelization and eventually it had concretized in the founding of the Missionaries of Provence who became Missionary Oblates of Marry Immaculate in 1825. The Trinitarian focus of the prayer gives the fundamental grace for spreading of the Gospel. Evangelization is participation in the mission of salvation which originates in the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. The evangelization flows form the Trinity and leads to the Trinity.

Blessed be the Holy Trinity now and forever.
I adore you my God. I adore your infinite perfections, incomprehensible to men and angels, truly known only by your Word, worthily loved only by your Spirit.
Unable of myself, Eternal Father, to honor you worthily, I offer you the praise of your Word from all eternity, the homage of his life incarnate and the reverence he now renders you in heaven. These I make mine and with all my heart I unite myself to that love which the Holy Spirit bears for you through all who are your Church.
Grant, most holy and adorable Trinity, one God in three Persons, that in Jesus Christ, our mediator in your presence, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, I may offer you my whole life in worship this day.
 
Adoration
 
Eternal Father, I adore you as my Creator, I revere the infinite love and goodness which moved you to create me.
Eternal Word, I adore you as my Redeemer, who, being equal to your Father, became by your Mother like unto us. You became the servant of all, living in poverty and obedience unto death, to rise again in glory, that we might so live and pass into the glory of God’s children
Holy Spirit of God, I adore you as my Sanctifier, who by the fire of your love have purged the sin in my heart and continually give me that life of holiness which proceeds from the Father and the Son and lifts me to the fellowship of their glory.
 
Thanksgiving
 
Eternal Father, I thank you for creating me with so much love and for your great fidelity and forgiveness in caring for me in the midst of my sins. I thank you for protecting me during the past night and giving me another day in which to serve and honor you.
Son of God, I thank you for having saved me by the toils of your life and your sufferings unto death and for having earned for me all the blessings that are found in your Church.
Holy Spirit of God, I thank you for offering me so many graces and for having, notwithstanding my disregard of them, so frequently renewed your life in me.
 
Sorrow
 
Eternal Father, forgive me my misuse of the life you have given me with so much loving kindness and preserved with so much mercy.
Son of God, I ask your pardon for having derived so little benefit from the example of your life, the precepts of your Gospel and the Grace of your sacraments.
Holy Spirit of God, forgive me my neglect of your light and inspirations, and the remorse you awaken in my conscience.
 
Offering
 
Eternal Father, I offer you whatever I shall do this day and renounce all search for selfish satisfaction. I confess my weakness and place my confidence in your strength and power.
Eternal Word, I offer you all my thoughts and words this day and I reject before hand all presumption and ambition, all that may be vain and useless.
In your light and wisdom only do I place my hope. Holy Spirit of God, to you I consecrate all the affections of my heart. I renounce the disorder of my natural inclinations and desire only that holiness and love which is your gift to us.
Eternal Father, let me seek the fullness of your perfections.
Son of God, let me walk only in your light.
Holy Spirit of God, fill me with the wisdom of your  love.

