My dears sisters and brothers in Christ:

First, welcome back to our students fromo their Christmas Break. We hope and pray it was a time in which you were able to recharge in the presence of family and friends. As you begin, the new semester, we pray that the Lord will continue to watch over you and guide you and inspire you. Know of our prayers for you each day and that we are here to offer you whatever support we are able to provide.

The gospel passages for he last three weekends, the Visit of the Magi, the Baptism of the Lord and the Wedding Feast at Caan, are often linked together. In the prayers, iconography and theological reflections of the early Church, all three events in the life of Jesus were seen as manifestations of the Divine Nature of Christ. The Magi's recognition that the Christ Child was the new born king of the Jews and the Savior of the world, he Father's voice and descent of the Holy Spirit at the Baptism, and the changing of water into wine, all testify  to the divinity of Jesus. We might say that each in their own way were theophanies, the revelation of divine made fleshin the world.

The Church shares these gospel events each year as we end the Christmas season and enter Ordinary Time to remind us that as we journey with Jesus and His apostles in the coming weeks, we are in the company of the Word Made Flesh. Jesus is more than just a teacher, prophet or wonderworker, He is the only-begotted Son of the Father, co-eternal and consubstantial. This means we must pay close attention to what He says and does because His actions and words are the acts and words of God. It is why we must not put anyone or thing before Him in our lives because He is the "way, truth and the life."

As we begin this semester, may all of us remember to keep Christ first in our hearts, our thoughts and our actions. In the worlds of the beautiful Irish hymn:
 

Be though my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou are;
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night, 
Working and sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Msgr. John J. McDermott, VG