The Author of our Lives

Dear Friend,

By request of our hard-working partners at Mission Printing, this first Parish Bulletin of 2025 covers two weeks, which means we can put the spotlight on two big Sunday celebrations at the same time: the Feast of the Holy Family (12/29) and Epiphany (1/5).  In doing so, a curious piece of Good News jumped out at me. Here it is, stay with me…

While the Gospel for Holy Family comes from Luke, and Epiphany’s Gospel comes from Matthew, it’s striking that both authors use a story from early in their Gospel to point to what lies at the end. In Luke, the boy Jesus gets “lost” and after three days his parents find him back in Jerusalem. Look at the end of Luke’s Gospel. There, two despondent disciples on the road to Emmaus seem to have lost their Master to a cruel death (three days before). Through some strange encounters, they end up heading back to Jerusalem where they find him. 

Meanwhile, in Matthew’s Epiphany story of Magi arriving from nations “in the East” to find the newborn Jesus, it’s hard not to hear the end of the Gospel, where the author has Jesus, from a mountain top, directing his followers to “Go, make disciples of all nations!”

Clearly, Matthew and Luke crafted their Gospels in very deliberate ways. How much more, then, can we imagine the Author of our lives crafting our stories – the individual and collective ones – with the same care, under the guidance of the Spirit, if we allow it. While our lives are at times lost and found, in the end, and in the love of God, it’s not all about “us” at all. We “go out” with that love to a world whose wise ones might well be already searching for Jesus! 

Gratefully

Father Dan, Pastor