In 1841 a Canadian Bishop arrived in France looking for missionaries who could evangelize his diocese of Montreal. After a number of unsuccessful requests he was told: “Go to Marseilles. There is a Bishop there whose Congregation is still small, but the man himself has a heart as big as St. Paul’s, as big as the whole world.”
When he came to Marseilles on June 20, 1841 he met the bishop with the heart of St Paul’s – Eugene de Mazenod. According to the chronicles it took Bishop Eugene de Mazenod and his Oblates thirty two hours to discern the request and to say yes to it. The support they gave to the new chapter in the history of the Oblate Congregation appears even more powerful as all of them volunteered to leave their homeland and go overseas knowing that most likely they would never be able to return home. Within three months six Oblates were ready to go. They left for Canada on September 28, 1841.
            Today on the Fest-day of the Conversion of St Paul, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate contemplate the day 200 years ago when Fr Eugene de Mazenod and two other priests began living in community. Those three priests, who were to be joined within weeks by three more, had a strong desire to evangelize the countryside of Provence in the Southern France. By God’s grace the beginning of their evangelizing endeavors was marked by the day dedicated to the Great Apostle of the Nations – St Paul. Before they even went out to evangelize the poor they established in the midst of the Aix Diocese a community of missionaries passionate about evangelization. A few months earlier Eugene was writing: “Ah! If we could form a nucleus, there would soon cluster round it the most zealous elements in the diocese.” This dream came true on January 25, 1816 when the three first evangelizers formed such a nucleus, a community passionate about evangelization. What happened that day 200 years ago is a profound commentary to the Word of God which the Church proclaims on the Feast of the Conversion of St Paul. We read that Paul was travelling to Damascus to imprison the Christians there. Before he reached the city Jesus Christ appeared to him saying: “I am Jesus the Nazarene and you are persecuting me.” By those words Jesus showed Paul that by persecuting the Christians he was persecuting him. After that apparition Paul was left blind. Taken to the city of Damascus he had another visit, this time from a Christian man called Ananias who prayed for him and healed his blindness. It is a very profound dynamic captured in the Bible. The last person Paul saw before going blind was Jesus and the first person he saw after having his sight restored was a person from the local Church community. For the Apostle it was a lifelong lesson: Jesus and the Church are inseparable. We could summarize it in the saying: “Every time I think of Jesus I would like to think of the Church and every time I think of the Church I would like to think of Jesus.” What followed those events in Damascus was the life totally committed to evangelization. However what is overlooked is that St Paul after his conversion was a community person. He wasn’t a lonely ranger traveling the world and giving inspiring talks. On the contrary on his evangelizing travels we always meet him travelling with other Christians. Wherever he had arrived the people he spoke to could also experience first-hand what the Church is all about by observing Paul and his companions in their mutual support, fraternal love, humble cooperation and their shared passion for spreading of the Gospel.
            The first day of the Oblate Congregation, which happened on the Feast day of St Paul’s Conversion, was more than a coincidence. It was a Divine plan for their spiritual formation and the formation of their followers. What St Eugene expressed as having a nucleus in their diocese. St Eugene did have the heart of St Paul because for him Jesus Christ and the Church went together. He didn’t simply want to educate the ignorant Catholic in the Southern France but he wanted to give them a taste of what the Church is all about by sending them always a community of missionaries, not a single missionary. In this way those who met the Oblates could also experience first-hand what the Church is all about by observing Eugene and his spiritual sons in their mutual support, fraternal love, humble cooperation and their shared passion for spreading of the Gospel.
In 1841 when they were discerning going to Canada they were only a small Congregation, as the person who sent Bishop Ignace Bourget noticed. There were only forty priests, six scholastics and eight brothers. Sending overseas six men from that small and already overworked group was a sign of their courage and passion for evangelization. That year they were celebrating Twenty-fifth Anniversary of their Congregation and still after 25 years their passion for evangelization was burning in their hearts strongly. The only mistake the person who sent Bishop Bourget to Marseilles made was that there was not a one man with the heart of St Paul. There were 54 hearts as big as the heart of St Paul, as big as the world they wanted to bring into the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ.
 
Fifteen years after that providential day of January 25, 1816, when St Eugene de Mazenod and two other priests established the first community of missionaries, the nucleus Eugene was dreaming to give to the Church he loved so much, he wrote to the Novice Master, who was in charge if introducing the freshmen to the Oblate Congregation, regarding that memorable day. In this way St Eugene wanted to feed the hearts and minds of the young men who were beginning their journey to become Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate with the same sentiments which invigorated that first community established in 1816. He wrote it on the night of January 24, 1816:

Tomorrow I celebrate the anniversary of the day, I left my mother’s house to go and set up house at the Mission. Father Tempier had taken possession of it some days before. Our lodging had none of the splendour of the mansion at Billens, and whatever deprivations you may be subject to, ours were greater still. My camp-bed was placed in the small passageway which leads to the library: it was then a large room used as a bedroom for Father Tempier and for one other whose name we no longer mention amongst us. It was also our community room. One lamp was all our lighting and, when it was time for bed, it was placed in the doorway to give light to all three of us.
The table that adorned our refectory was one plank laid alongside another, on top of two old barrels. We have never enjoyed the blessing of such poverty since the time we took the vow. Without question, it was a foreshadowing of the state of perfection that we now live so imperfectly…. I assure you we lost none of our merriment; on the contrary, as this new way of life was in quite striking contrast with that we had just left, we often found ourselves having a hearty laugh over it. I owed this tribute to the memory of our first day of common life. How happy I would be to live it now with you!

