In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Our Lady Star of the New Evangelization, St. Joseph.
Our Lady Star of the New Evangelization, St. Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar.
Our Patron Saints and Guardian Angels.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
On this day before Baptism of the Lord, the Church's Liturgy has St. John's Letter,
where he talks about sin, and he talks about deadly sin, and sin that is not deadly.
He said,
If anyone sees his brother sinning, if the sin is not deadly, he should pray to God, and he will give him life.
This reflects the teaching of the Church that if, you know, venial sin,
one can remit venial sin by making an act of contrition,
or any kind of penitential action on the part of the sinner to ask pardon for sin,
that, you know, even at the penitential rite of Mass, venial sins can be forgiven.
Amen.
But he says,
This is only for those whose sin is not deadly.
There is such a thing as deadly sin, about which I do not say that you should pray.
All wrongdoing is sin, but there is a sin that is not deadly.
But why does he say about deadly sin that you should, that I, which I, about which I do not say that you should pray?
Well, because he knows that for praying, you can pray for them, but really as needed is they need to go to confession.
For that is really the ultimate, and the,
the most important cure for deadly sin is the sacramental confession of it.
You shouldn't just rely or hope on a perfect act of contrition for deadly sin.
You should go to confession because even with imperfect contrition,
mortal sin in the sacrament of confession is forgiven.
What is imperfect contrition?
Well, the fear of losing, going to hell, and that you've offended God seems to be the,
the greater motive for sin.
The greater motive for going to confession than the fact that you offended God out of pure love for him.
And as we know, perfect act of contrition,
those are graces that God gives in extraordinary circumstances.
The ordinary means for forgiving of sins that God has established,
especially mortal sins, is the sacrament of confession.
So that's why St. John says, I don't say you should pray about it.
You should go to confession, is what he's really implying.
Praying is, is not the, the ultimate thing that the person should do who is in mortal sin,
is they should go to confession.
That's what their prayer should lead them to do, is to go and make an act of,
go to confession and get rid of the sin.
And then he talks about that those who are begotten by God do not sin.
Because they have sinned.
They have God protecting them.
That means those who are living in God's grace, that they stay in God's grace,
that they will have a certain protection of divine providence.
But, you know, if we wander away from the reservation,
if we wander into the devil's territory,
as they always say, the devil is a chained dog.
If you get bitten by a chained dog, it's because you've wandered into his territory.
So, that's why he's saying that those who are begotten,
begotten by God, if you live in God's providence,
you do what you should be doing,
you don't wander into the devil's territory,
you will be having God's special protection and the evil one cannot touch him.
But we know many times we do wander into the devil's territory
and we do get bitten by chained dogs because we're,
we're foolish human beings.
And so that's why we need to,
make use of the sacrament of confession.
And then in the gospel today,
and we have this whole
theme of, you know, all these different epiphanies,
and they end up with the baptism of the Lord.
And one of the, as we heard on Epiphany Sunday,
in the antiphon for the divine office,
is the connection between epiphany,
baptism of our Lord of the Jordan,
and the wedding feast at Cana.
And it's made clear,
in John's gospel today,
that he sees the connection between our Lord being baptized by him
and that the bridegroom has come.
He was just the,
the best man.
And that now that the bridegroom is here,
he should step out of the way.
Because now our Lord is showing by his baptism in another place
that he is doing what is,
what only John's baptism,
was leading up to,
was a prefigurement of.
That it's, our Lord is really doing the,
the fulfillment of all that he was preparing for.
So it's time for me to exit stage right.
You know, when the,
when the first,
when the,
when the main act comes,
all those who prepare for it step out of the way.
And this is what he is seeing,
that this whole relationship of the baptism of our Lord in the Jordan,
and the wedding feast of Cana,
is that this is this marriage that it says it took place at
the wedding feast of Cana on the third day.
On the third day, we can see that it being the sign of the Trinity.
On the third day, when our Lord rose from the dead
and finally conquered sin and death,
our Lord established at the wedding feast of Cana and at Calvary,
a marriage.
You know, when he said,
woman behold your son,
son behold your mother,
there was a consummation.
And he even says,
it is consummated in that our Lord bowed his head and died.
What is consummated but a marriage.
It is always said that the church was born from the side of our Lord at Calvary.
But there is the mother of the church
and the first child at the foot of the cross.
It is said, you know,
that Saint Francis coined that phrase,
that our lady is the virgin made church.
From her,
from her fruitfulness,
of her virginity,
came the Son of God.
But also,
when she said yes to being the head of the church,
she said yes to being the mother of every,
every member of the mystical body.
And that marriage,
that consummation of that marriage that took place
at the wedding feast of Cana,
was not that couple there that he made all that wine for.
But the marriage was already being prepared.
The bride was already prepared.
The wedding was prepared between our lady and our Lord.
The head of the bridegroom, our Lord and the bride, the church
which is also symbolic of our lady.
She's the bride of Christ, par excellence.
And there is that wedding.
And that the new wine that our Lord made wasn't for the guests, so much.
It was made for them.
But really it was made to symbolize this marriage that would be affected at Calvary.
between our Lord and the church, our Lord and his mother,
in that he would bring forth these children from his side,
pierced at Calvary, and already symbolized
and prefigured at the wedding feast of Cana,
and already manifested at the epiphany,
when all the nations would then come to adore our Lord.
As we know that the church, already symbolized there
by the three wise men coming to our Lord,
already only a few hours old, maybe a few days old,
manifests that our Lord came for the whole world,
that he wasn't limited to the Jews,
but that his salvation was meant for all mankind.
So today as we reflect on these mysteries,
our lady is...
very much an essential role to play
in the manifestation of Christ.
How can we not see that when she's the one who gave him
his human nature to manifest himself to us?
And therefore, every moment, every epiphany,
that any way in God manifests himself to souls,
that the graces that are given to them
in some way have a Marian component,
have a Marian atmosphere,
or a Marian theme to them,
or a Marian delivery, you might say,
that our Lord doesn't act without his mother.
So if the church wants to manifest Christ to the world today,
to the degree that it becomes Marian,
then it will be more effective in being epiphanies.
And to the degree that we become more Marian,
we will be better epiphanies, manifestations of Christ,
to the world around us.
For the three kings, the three wise men,
entered into the room and found the child with his mother.
And we won't find Jesus in our world today without his mother.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
Amen.