Ut Aliis Tradere

As Christian feasts go, our secular culture has no idea what to do with it. While the world around us has taken down their decorations (except for those people who get around to it sometime between Independence and Labour Day), many Christians, to the puzzlement of their neighbours, leave their decorations up to blaze forth in full glory until this day.

[A reflection on the readings of the Second Sunday after Christmas, January 4, 2026, which may be read by following this link: https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/christmas-2/ ] Usually, in my weekly musings, I look at the Gospel appointed for the Mass of the Day, read and reflect, and write. We get a choice of no less than THREE passages today, and the one I pick may not be the one you hear...or the one I hear because I see the Sunday bulletin AFTER writing this... So

[A reflection on the Gospel for the First Sunday after Christmas, which may be found at https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/christmas-1-a/ along with the other readings for Mass.] Darkness is all about us. Millions suffer around the world, victims of war, oppression, marginalization, or sheer neglect. Wars rage across the earth, random violence pops up in seemingly secure and sedate locales, and crushing poverty drags down whole neighbourhoods, cities, and regions. Po

While we signify this by the expectant nature of Advent, it really is only a symbol, a living, breathing representation, of a larger and more profound period of waiting for a greater and more profound event.

With news like this around us, perhaps even directly affecting us, how can we even begin to rejoice?

My dear ones in Christ, we should not fear judgement, but we should recognize that there will indeed be a judgement, both the judgement of our choice either to embrace eternal life or to persist in death, as well as the examination of our actions.

We tried our level best, but human ability to predict is notoriously wobbly at best and downright deceptive and delusional at worst, just like the predictions we have been hearing lately about the date of the return of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

...the copy of the Temple was what was destroyed in 70 CE. The true Temple had been destroyed almost forty years earlier...

Now, instead of asking a question about the law, that is, what do we do about the fact that NONE of these men left heirs, or instead of questioning after husband number two just why these men were kicking off (I have watched way too many true crime shows), the Sadducees ask Jesus, "In the Resurrection, whose wife will she be?" never mind the fact that the Sadducees did not even believe that there would be a resurrection in the first place.

What we see in the Zacchaeus story is one of the dishonourable who has heard Our Lord's message and took it to heart and chose the path of God's honour, disavowing the path that won him honour in the eyes of the rich and powerful.

If God is anything, He is the summit of all truth. Pretense and play-acting and self-promotion are ineffective with Him because He always sees to the heart of the person before Him.

Persistence, not losing heart, not succumbing to despair all revolve around keeping faith. We talk about faith all the time. We “keep the faith,” we “practice the faith,” we “walk by faith,” we are “saved by faith,” we are “members of the faith,” we “live by faith,” but do we really understand faith?

What is noteworthy, and Jesus points this out in several places, a saving faith can be found outside the context of a favoured people. Indeed, Jesus spent much of His ministry debunking the concept of a favoured people...

Did you ever notice that rich people do not fare very well in Holy Scripture?...Perhaps preachers of a prosperity Gospel should take earnest note.

After all, the statement seems so antithetical to everything Our Lord preached and taught.