What are the first words you say when you answer a phone call? A friend of mine says: “What can you do for me?” Now imagine ringing up your parish office and the first thing you hear is: “What can you do for us?” How would you proceed with your call then? Would you rather think: Maybe I should ring the next door parish instead? hoping they would ask you: “what can we do for you?” instead of: “what can you do for us?” I’ve attempted to train our parish secretaries to say that but somehow they just raised their eyebrows and tactically declined my suggestion.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Can you give me the names of, at least some, apostles? Peter, John, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew.
What about St Patrick? Isn’t he called the Apostle of Ireland? What about St Boniface? Isn’t he called the Apostle of Germany? What about St Augustine of Canterbury? Isn’t he called the Apostle of England? What about Saints Cyril and Methodius? Aren’t they called the Apostles of the Slavs? What about St Martin of Tours? Isn’t he called the Apostle of France? What about St Mary Magdalene? Isn’t she called the Apostle of Apostles? By the way do you know why she is called the Apostle of Apostles? She brought the Good News of Jesus’ Resurrection to the Apostles, who were hiding after Jesus’ death on the cross. I can’t understand why some people say that the Catholic Church doesn’t value women. Look the Church’s tradition gives the name of Apostle of Apostles to a woman.
What about Jesus Christ? Would you call him an apostle? Let me read a couple of sentences from the Gospel for this Eucharist with an attempt to give you the original Greek flavour. Jesus reads a passage from the Prophet Isaiah, the passage he applies to himself: “The spirit of the Lord has been given to me, for he has anointed me. He has apostled me to bring the Gospel to the poor.” I know that it doesn’t sound right to our ear, does it? When I was typing down this homily I had a fight with my computer which kept correcting it. It just shows how poor our main means of communication, I mean English language, is. Apparently Australia is a rich country. We are not. We are so poor that we cannot even express the depth of the Bible in the language we speak. Now let’s fast-forward the Luke’s Gospel story to get to the Chapter 9 when Jesus “had apostled his Twelve disciples to preach the Kingdom of God”, then in the Chapter 10 we read that the Lord “had apostled 72 other disciples to go before him to all the places he himself was to visit” and in the final Chapter 24 when Jesus is about to ascend to heaven. What does he say to his Apostles: “I will apostle to you the Holy Spirit.”
My Dear Friends! One of the things I would like to see before I die is that the word apostle is not only a noun but a verb as well. I dream that one day in an English dictionary, looking up apostle we will read: “An apostle is the person who has been apostled.” That’s how the people who wrote the Gospel and who meditated the Gospel 2000 years ago understood it.
However I have more dreams. I also dream that all of us, who claim to be Catholics, can get it, once and for good, that the Lord has baptised us in order to give us a mission to spread the Gospel. When we take it seriously we will not need to send someone researching apostles to look it up but we can say: “I am an apostle because I have been apostled, I have been sent.” Just imagine how vibrant our parishes would be if the majority of phone calls coming in were: “What can I do for this Church of mine to make us stronger at spreading the Gospel in this area?” This invitation from the Lord is for all of us the Pope, nuns, bishops, priests, parishioners, wise and experienced 80-year-olds as well as confused and rebellious 16-year-olds.
Last week a priest from my religious order, Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, died of cancer after a prolonged agony. When he was asked how he was coping he said: “Among us golfers we say: You play from where the ball drops.” He accepted his condition as it was, and in the midst of his deteriorating health he was doing his best for God’s glory.
You don’t need some university qualifications to spread the Gospel. The most important qualification is believing that the Lord Jesus Christ has sent you; or to start fulfilling my dream we can say: Believing that the Lord Jesus Christ has apostled you.

