Our readings for Sunday are here. These are the readings every year.
These are the poems, my notes, and interpretations of Fr Dennis’ homilies from the Masses of
- January 5, 2020 10AM
- January 7, 2018 10AM
- January 3, 2016 10AM
- January 4, 2015 5PM
The poems Fr Dennis references these years are:
- Primitive by Joyce Sutphen in 2020
- Burlington Vermont by Naomi Shihab Nye in 2020
- Paper-Cut by Julie Cadwaller Staub in 2020
- Ice by Mary Oliver in 2018
- Pastoral by William Carlos William in 2016
- Five Wishes by Anne Porter in 2016
- Negative Space by Ron Koertge in 2015
In 2020, we reflected that —
- I (rl) managed to get the poems but did not take notes, apparently enjoying the homily — though now, oh how I wish I had jotted them down. This was one of his last three months of homilies and Mass celebrations with us. Each of the three poems by Sutphen, Nye, and Staub shares a moment of epiphany, as per usual with D2, a sharing of the Light in the ordinary.
In 2018, we reflected that —
- We associate the magi and its root word with astronomers and magicians, of which D2 was one in his youth (and continued to share in his Nativity Pageant Mass aka The Mass of Chaos homily) in the model of __________ __________ of the 1940s. Fr Dennis was more of a sleight of hand magician, and used scarves when he was at St Mary’s, and it looks like cards at other times in his life.
- An epiphany and the magi of the Epiphany evoke awe and mystery.
- It’s hard for us to imagine how foreign the astrologers and magicians were to the Jewish temperament at that time. The Magi of the gospel had three strong prescriptions against them in Jewish culture of that day:
- First, they were magicians/astrologers; these groups were generally looked down upon by both Jewish culture and its offshoot Christians.
Second, they were Gentiles (and how).
Lastly, gentile magicians using a star to proclaim a Jewish King to the Jewish people themselves. - Yet, in the story of The Epiphany, 1) the Magi are the witnesses, 2) very much outsiders, and 3) there’s no closure to their story — they just disappear without conversion.
- First, they were magicians/astrologers; these groups were generally looked down upon by both Jewish culture and its offshoot Christians.
- But in having such a story, God, through the Magi, demonstrates God is not bound by our way of thinking and how God is present in different cultures …
- … which leads to an understanding of missionaries that is more Jesuit-like: a missionary doesn’t bring God to other cultures, so much as finds out how God is already at work there, i.e., God’s Glory .. and God’s Glory is not confined by us, least of all.
- “Epiphany” means “shining forth” — like the stars, gifts, the James Joyce insight into epiphanies.
- Mary Oliver’s poem Ice is a beautiful description of living on with the absence of a parent or parents and how we come to our understandings and insights later. It captures the light, joy, and suffering of those times of our lives, or the story of the Magi: light, Herod, The Epiphany, their departure, and the ensuing slaughter of the innocents.
In 2016, we reflected that —
- There are so many themes of Light! — Isaiah reading, second revelation of mystery, Israel, star, God’s Glory, Jesus Himself.
- D2 tells the joke about a big day in Heaven. God is feeling even more generous than usual, especially for religious communities. So God sends Francis of Assisi, Dominic, and Ignatius of Loyola back into The Nativity, >poof<. They’re there. Francis raptures “Oh! The simplicity! The poverty!” and goes off and joins the shepherds or something. Dominic begins philosophizing about the infinite God manifesting in this finite child, and so on and so on. He walks off deep in his thoughts. Ignatius leans in to the Holy Family and asks, “Have you given any thought to the boy’s education?” [laughter in the congregation]
- All jokes have an epiphany — the moment where we “get it.”
- Jesus is an epiphany, a shining to all the nations.
- James Joyce noted that all his stories have an epiphany for the reader or for one of the characters.
- An epiphany is how things fit together better; we see things better or more wholly [or more “holy”?] and grow as a result.
- Poems are like epiphanies, the “aah” moment of seeing the light.
- In today’s poems —
- Five Wishes by Anne Porter express the epiphanies of who Ms. Porter is — a wild bird, radiance, …, and being with her daughter..
- In William Carlos Williams’ Pastoral he describes the beauty of weathered, poor houses, the patina. He now prefers the patina to the untarnished new. His doctoral ministry has led him to the beauty of their neighborhoods; his poem is the sharing of his epiphany which is “not of importance to the nation.”
In 2015, we reflected that —
- James Joyce spoke of epiphanies as a literary device, a recognition of what the character/story is all about without the character knowing it. Much of this can be found in Richard Ellmann’s classic James Joyce, a biography.
- Epiphanies are a kind of inadvertent revelation of things the characters are most careful to conceal, e.g., Mary and Joseph were simply busy taking care of their kid and these magi (and shepherds) show up.
- Epiphany is a moment when the souls of the commonest object shines like a radiant star; an epiphany is both arrogant and humble. Epiphany merely happens and in its happening it merely happens; the author does not focus the text on the epiphany itself.
- It is remarkable that God comes as a child / one lowly and common but who shines like a radiant star, not a as a huge warrior king. He is attended by magi whose astrology told them they were visiting a newborn “king of the Jews.”
- Ron Koertge’s Negative Space poem holds an epiphany, unveiled after decades of life together.
The Surest Sign 