January 25, 2026
Dear Friends,
In the first reading proclaimed at Mass this Sunday, we once again hear a passage from the Prophet Isaiah. In fact, we have heard many readings from Isaiah since the start of the Advent season. Because Isaiah’s message was originally connected to the concrete situation that he and his contemporaries experienced, it can be helpful for us to have a sense of what was happening at the time that today’s passage was written.
Around the year 732 BC, the northern part of the ancient kingdom of Israel, including the lands belonging to the tribes of Zebulun and Naphtali, had been violently conquered by the Assyrian Empire. That is why Isaiah described the people of those areas as walking in darkness and dwelling in a land of gloom. It was to those suffering and oppressed people that the prophet announced that God would transform their darkness into light and joy. It is with this background in mind that we can ponder the message we hear in today’s gospel.
Nearly 800 years after the tragic events that caused the Prophet Isaiah to write what we hear in today’s first reading, the Evangelist Matthew included that prophecy of Isaiah in his account of the start of Jesus’ public ministry. Matthew used that prophecy to announce that Jesus was the fulfillment of the promises that God had made to his people through Isaiah. In Jesus’ day the people of Judea and Galilee continued to live under the yoke of violent military occupation, this time from the Romans. While their situation was not as bleak as that of the Israelites in the time of Isaiah, they still experienced the presence and power of darkness in their land. And Matthew tells us God was finally acting to bring light to those who were oppressed in the person of Jesus.
It can be difficult for us to perceive or imagine the power of Isaiah’s prophecy and of Matthew’s announcement of its fulfillment in Jesus. In our lives we are rarely troubled by the presence of darkness and the absence of light. We may experience the rare inconvenience of darkness when the electricity goes out, but most of the time we take the availability of light for granted.
But we cannot make the mistake of thinking that darkness is not a part of our lives or acting as if we aren’t in desperate need of the light that Christ gives. In many ways, the darkness we experience looks very different from that which the ancient Jews experienced thousands of years ago. But the power of darkness to blind and frighten, to divide and isolate, to harm and to kill, continues to impact our lives and relationships, our culture and our church.
But the good news is that Jesus, who through his death confronted the power of darkness and in his resurrection revealed the fulness of God’s light on our world, continues to call us, as he did Peter, Andrew, James, and John during his public ministry, and countless others over the last 2,000 years, so that, together, we can experience the warmth and joy of his light. The light that the Lord desires to give us is not the cold backlight of our smartphones, computers, and TV’s, which only provide enough light to distract and entertain us but cannot liberate us from the coldness and darkness that haunts us. No, the light of Christ is the warm light which dispels the darkness of hatred, ignorance, indifference, and insecurity by revealing to us the limitless love of God for us and for all his creation.
We encounter this light every time that the Risen Jesus gathers us together in the power of his Spirit to experience the outpouring of the Father’s light, life, and love through the celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The Sunday celebration of Mass allows us to experience in a real and sacramental way the ongoing arrival of the kingdom of heaven into our lives and into our world. This arrival offers us the opportunity to receive the liberating light of God, if we turn away from whatever darkness may be keeping us from living in the light of God.
And, transformed and united by our reception of the light of God, we can then reflect that light to our brothers and sisters who walk in darkness and live in a land overshadowed by death, so that they too can bask in its joy and beauty.
Peace,
Father Leo