How would you feel if I showed you a picture of a girl and boy kissing and asked to pray before the picture? Awkward question, isn’t it? However I have come across a holy icon which captures such a moment: Mary and Joseph embracing each other and kissing? As every icon this one too is a window into heaven, showing us something about God.
What I find profound and insightful about the icon is that it shows Mary and Joseph as young people. Usually he is presented more as a grandfather looking after his pregnant granddaughter rather than a young man who was in love with his bride, isn’t he? But when you read the Gospel carefully you discover that God waited with sending the Archangel Gabriel to Mary until she met this man - Joseph who fell in love with her and when she fell in love with him. Than the Archangel announced to her that she would give birth to God’s only begotten Son Jesus Christ. We know that it happened in Nazareth but we should also treasure that it happened in the context of Mary and Joseph preparing themselves to take this step towards a loving, committed, lifelong relationship between man and woman which in one word is called MARRIAGE.
My Dear Sisters and Brother. Last year Pope Francis published a document on ecology Laudato Si. What does come to your mind when you hear the word ecology? The Earth, the environment, the nature, plants, animals etc. However in a very prophetic way the Pope speaks also about human ecology. He wrote: “Human ecology also implies another profound reality: the relationship between human life and the moral law, which is inscribed in our nature and is necessary for the creation of a more dignified environment.” Some months earlier the Pope spoke of “Complementarity of Man and Woman”: “The crisis in the family has produced an ecological crisis. For social environments, like natural environments, need protection. And although the human race has come to understand the need to address conditions that menace our natural environments, we have been slower to recognize that our fragile social environments are under threat as well, slower in our culture, and also in our Catholic Church. It is therefore essential that we foster a new human ecology.”
            Today we join Mary, Jesus and his disciples at Cana Galilee. What tis happening there? A party? Much better, a wedding! With Jesus, Mary and other guests we celebrate a loving, committed, lifelong relationship between a man and a woman, which in one word is called MARRIAGE. Again like in Nazareth the marriage becomes a context for God to reveal himself. After 2000 years every marriage is still an icon, a window into heaven, because as we could hear in our first reading when God wanted to tell his people how much he loved them, how much he was committed to them, he was searching for the right words and the best words he could use were: “Like a young man marrying a virgin, so will your God who build you wed you, and as the bridegroom rejoices in his bride, so will your God rejoice in you.”
            Could I ask the wives in this church, when was the last time you addressed your man as husband? A similar question for the gentlemen: When was the last time when you addressed your sweetheart as wife? Please don’t be shy to use this beautiful and profound vocabulary, especially in public. Our young people do need to hear that.
            To finish this homily I want to leave you with another picture of a man kissing a woman. I don’t have the picture to put it on the screen so you will need to use your imagination. A couple of years ago my grandfather passed away. When he was being taken for the surgery from which he never woke up my grandma was walking by his side. He said to her: “My wife please kiss me.” They were married for 61 years. When I recall that moment which was reported to me by my siblings I find that it always brings new strength to my own faith. Dear wives and husbands! Your marriage is a great service you render not simply to each other, not only to your own family but also to our Catholic Church and the wider community.

