Jesus makes us look at the ordinary so we can draw out the extraordinary
A homily from Father Cristiano Pinheiro – January 19th, 2025 – Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, C Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 96; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11 Today, we dive into the story of a wedding feast. Actually, all the readings in today’s Mass will use a ‘spousal’ language; a ‘spousal’ imagery. The prophet Isaiah just breaks into song: ‘As a young man marries a virgin, your Builder (your God) shall marry you.’ It’s such a powerful way to speak, right? Of course, God, our ‘Builder’, isn’t going to marry us in the same way a husband and wife do. But in our human language, the most beautiful and perfect way to describe this deep union that God wants to establish ...

Homily – Jan 1st, 2025 – Eighth Day, Octave of Christmas – The Mother of God
Nm 6:22-27; Ps 67:2-3, 5, 6, 8; Gal 4:4-7; Lk 2:16-21 Right after we’re born, we become aware of ourselves as ‘a person’, as a human being, when we come face-to-face with someone who validates the goodness of our being. Someone whose gaze, whose facial expressions say: “How good it is that you’re here, alive!” When we are valued, not for any advantage we might bring to someone, but SIMPLY FOR BEING WHO WE ARE. We come to “be” when someone looks at us with delight, joy, and satisfaction because we exist… yes… simply because we exist.  And one of these priceless moments – maybe the first of all these moments (maybe you don’t remember that) is when our MOMS ...