As we begin a New Year, we will start a message series entitled Simplify for the weekend homilies leading up to Lent. The New Year is the perfect opportunity to declutter our lives. We can establish rhythms and form habits that help us get rid of junk. Cleaning out closets, reorganizing the garage or the basement, eliminating what is obsolete or unused in the household. Great projects for this time of year for sure, but often there’s more clutter in our lives that can be easy to miss and difficult to eliminate. Many of us have cluttered calendars with a multiplication of unnecessary commitments. Distracted and lacking focus we can find ourselves mentally cluttered. And we might even experience emotional clutter as we carry around the baggage of broken relationships or past hurts. Cleaning out the clutter can provide space to breath, to focus on what’s important, to build better relationships, to connect with God. This weekend we celebrate the Epiphany or how the three Magi came to visit the newborn Jesus with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh as we hear in today’s Gospel. The gold represents how Christ was a servant King, the frankincense how he is the eternal High Priest and the myrrh how he would sacrifice his life for all of us. These three gifts give us insight into how we can simplify and declutter our lives. The gift of gold reminds us of where our treasure lies or who is our King. As we simplify our lives we seek to focus more on Christ our King and to let go of the clutter of what keeps us from focusing on Christ. The gift of frankincense reminds us of the importance of prayer and spending time with God. Incense rises to heaven and our time in prayer helps us to encounter God. The gift of myrrh reminds us that we have to let go of things to focus more on God. This is the hardest gift because it is hard for us as human beings to let go and detach from the clutter. This is a time of year associated with asking God’s blessing upon our homes. As we seek to Simplify and focus more on God in 2023, our homes are a great place to start. I encourage you to use the home blessing prayers and blessed chalk you will receive this weekend to bless your homes and make your own commitment to God to Simplify things over the next few weeks. The image of light is used in the 1st Reading and our homes should shine forth with God’s blessing. This is why during the Christmas season we decorate our houses with lights. Simplifying allows God’s light to shine more in our homes and in our hearts. If all of us shone in the way that God created us to shine then there would be no more darkness in the world. The three Magi in the Gospel literally followed the light of the Christ Child to find him. Their journey in following the star was a journey of simplifying and decluttering their lives. Just as they were led by a star to find Christ, so do we act as that star when we lead others to Christ. I invite you to see practical ways to simplify your life over the coming weeks by checking out our Simplify section below. I am grateful to all those who helped to make our Christmas liturgies a success. Let us also continue to welcome any visitors and anyone who today chose to come back to mass after having not been for a while.
Check out the list of Simplify Events by clicking on the images below.