This week's readings Week of Dec. 30 - Jan. 5 Sunday, Dec. 30, 2001 Reading I: Sir 3:2-6, 12-14 Reading II: (Longer Form) Col 3:12-21 Gospel: Mt 2:13-15, 19-23 Monday, Dec. 31, 2001 Reading I: 1 Jn 2, 18-21 Gospel: Jn 1, 1-18 Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2002 Reading I: Numbers 6:22-27 Reading II: Galatians 4:4-7 Gospel: Luke 2:16-21 Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2002 Reading I: 1 Jn 2, 22-28 Gospel: Jn 1,19-28 Thursday, Jan. 3, 2002 Reading I: 1 Jn 2, 29--3, 6 Gospel: Jn 1, 29-34 Friday, Jan. 4, 2002 Reading I: 1 Jn 3, 7-10 Gospel: Jn 1, 35-42 Saturday, Jan. 5, 2002 Reading I: 1 Jn 3, 11-21 Gospel: Jn 1, 43-51 Week of Jan. 6 - 12 Sunday, January 6, 2002 Reading I: Isaiah 60:1-6 Reading II: Ephesians 3:2-3a, 5-6 Gospel: Mt 2:1-12 Monday, January 7, 2002 Reading I: 1 Jn 3, 22-4, 6 Gospel: Mt.4, 12-17. 23-25 Tuesday, January 8, 2002 Reading I: 1 Jn 4, 7-10 Gospel: Mk 6, 34-44 Wednesday, January 9, 2002 Reading I: Jn 4, 11-18 Gospel: Mk 6, 45-52 Thursday, January 10, 2002 Reading I: 1 Jn 4, 19--5, 4 Gospel: Lk 4, 14-22 Friday, January 11, 2002 Reading I: 1 Jn 5, 5-13 Gospel: Lk 5, 12-16 Saturday, January 12, 2002 Reading I: 1 Jn 5, 14-21 Gospel: Jn 3, 22-30 Pope's Prayer Intentions December General Intention Escape from cultural conditioning that blinds us to the rights of others. That we Christians may escape the subtle cultural conditioning which stifles recognition of the dignity and rights of others. December Mission Intention Illumination of the cultures of Asia by Christian humanism with its Gospel values. That Christian humanism may illumine, through Gospel values, the cultures of Asia.

The human family:

Let God make it holy

		Word of God  Word of Life  Fr. John G. Stillmank

"Friends we choose," the saying goes. "Family you're stuck with!"

That's not a very pleasant way of describing our relationships with our family members, but oftentimes it rings true. Sometimes "the tie that binds" is the only thing that keeps families together. More often it's genuine love for one another.

Nonetheless, family life needs work, like all our relationships. We can't take our famlies for granted any more than we can neglect our friends, expecting things will just be fine without a continual process of nurture and growth. Each day of our lives is an opportunity to continue forming the relationships within our family: spouses and parents, children and siblings, and all the many other people who are our relatives.

Readings for The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph (Dec. 30) Sirach 3:2-6 Psalm 128 Colossians 3:12-21 Matthew 2:13-15

The Scriptures remind us that human fatherhood is modeled on God the Father, and that children ought to honor their father. Yet in today's world we recognize that some fathers choose to do their fathering in a way that fails to inspire honor. Some even neglect their fatherhood, failing to provide for their children.

So, too, human motherhood is given its rightful place by the Lord of creation. Isaiah who teaches that "God sets a father in honor over his children" also teaches that "a mother's authority he confirms over her sons." Yet, sadly, today motherhood itself does not receive the respect and recognition it deserves in our culture. Stay-at-home Moms are made to feel as if their lives lack meaning. Some mothers, as with some fathers, fail to live up to their parental calling.

The struggles that mothers and fathers (and motherhood and fatherhood in general) face today are, in part, due to a lack of respect for the order of God's creation, a lack of honor for God's law and his will. "Honor your father and your mother" is alien to our modern vocabulary. Family seems less important than it used to.

"The same compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness and love which should be part of our family will help us to make the human family a holy one, a gift from Jesus to the Father. Let's start doing that today!"

Saint Paul teaches how God's chosen ones -- the disciples of Jesus -- ought to live, and it's a perfect blueprint for restoring dignity to family life. "Put on . . . heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another," he writes. "Over all these put on love . . . let the peace of Christ control your hearts."

