Homily for January 2, 2005
Liturgical Year A-Cycle I
Epiphany

Gospel :
Mt 2: 1-12
When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying,  "Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage." When King Herod heard this, he was greatly troubled,  and all Jerusalem with him. Assembling all the chief priests and the scribes of the people,  he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea,  for thus it has been written through the prophet: And you, Bethlehem, land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; since from you shall come a ruler, who is to shepherd my people Israel." Then Herod called the magi secretly  and ascertained from them the time of the star's appearance. He sent them to Bethlehem and said,  "Go and search diligently for the child. When you have found him, bring me word,  that I too may go and do him homage." After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,  until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star,  and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures  and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way.

I am always delighted to celebrate the Mass with Deacon Tony Porto.  He is supposed to be retired and he’s working away, especially today since this is his anniversary.  On this day in 1944 he was married to his wonderful wife, Bernice. The boy from Brooklyn and the gal from Texas. What a beautiful marriage.  I wish them many more years of health and happiness and love together. 

Today, we celebrate the Epiphany and regardless of whatever age you may be, I’m sure you have memories of this feast.  Did you notice the children as they looked at the Nativity set outside as they came into church today, especially the little ones?  They were fascinated with the wonderful three kings. We have a beautiful Nativity setting here.  We can thank the Knights of Columbus for purchasing it and putting it up each year. 

There are lots of memories and this is a great story.  The story of the Epiphany.  It’s a great saga. It's like The Lord of the Rings or Raiders of the Lost Arc.  It has all those elements of dreams and astrological signs and these three strange powerful men from foreign nations.  Then, of course, every great saga has to have a diabolical character and Herod provides that in abundance. 

Unfortunately, Herod is not a fictional character--he existed and was a historical character.  A very interesting and complex man was Herod the Great, King Herod, King of Judah, King of Israel, you could say.  Of course, he was not really independent of anything. He was a vassal of Rome.  At that time, Rome ruled the world.  The Roman Empire permitted kings to rule their own nations--as long as they kept the peace and kept the money and tribute coming to the Roman emperor, all was well. 

It is interesting that Herod really wasn’t Jewish.  His mother wasn’t Jewish and therefore, according to the Jewish way, he wasn’t Jewish.  His mother was an Arabian princess and his father was a Jew. He was a very complex character, a very brilliant man, very ambitious and ruthless as well.  Even today, Herod the great is remembered in Israel.  There are many buildings and edifices that he was responsible for--many of which are still standing.  He, however, never was able to control his passion and as he grew older, it grew worse. We know him as a very evil person.  He killed his second wife and her mother. He executed three of his own sons because he thought they were conspiring against him.  Can you I imagine executing your child?  He killed over 300 priests of the Sanhedrin--the religious courts of the Jews. He ordered the execution, the death, of every newborn boy, or every child less than 2 years of age in the area around Bethlehem trying to kill the Christ.  Of course, the Holy Family had fled to Egypt, etc, etc.  There are characters like Herod throughout history, even in recent history--Sadaam Hussein, Idi Amin, Kim Chung Il, Stalin and  Hitler. They were just evil, evil characters and Herod was one of them. 

But it is interesting that Herod the great, was afraid of what?  He was afraid of this baby.  How much did Jesus weigh? Six or seven pounds?  Eight pounds?    This great and strong Herod was afraid of this baby because he feared the competition.  He didn’t like talk of another king.  Of course, Jesus was no threat to him at all.  His kingdom was not of this world.  He would have obeyed the laws of the land.  He was obedient to civil decree as was his teaching and the teaching of the Jews. Herod was afraid of a baby and you could say, “Well, how could anyone be afraid of a baby?”  And yet, I think to some degree, the world is afraid of babies.  Let me just focus on that one aspect of this great story of the Epiphany for a few moments.

Some of you will disagree with me about some things I’ll say but I submit to you that I am speaking from the Christian perspective.  I’m speaking from the perspective of a provident and powerful God who loves us and will care for us.  It is axiomatic to say that there are too many people in the world. If you go to work tomorrow and say that the world is overpopulated, just about everyone will say, “Oh yeah, that’s right.”  I don’t think it is.  I don’t know what the population of the world should be or what the population of the world can be but I don’t think there are too many of us.  If I thought there were too many of us, then I guess I would be indicting God because He after all is the creator.  He and parents, create every child from the moment of conception. Every child is conceived in God’s Holy image.  We heard from the psalm today how God provides for the poor and that He will not overlook their needs.

Zero Population Growth seems to be the mantra of the UN and yet Europe is beginning to suffer from this.  There are very few babies being born in Italy and Germany and France. Some of those nations are beginning to offer parents a bonus for having a baby.  In other places, China for example, to control their population, they have limited the size of families.  In rural China, most people are still farmers. Sadly, they consider a male baby worth more than a female baby.  When a woman becomes pregnant, oftentimes, in China, if it is determined it is a female, an abortion happens.  The little girl is killed in hopes to get pregnant again with a more valuable boy.  That’s happening.  You know that. That is going on today in China. 

