Suy Niệm Lễ Chúa Nhật Hiển Linh

Suy Niệm Lễ Chúa Nhật Hiển Linh 

Hôm nay chúng ta mừng lễ chúa Hiển Linh. Với lòng khao khát về hiểu biết về Chúa, những nhà đạo sĩ, hay ba nhà thông thái, hay ba ông vua đến từ phương Đông. Họ sẵn sàng rời bỏ mọi thứ, quê hương và đất nước của họ để theo đuổi sự tò mò và tìm kiếm vị vua Do Tháj mới sinh ra. Trong sự siêng năng tìm kiếm của ba vua này, họ đã được dẫn đến nguồn kiến ​​thức đích thực; họ đến với Chúa Giêsu Kitô, với Ánh sáng và Sự khôn ngoan của Thiên Chúa. Khi họ tìm thấy vị Vua mới sinh, họ khiêm nhường thờ phượng Ngài và dâng tặng Ngài những món quà xứng đáng dành riêng cho một vị vua. 

Chúa là Chúa của vũ trụ, Đấng đã tỏ lô ngôi sao lạ Bêlem soi cho dân ngoại ở phương Đông để họ có thể đến và thờ phượng Chúa Giê-su Hài Nhi, Vị Hoàng tử Hòa bình (Ê-sai 9: 6) và Vua của các Vua (Khải Huyền 19:16), Hôm nay Ngài ban cho mỗi người chúng ta cùng một ánh sáng ngôi sao lạ mặc khải đó để giúp chúng ta nhận biết và tin nhận Chúa Giêsu là Chúa và là Cứu Chúa Thế của chúng ta. 

Đức tin là một món quà hoàn toàn miễn phí mà Thiên Chúa ban cho chúng ta. Chính nhờ sự trợ giúp của Chúa Thánh Thần, Đấng lay động trái tim tâm hồn và mở mắt trí óc của chúng ta hầu giúp chúng ta có thể hiểu, chấp nhận và tin vào lẽ thật mà Thiên Chúa đã bày tỏ cho chúng ta qua Con của Người, Chúa Giêsu Kitô. 

Trong đức tin, ý chí và trí tuệ của con người hợp tác với ân sủng. Như thánh Thomas Aquinas nói: "Tin tưởng là một hành động của trí tuệ đồng ý với chân lý thiêng liêng bằng mệnh lệnh của ý chí do Thiên Chúa chuyển động qua ân sủng riêng". Biết và gặp gỡ Chúa Giêsu Kitô là biết Thiên Chúa một cách thân thiên cá biệt. 

Trong cuộc gặp gỡ của ba vua hay các nhà thông thái với Chúa Giêsu, chúng ta thấy kế hoạch của Thiên Chúa là để Con Một của Ngài làm Vua và Cứu Chúa, không chỉ cho dân Do Thái mà cho tất cả các dân trong các nước. Chúa Giêsu đã đến để cả người Do Thái và dân ngoại có thể tìm thấy sự bình an đích thực và lâu dài với Thiên Chúa. Hôm nay, chúng ta hãy cầu xin Chúa cho người Do Thái cũng như người ngoại giáo sẽ tìm thấy Chúa và Đấng Cứu Rỗi trong hành trình cuộc đời của họ. Chúng ta cần phải mang ánh sáng của Chúa Giêsu Kitô đến với những người chúng ta gặp gỡ qua những việc làm nhân chứng cho Chúa qua cuộc sống và lời nói của chúng ta? 

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord: 

Today we celebrate the Feast of Epiphany. In their thirst for knowledge of God, these magi or wise men or kings from the East willingly left everything, their home and country, in pursuit of that quest. In their diligent search they were led to the source of true knowledge; to Jesus Christ, the Light and Wisdom of God. When they found the newborn King they humbly worshiped him and gave him gifts fitting for a king. The Lord of the universe who revealed the star of Bethlehem to the Gentiles of the East so they could come and worship Jesus, the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) and King of Kings (Revelations 19:16), 

Today He gives each one of us the same light of revelation to recognize and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to us. It is through the help of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and opens the eyes of the mind, that we are able to understand, accept, and believe the truth which God has revealed to us through his Son, Jesus Christ. In faith, the human will and intellect cooperate with grace. Saint Thomas Aquinas said: "Believing is an act of the intellect assenting to the divine truth by command of the will moved by God through grace". 