I would like you to talk now to the person next to you about how many persons participating in the event described by St Luke in the Gospel passage for this Sunday you can identify by name… If you’ve picked up John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, God the Father and the Holy Spirit you are an attentive listener with a sound Christian background.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! A few days after Christmas, for a brief moment I wished I was a Greek-Orthodox Christian.  Why? I saw some people already putting out their real Christmas trees for the council hard waste collection and I thought: “If I was a Greek Orthodox who celebrates Christmas a couple of weeks after the Catholics I would never need to buy Christmas trees. I could simply recycle those perfect unwanted trees for free.” I presume that those people getting rid of their Christmas trees well before the New Year Day would be surprised that this Sunday is still in Christmastide. Although in the Gospel for this Feast, Jesus doesn’t look very Christmassy, does he? Why doesn’t he look Christmassy? Because in our mentality we think about Jesus at Christmas as a Baby, don’t we? However the uniqueness of Christmas as the celebration of the birth of the Son of God is synthesized in helping us to recognise in him God. God became a man for our sake and he didn’t hide it from us. He has revealed his Incarnation to us. That’s why the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated as a part of Christmastide, even if Jesus Christ is already 30 years old, because we can see the event as the continuation of assisting us at recognising in him God.
Jesus was baptised so that we could realise that God is among us and that this God is at work for our sake. “The heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in a bodily shape, like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on you.”
For some people Christmas is over as soon as the presents are opened and the turkey and ham eaten up. However the Church gives us some time to meditate, to pray, to savour Christmas so that before we all pack up our Christmas decorations - and start eating hot cross buns – we can get this skill of recognising the presence of God in our lives and in the lives of others.
            I asked you to do that activity after the Gospel not simply to get you talk to each other about God, which was a bonus itself, but to give you an encouragement to search for God. I hope and I pray that you can get that God’s presence is not limited to the pages of the Bible. If our life is like a book and every day is like a page of that book, God is there.
            Not all people on the banks of the Jordan River recognised God in Jesus. John the Baptist did, because he had a sharp sense of faith, the supernatural appreciation of faith. As we know John the Baptist spent a lot of time in the desert where there is not much to indulge one’s sense of sight. The desert is dull. There is not much to indulge one’s sense of sound. The desert is quiet. There is no much to indulge one’s sense of smell. The desert is dry burnt. There is not much to indulge one’s sense of touch. There is sand everywhere. There is not much to indulge one’s sense of taste. John ate wild honey and some insects. It can’t compete with our Christmas lunches, can it? But it all contributed to John’s sharp sense of faith. Just think about our preparations for Christmas. Any visit to a shopping centre and our senses go wild. They overpower our sense of faith. Then it is so hard for us to sense God’s presence. Our sense of faith goes blunt. On the other hand just imagine how much joy we can have when we discover God in our ups and downs. Imagine also how much joy we can give to others by directing their attention to God’s presence in their life. John the Baptist discovered God coming to him for baptism. To have and to spread such a joy is worth the work on our senses.

 In the third century, during the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan Decius, a decree was issued granting all German, Egyptian and Greek gods the status of gods to be worshipped in the kingdom in the same way the Roman gods were worshiped. It meant that there were 30 thousand of gods and goddesses to worship. However there was one god which wasn’t welcomed. Do you know what his name was? Jesus Christ. The Romans described Jesus as a proud god who wanted to be worshiped alone.
            Do you think that the opinion expressed by the Romans was drawn after they interviewed Jesus Christ? Of course not, the events took place two centuries after Jesus’ birth. The opinion was drawn on the basis of the belief of the followers of Christ, the Christians of that time, who had refused a compromise of having peace and quiet for the price of placing the Lord Jesus among other gods and goddesses. They said: “No! Jesus is the only God with his Father and the Holy Spirit in the mystery of the Blessed Trinity.” Their stand enraged the political and social powers of the empire who ordered that all citizens had to perform an act of worship for those many gods. The Christians again said “No” and the persecutions started again.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Sometime I am asked whether Christmas was observed in those early centuries of our Church. The answer is: Christmas wasn’t celebrated as a feast day until the fourth century. The only celebration our Christians had for a couple of centuries was a weekly Sunday and the yearly celebration of Easter. If you may think that it was strange not to have Christmas - by the way just imagine the reaction of shops and other businesses today at the proposal of not having Christmas - remember that for those Christians their daily life provided opportunities to acknowledge and take a firm stand for what we celebrate in a cosy way here in Australia at Christmas. When they were imprisoned for not worshiping pagan gods, when they were losing their belongings for refusing to burn incense before the statues of pagan gods they were saying what we express singing our carols. That Jesus Christ is God, that He is our only Saviour, that He is our ruler. Interestingly Epiphany and Christmas were introduced were the persecutions ceased. I think that the Holy Spirit inspired the Church to introduce those celebrations when life became easy for Christians so that they could get reinvigorated and strengthened to continue bearing witness to Jesus Christ, because an easy life is more dangerous to faith then persecutions.
The Solemnity of Epiphany, which we have today, is not to justify giving Christmas presents following the example of the Wise Men but to be amazed and uplifted at the belief that God the Father gave us his only Son and that God the Father moved heaven and earth to help us to recognise in this Little Baby his Only Begotten Son. He moved heaven and earth by engaging the angels to show the shepherds the way to the Lord Jesus. He moved heaven and earth by engaging the stars and the sky to show the Maggi the way to the Lord Jesus. However the God the Father did even more then moving heaven and earth for those first visitors to the Lord Jesus, he sent the Holy Spirit to move their hearts, minds and souls to believe that this Little Baby was God himself. That’s why the poor shepherds went back to their flocks jumping with joy which even this weekend Jackpot of 30 million dollars couldn’t give them. That’s why the Wise Men gave the Lord Jesus not three but four gifts. Do you know what the fourth gift was? The protection they gave to the Holy Family by bypassing Herod. They returned home by a different way. They returned home different people. They came to Bethlehem as searching pagans. They returned home as believers who found the true God and they took a firm stand for what they believed.
My Dear Friends! I pray for you, and please pray for me, so that we who live in this cosy country of Australia may have our hearts, minds and souls moved by the Holy Spirit as we emerging from our Christmas celebrations to take always a firm stand for our belief that Jesus Christ is the Only God with his Father and the Holy Spirit in the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity.