Two more things, Paul adds, are necessary. Be thankful. And do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus.

This is how to understand what the Apostle teaches about the relationships of wives and husbands, children and parents. Give thanks to God the Father for the gift of your family, and put on all those things which will build up familiy life, binding them together with love.

The holy family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is one in which, contrary to the old saying, the members are not "stuck" with one another, but one in which each was chosen by God. God chose to send his Son in the fullness of time. He chose Mary to become the Mother of God. He chose Joseph to safeguard and protect them.

Do you think for one minute your own family is any less chosen by God, imperfect and dysfunctional as it might be? Yet by God's grace we can put into our families the vitality and love which will help them to become holy families, too -- not perfect, but striving to become the kind of family God has designated each family to become.

The same goes for the human family. God did not place us on this earth to make war upon each other, to force the less fortunate to live in poverty and suffering, to discriminate and hate and murder one another. No! He gave us to one another to love, to help, to serve, to nurture, and to grow.

The same compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, forgiveness and love which should be part of our family will help us to make the human family a holy one, a gift from Jesus to the Father. Let's start doing that today!

Fr. John G. Stillmank is Moderator of the Curia for the Diocese of Madison and pastor of St. Andrew Parish, Verona, and St. William Parish, Paoli.

Banish violence:

Return to God by a route of peace

		Word of God  Word of Life  Fr. John G. Stillmank

The story of the Magi, the wise men, astrologers, or "we three kings" is a familiar one, and our kids' Christmas pageants have traditionally featured these figures as part of the nativity scene.

Along with the virgin Mary, Joseph her husband, the infant Jesus, angels and shepherds -- and of course the star -- the three mysterious men who visit the humble birth with precious gifts touch our imaginations, and give us hope, for they represent salvation come to the Gentiles, to the nations.

We often miss the darker, more ominous side of the story, and yet the violence intended against the newborn child is an integral part of the Christmas story, for it foreshadows the struggles he will face in his life and ministry and, ultimately, his death on the cross.

Readings for The Epiphany of the Lord (Jan. 6) Isaiah 60:1-6 Psalm 72 Ephesians 3:2-3a Matthew 2:1-12

Jealous King Herod, hearing of the birth of a rival king, plots to kill him. Doesn't this remind us of jealous King Saul, plotting to kill David who was chosen to become the new king by the Lord God himself? Of the jealous Pharisees and others who plotted to kill Jesus because he was popular with the people who so desperately wanted, indeed needed, to hear his message of forgiveness, mercy, and love?

It should, for the followers of Jesus' teachings have known for two millennia that what he taught, so appealing to the poor, the needy, the sinner, is odious to the self-righteous and those with worldly power.

Yet here are the three, kneeling before the Christ, the boy-child in whom they recognize God's miraculous grace. On bended knee they present their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh -- symbols of his kingship, divinity, and the suffering that will characterize his salvific mission.

Worldly riches are not for this tiny king, however. No, the three from the East come "proclaiming praises of the Lord," to use the words of the Prophet Isaiah. "Lord, every nation on earth will adore you;" so we sing in the psalm. Glory, adoration, praise, and thanksgiving -- and most of all, love -- are what the disciples of the Lord Jesus bring as gifts to his Father.

The world has long been tortured by violence, since Adam and Eve put their hand to what God had forbidden, since Cain killed his own brother. In a world today more prosperous, perhaps, than ever before, untold millions suffer from poverty, lack of education and employment, starvation -- the gifts of the Magi have not enriched people's lives as they should.

They, the three visitors to the humble crib, have a lesson to teach us. We need to learn to share, to give freely. We need to look upon our brothers and sisters with love, and open our own coffers, as rich or as meager as they might be, and give to them who bear the image of Christ on their faces, in their hearts.

Doing that, we will reap a rich reward of the gold of God's love. The incense of our prayers will bring us his mercy, and the myrrh of our contrition will help us to accept his forgiveness. The violence of the world has no place before the birthplace of the savior, although it nailed him later to the cross.

Let us banish all hatred and violence from our world, returning -- as did the three wise givers-of-gifts -- by another route of peace to the kingdom of the Lord, where sin and death cannot exist, and where only joy accompanies those who believe in the child born beneath the star.

Fr. John G. Stillmank is Moderator of the Curia for the Diocese of Madison and pastor of St. Andrew Parish, Verona, and St. William Parish, Paoli.