A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. When Jesus heard that John had been arrested, Jesus withdrew to Galilee. See, we're we are now out of the Christmas season, and this is the first Monday after Epiphany, the revelation of the son of God to man. So when Jesus heard that John the Baptist had been arrested, Jesus withdrew to Galilee. Now, that's up in the lake area, of course.
He left Nazareth, that's inland to the west, and went down to live in Capernaum, that's a city by the sea, near the territory of Zebulun and Nepthali. In order to fulfill what had been said through Isaiah, the prophet. Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, along the sea beyond the Jordan, heathen Galilee, a people living in darkness has seen a great light. On those who inhabit a land overshadowed by death, light has arisen. From that time on, Jesus began to proclaim this theme, reform your lives.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus toured all of Galilee. He taught in their synagogues. He proclaimed the good news of the kingdom and cured the people of every disease and illness. As a consequence of this, his reputation traveled the length of Syria.
They carried to him all those afflicted with various diseases and wracked with pain. The possessed, the lunatics, the paralyzed. Jesus cured all of them. The great crowds that followed Jesus came from Galilee, the 10 cities, from Jerusalem, and Judea, and from across the Jordan. That's that whole area, that whole Eastern End of the Mediterranean.
And this is the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit. Amen. Each time and every year that we go through these cycles of the liturgical year as we call it, and especially when we hit the crests, it's almost like a tidal wave of Christmas and Easter. The great thought that comes to my little mind is this, what do we do the rest of the year?
How do we live the rest of the year? These are just two days. In this connection, I think of the visits that I have had in various Benedictine monasteries, mostly in Europe, all of them in Europe in fact, that have impressed me. And the thing that I that appeals to me when you spend some time in these religious houses is the monotony of it all, the routine of it all, the normalcy of it all. Everything is in a low key.
And it isn't that they don't oh, yes. They have their they have their crests too. They celebrate the liturgical year like every as everyone else celebrates it. Well, not as everyone else celebrates it, but they celebrate it. But for example, I was at Maria Locke for the Solemnity of Saint Benedict.
Well, of course, that's a a pretty high level celebration, and it was celebrated. They they even had they had concerts in the afternoon, they brought in musicians from Munich, from Born. It was a big affair. On the other hand, the thing that impresses me about the life of the Benedictus, I I only signal them out because their life is so normal in many ways that it is extremely practical, practical, practical. Of late, for example, of late, we have hit well of late, the last ten years or fifteen years, we've heard a lot about spontaneous prayer.
Instead of going repeating these rituals like they when you're blessed say grace at a table, well, instead of saying the the ordinary one or a routine one, well, you make it fit the occasion. You know, you produce something. Something. It's so spontaneous, you're you're overwhelmed with joy of having this gathering and on and on. So you spout out something very illuminating, very inspiring, and of course very appropriate.
Try to do that three times a day, three hundred and sixty five days of the year, and see what you come up with. And yet folks, we have to live three hundred and sixty five days of the year. We just don't live on these crests. We just don't live on Christmas and Easter or the Solemnity of Saint Benedict or any other thing. We live three sixty five days of the year.
And how do you how do we live them? Are we called upon to have all this so much of it is absolute sentimentality. Now I don't mean to downgrade sentimentality. I'm a great champion of sentimentality, but I try to give it its full worth, but nothing more than that. I don't want it to be something that it is not, and sentimentality is not conviction.
Sentimentality is not doing. Sentimentality is feeling, feeling. And I respect feelings tremendously, but just as feelings, I don't respect it as a persuasion. I don't respect it as something that got you people out of bed to come here this morning at 06:45 Mass. Sentimentality doesn't do that.
Sentimentality doesn't carry you through your day for three hundred and sixty five days in the year, something more is needed than that. Something more stable, something more permanent, something more normal, normal. And the one thing, I'm really mentioning the Benedictine because I happen to know more about them. And remember, they go all the way back to Saint Benedict. He's the one who who although he drew upon other sources, but it's his rule that has dominated, goes back to Saint Augustine, but it's his rule that has dominated religious life in our monasteries.
And why? It's had the test of time. It works. It's pragmatic. It's successful.
It's successful. And and that's it's and it's successful because it treats life very seriously. That we just don't live a moment and forget the hours and the days and the years. Now often think about when a little baby comes up here to be baptized, just been born, well, maybe just a few weeks ago, and the church says here, here's a light, carry this light all during your life. Keep it burning bright.
Put on this white garment and keep it innocent all your life so that when you come before the throne of God, you can be received by him and so on. Notice, here the church is looking upon a baby that's just been born already before the throne of God. And you know what? It'll be there one day. We'll be there one day.
And what's in between? What's in between? And so do you good people as we begin another year, we've gotten off this crest Christmas. We're back to Monday morning after all the hellebaloo of Christmas, which has little to do with the mass of Christmas for the most part. We're back to the normal.
And what counts is how do you deal with the normal? The ordinary, what happens most often, what happens regularly, your daily life, your daily relations with you and your own family. There's a place to begin. Don't look into those distant pastures. How are you getting along in your own home, in your own work, with your own associates?
How are you carrying that light of truth and that garment of innocence? Daily. Not now and not then, daily. And that's the that's the that's the invitation of our lord. Come follow me.
He didn't say just to get on you on a big sentimental kick a couple times a year. That's not being a Christian at all. You don't have to be a Christian to be to be swept up in this emotional floor which comes several times a year. Now I'm not downgrading that. We need those things.
We need to get to the crest of a wave once in a while. But let's not make the mistake that that's the normal thing. And let's realize that what counts is following Jesus Christ daily. In the name of the father, of the son, of holy spirit. Amen.