Blessed Virgin Mary 2

A homily for The Epiphany of the Lord, January 8, 2023

Is 60:1-6, Eph 3:2-3a, 5-6, Mt 2:1-12

These are the days of miracle and wonder…
… The way we look to a distant constellation
That’s dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder

In 1986, Paul Simon opened his “Graceland” album with the song “The Boy in the Bubble.” In it, his lyrics rattled off a list of technological marvels the world was only starting to learn about. Lasers in the jungle transmitting information. The baby with the baboon heart. The boy with no immune system who had to live in a germ-free bubble.

Fast-forward to now, and with the James Webb Space Telescope, we indeed are looking to distant constellations.

Miraculous.

Wonderful.

Amazing.

So what are we going to do about it?

Continue reading How far?

Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, January 1, 2023

Nm 6:22-27, Gal 4:4-7, Lk 2:16-21

“Oh, your poor mother!”

I can’t count the times I’ve heard that whenever I told someone I’m the oldest of the six male offspring of Dr. Bill and Nurse Julie Zapcic.

Six boys. No girls.

A new brother every year or so, with — sadly — a couple of pregnancies lost to miscarriages.

And an uncle — a bruncle — my dad’s then-teenage brother, whom my dad moved in with us for Richard’s last two years of high school, his four years of college and a bit longer for grad school and the early part of his career.

There was enough noise in our 1950s-era development split-level to drown out the roar of the cars on the Garden State Parkway behind the hill that ate half of our Lincroft backyard.

“Oh, your poor mother!” they say. And I — and all of my brothers and our uncle — simply reply, “She loved it!”

Continue reading Wholly queen