Joseph Osho

  THE     HOLY FAMILY   Genesis 15:1-6,21:1-3 Hebrews 11:8,11-12,17-19 Luke 2:22-40 On Christmas Day we rightly concentrated our attention on the Infant God, but today - the Feast of the Holy Family - we extend our gaze to include Mary and Joseph.  We celebrate the fact that God chose to be born as a baby, and in so doing, he blessed and hallowed family life. And so we look to the Holy Family of Nazareth as the inspiration for our family life - a family life that has Jesus as its centre and its heart. But it is easy to miss the point or be sidetracked when we contemplate the Holy Family.  If we try to relate the everyday aspects of our family life with those of Nazareth, we find few points of contact.  If we compare ourselves in any way with the members of that family, we may be tempted to despair altogether.   In our first and second readings, we focus on the theme of destiny.  From the Book of Genesis we heard how God blessed Abraham with t...

  ARE YOU WILLING TO SERVE GOD FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE?   1 John 2:12-17 Luke 2:36-40 Today we continue with the scene at the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple by Mary and Joseph and we hear of Anna, a widowed woman who spent her entire life serving as a witness to Christ.  Even though Anna was left childless and alone just after seven years of marriage, she spent the rest of her entire life living the choice to serve God through her prayer and praise, in a never-ending anticipation of his merciful grace. She specifically moved to Jerusalem so she could be near God and to his temple! Anna’s sole purpose in life was to worship and please God. She was constantly present in the temple; in a state of fasting and prayer.  William Barclay once wrote: She had known sorrow, but she had not grown bitter. She was old, but she had never ceased to hope. She never ceased to worship. She never ceased to pray. As Simeon received the Christ child and lifted him up to declare ...

  ARE YOU A LIGHT OF CHRIST TO OTHERS?   1 John 2:3-11 Luke 2:22-35  “. . . for the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.”  1 John 2:8 We are still in the octave of Christmas and our readings point to the gift that has been given to us-Christ our light. In the same vein, if we are children of light, we do not belong to darkness anymore. To be in Christ is to keep his commandments and what are these commandments, they are two sides of the same coin which He has handed over to us through his apostles, that is, to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The message is implied in our relationship with our brothers.  Walking in the light requires us to love our “brother” which is not about a sibling but our next-door neighbor, people in our neighborhood, our subdivision, society, and all who live on earth. The Gospel of Luke is about the Presentation of Jesus -the Light of the World in the Temple....

HOLY INNOCENTS, MARTYRS 1 John 1:5-2:2 Matthew 2:13-18 Today we celebrate the Holy Innocents who were killed by King Herod in his pursuit to kill the infant king- our savior Jesus Christ. The Herods of the world are still wreaking havoc upon innocent victims whether that be Bethlehem, Ukraine, Russia, Prague, Afghanistan, Syria, or the many places in our own country. Nigeria. Today as we remember the Holy Innocents, we must be aware of all the innocent who suffer past and present at the hands of powerful and cruel people. It seems to be harder to be a Christian these days when we are surrounded by so much uncertainty, violence, injustice, unhappiness, anarchy, gloom, and doom brought about by the King Herods of our time.  We need to take time during this Christmas season to celebrate the birth of the newborn babe born in a lowly stable in Bethlehem. Maybe it’s time for us to reflect on the innocence of our youth, however short or long ago it was, and get in touch again with the Chr...

  Saint John, Apostle, Evangelist  - Feast   1 John 1:1-4 John 20:2-8 St. John the evangelist, who is styled in the gospel, the beloved disciple of Christ was a Galilean, the son of Zebedee and Salome and younger brother to St. James the Great, with whom he was brought up to the trade of fishing. Although he was a disciple of John the Baptist, he was properly called to be a disciple of our Lord, with his brother James, as they were mending their nets. Christ gave them the surname of Boanerges, or sons of thunder, to express the strength and activity of their faith in publishing the law of God, without fearing the power of man. This epithet has been particularly applied to John, who was truly a voice of thunder in proclaiming aloud the most sublime mysteries of the divinity of Christ. He was said to be the youngest of the apostles.  There are several privileges granted him. Our redeemer had an affection for him. In the last moments of his earthly life, Our Lord J...

  FEAST OF SAINT STEPHEN, THE FIRST MARTYR Acts 6:8-10,7:54-59 Matthew 10:17-22 COMMEND YOUR SPIRIT INTO THE HANDS OF GOD AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD WILL SPEAK THROUGH YOU With the images of Christmas in our minds – the child in the manger,  Our Lady and Saint Joseph, the angels and shepherds, the ox and ass – today's feast and Scripture readings seem to be out of place but if we look closely it is the purpose we are called to be Christ’s disciples; an invitation to reflect on, that is, the effects of the events we celebrate.     In today’s first reading,    from Acts of the Apostles, we hear the martyrdom of St. Stephen. The religious leaders “were infuriated, and they ground their teeth” at Stephen when filled with the Holy Spirit, he proclaimed the Word of God. “But they cried out in a loud voice, covered their ears, and rushed upon him together. They were enraged and threw him out of the city and began to stone him.”That discord remains all around us and sho...