People say that there are people starving, therefore, there is not enough food. Right?  Wrong! There is too much food.  There’s plenty of food.  I remember when I was a kid, my mom would say, “Eat everything on that plate because people are starving in China and India.”  I never could correlate how eating this stuff could help them but I did it because I feared my mother.  But India is now exporting food and China is independent. They grow enough crops and animals to feed their people.  Great strides have been made in production of food. 

I was in Hawaii three weeks ago. You didn’t know that, did you?  You really thought I was out praying the whole time?  I was surprised that in Oahu, the island where Honolulu is, on the northeast coast, there are all kinds of shrimp farms.  They farm shrimp and shrimp is very inexpensive.  I don’t think they had those years ago. They caught shrimp only where shrimp lived.  Now they farm it.  Have you noticed how inexpensive salmon is?  It’s not very expensive at all.  That’s because we now farm salmon.  I don’t think we’ve begun to use the earth to it’s fullest to produce the things we need.  Science has really been astronomical in providing for our needs.  Actually, science comes from God because He is the source of all knowledge and all that is. 

I remember visiting the Smithsonian a few years ago.  In one of those beautiful museums, they had a chart about the productivity of the American farmer from about 1820 to the present and the chart just went straight up.  One farmer produced 'X' tons of food and today we know that we have farmers that are so productive.  They are so productive that today only a minute percentage of our population needs to be involved in farming because they are so productive. Yet, the naysayers are saying, "We have too many people.  We are going to starve.  We need to stop population growth."  They’ve always been around, the naysayers. 

Someone emailed this to me this morning about a futurist.  I’ll read it to you.  "There was a futurist back in the 1890’s who demonstrated that New York City would be abandoned as unfit for human habitation by 1930.  His argument was based on projections forward of population trends.  He correctly estimated that the population would grow from 4 million to 7 million in 40 years.  It was then obvious then that the amount of horses needed to provide transportation and support for that many people would result in a public health hazard of incredible dimension.  There would be horse manure up to the third floor windows everywhere in Manhattan."  If he was writing about Washington, I’d agree with him.  Have you been to New York?  What a great city: museums, art, culture, churches.  If you are bored in New York, you’ve got a problem.  There are 12 million people in that area now.  They are doing very well. Somehow, the horses haven’t been the problem. 

People say that there is not enough room for us. Do the math--and I’m sure someone will.  If you take all the 6 billion people in the world and put them in Texas, then Texas would have the population density of Brussels.  If you took all the people of the world, then Texas would have the approximate population density of inner London.  Anybody been to Brussels?  You can get around without bumping into people.  What’s the problem with that? Well, with all due respect Bernice, everybody would be from Texas.  Can you imagine?  That’s a fact.  I know it’s not—you can’t conclude from that.  I don’t know again what the number is but God knows.  We can have babies. They’re OK.  We shouldn’t be afraid of babies.  As a matter of fact, we can learn a lot more from babies, or as much, as they can learn from us.   

Another reason I think that people are afraid to have children is because we live in an era where we are rather self-indulgent.  We want to control everything.  This control is a big issue.  Everyone has a family member and they say, “She’s very controlling.”  Once you have a baby you loose all control.  I don’t care how smart or how rich you are, the baby is then in charge of your family.  Isn’t that right?  That little girl’s got more power than mother and dad combined and she knows it.  You can see the smiles I’m getting.  It’s true.  To have a baby is to stop living your former life and to begin to live for your child.  I often say when a parent has their first child, baptism, whatever, that this kid is going to do great in life.  Look, she’s only 6 weeks old and she has two full-time employees already.  Babies, we can learn a lot from them.

I want to read to you a reflection written by a friend of mine.  Her name is Alice Sullivan.  Alice is very active in a group called Praying Mothers.  I introduced that here a few years ago and some of you are members of Praying Mothers.  They are a group of mothers who pray for their children, especially those with special needs.  She writes this about a baby, not about children, but about babies.  Listen to this.  “When the time comes that I must stand in judgment, I pray that the Father will see me as less than a child, may he see me as a mere baby. A baby revels in the gift of life, not driven by intellect or wisdom.  Nor is she fearful based on earthly memories or experiences.  A baby is fearless.  She brims with hope and yet knows not what hope is.  She will feel joy at the sight of her own fingers and toes.  Any new shape, color or sound brings astonishment.  She does not need to know why, nor does she need the words to explain the joy of life.  She simply exudes it.  A baby will not cry for success, money, pride, or possessions.  A baby only cries to demand those things that will continue life itself:  food, shelter and love.  A baby can attain none of her own needs, but she sleeps in peace.”