Censings

  FEAST OF THE BAPTISM OF JESUS January 11, 2015 Rev. Dcn. David Justin Lynch Ecumenical Catholic Church of the Holy Trinity, Long Beach, CA Isaiah 55:1-11 Psalm 29:1-2;3-4;9-10 Acts 10:34-38 Mark 1:7-11 + In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.         Many of you were baptized as infants and can’t remember a thing about it. Others of you were baptized when you were older, and remember it clearly as an important event in your life.  But no matter when you were baptized, your Baptism is something you share with Jesus Himself. Today’s gospel is about His Baptism. Baptism for Jesus was a bit different than it is for Christians. That’s because Jesus was not a Christian. Nor was John the Baptist. Both of them were Jews.  You may be surprised that baptism did not originate with Christianity, but was a Jewish custom. In first-century Judaism, Baptism had a different meaning than it does for us. In the Book of Leviticus, God instruc

FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY Rev. Dcn. David Justin Lynch January 04, 2015 All Saints American Catholic Church, Vista, CA Isaiah 60:1-6   Psalm 72:1-2;7-8;10-13 Ephesians 3:2-3;5-6  Matthew 2:1-12 + In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.        It’s hard to talk about gifts at this time of year. All of us are, at this point in time, probably suffering from Christmas Fatigue. We’ve shopped until we dropped, in the stores and online. We’re sick of the crowds, the heavy traffic, the slow web pages, and stores out of stock on what we wanted to buy for our loved ones. Then most of us on Christmas morning exchanged gifts with our family and friends. And on the day after Christmas, many of us have gone back to the same stores to exchange what doesn’t fit, or we don’t like. We’re pretty much gifted-out by the time Epiphany, the twelfth day of Christmas, rolls around.  As you will recall from hearing the Christmas story, nothing in the Gospels