            In the week leading to the Mother’s Day a teacher in Kindergarten was doing some relevant activities with the pupils. She asked them: “Do you know how old your mom is?” A little girl raised her hand and said: “My mom is 6.” The surprised teacher replied: “It is impossible. Your mom must be older.” The girl shook her head and answered: “No she is 6, because my mom became my mom when I was born.”
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! As we gather on this first day of 2016 when some people are still fast asleep or even struggling to remember what day is today, we turn again our attention to that day of Jesus’ birth when as St Luke tells us “the shepherds hurried away to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph - by the way can you see that Joseph is included in the Christmas picture? – and the Baby lying in the manger.” However today, on this eight day since Jesus’ birth, the Church also amazes on the birth of the Mother of God. Mary’s Motherhood began with the conception of the Only Begotten Son of God. The birth of that Son revealed that her Motherhood was to be extended to all who by Baptism were to be Jesus’ brothers and sisters. If we call her our Mother, as we do it so often and so affectionately, we do so because of her conceiving and giving birth to the Son who was God. Each one of us can say that our mom is 2016 and despite the age she is still a full time mom who takes care of us her children with the same love and tenderness she took care of the Child she bore in Bethlehem. The very fact that we have the Christmas stories it means that Mary shared those stories with the Evangelists. She didn’t keep them to herself as her private memories. On the contrary what she witnessed and lived, what she believed and treasured in her heart she offered that all to us as the best Christmas present ever. The memories of that Christmas time she treasured for our sake so that we may be drawn to the things invisible, so that we may be filled with the Holy Spirit she was filled with by witnessing those events of salvation which began taking place when Gabriel announced to her she would give birth of the Son of God.
            I started this homily with a school story; I’ve got another one for you. This time we are visiting grade 2. A math teacher is interrogating a boy: “Imagine this situation: you have got 10 dollars and you ask your mom to give you 10 dollars. How much money will you have?” “10 dollars” answers the boy. The teacher raised her eyebrows and says: “You don’t know your maths Jimmy.” “You don’t know my mom Miss.” - answers Jimmy.
            My Dear Friends! As we enter this New Year we tell everyone that we have a mother who knows us well. She knows what is good for us and what can lead us to wrongdoing. As followers of Christ we know that she knows us well. May she who watched over Jesus continue watching over us. May we always treasure the belief that we have a mother who knows us well.