To know and to encounter Jesus Christ is to know God personally. In the encounter of the wise men with Jesus we see the plan of God to give his only Son as King and Savior, not just for the Jewish people but for all the nations as well. The Lord Jesus came that both Jew and Gentile might find true and lasting peace with God. 

Let us pray today that Jew and Gentile alike will find the Lord and Savior on their journey of life. We have bring the light of Jesus Christ to those we meet through the witness of our life and testimony. 

My Homily 2020- 

Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord: Journeying with the Magi 

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany is one of the oldest celebrations of the Church, probably even older than the celebration of Christmas. The Old Testament makes it clear that God loves His people. The Epiphany makes it clear that all who reverence God are His people. When we were young, we called this feast is the feast of three Kings. Three kings from the East looking for baby Jesus and bringing him Gifts. Here, we call them magi, or wise men, and kings. Which were they? They were probably all three. 

The term magi refer to Persian priests who could interpret dreams, they were also astronomers and astrologers, people who sought God’s message to humans in the stars. They were probably Kings because their arrival in Jerusalem created quite a stir and earned them an audience with Herod. They may have been leaders of various groups of people in the areas of Persia. We really don’t know. We do know that they were wise men. Who are attuned to the will of God and puts it into action. They sought the newborn King of the Jews. They assumed that Jesus was a member of the King’s family. So, we could see why they thought king Herod would know where the baby Jesus was. We can also understand why king Herod was upset. The king recognized the magi brought him a bad new and he realized that there must be a threat to his kingship. He afraid someone out there who would be taken over his kingdom and be new King of the Jews. 

Regarding the star, the ancients believed that the birth or death of a great person was accompanied by astral phenomena. Perhaps the star was North Star or a comet. Perhaps it was a supernova. Or, perhaps, it was an angel guiding the magi. For us we would prefer that was an angel from God. Finally, the magi sought to do homage to the newborn king, and did so when they found him in the house in Bethlehem. Doing homage means to make an action of submission before a person of great dignity and authority. 

A person would bow or prostrate himself. 

Homage is the proper attitude of humans before God. 

And we still continue this when we enter Church and genuflect before the Blessed Sacrament, or kneel during the Eucharistic Prayer and after receiving communion. The magi sought the newborn King of the Jews to do him homage. We also seek the Lord. Why? Why do we seek him? 

We seek him because we want him to be our king. We want him to be the focus of our lives. 

We are not satisfied with just calling upon him when we need him in times of crisis and challenge. 

We don’t just call out to Jesus when a loved one is hurting, or has died, or when we have strife in our family, or when we need help at school or at work. We call out to him every day to be the center of our lives. This takes courage and determination. It is easy for us to say, “Lord, I need you here in my life, but not there. I need you in the hospital, but not when I’m thinking about going to that questionable party.”  It is easy for us to ask the Lord to be with us as we care for a sick person, but not with us when we go with a person with whom we sin. We know that we can’t just call upon God some of the time, and ignore him the rest of the time. We don’t want a God who will leave us alone so we can join in with the sin of the world. We want a God who will help us conquer sin, conquer sin in the world and conquer sin in our lives. And so, we also, like the magi, do him homage. 

We prostrate ourselves before God and we proclaim with our hearts, with our words, and with our lives, “You are the Holy One. You are Our God. Like the magi we have undertaken a journey. It is the journey of our lives. We journey to those places where the Lord is calling us to give witness to the world that He is the true King of the Universe. For our young people the places of their journey may include their schools, their colleges and those locations where they begin their adult lives. For our parents, the places of their journey may include each place their children need to go, each stage of their children’s lives. 

For each of us the places of our journeys include locations where people don’t usually go to look for God, like a stable, or a homeless shelter, or a prison or a rehab program. Few of us here today have ever been to Bethlehem. Those who visited that holy place found that the manager was empty. But being a disciple of Jesus is not seeing him in the stable. 

It is living his gospel. Whenever we feed the poor, whenever we visit the sick or imprisoned, whenever we welcome the stranger, we are ministering to Christ himself. When we are patient with a relative who irritates us, when we are kind to the kid at school that everyone else mocks, when we listen to the person who is grieving or are generous with those who struggle, we are not only serving them. We are serving Jesus. Our lives are a journey seeking the Presence of the Lord. We journey with the magi to Bethlehem where we can find the Lord. May our journey be safe, beautiful and full of the love of God. We cannot go with the Magi to Bethlehem but we can offer Christ our gifts. Not gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh but gifts of respect, compassion, and love.