Homily for Monday after Epiphany (Year C - 1/6/2025)

Good morning. In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said that he did not come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill (5:17). Not only did Jesus fulfill the law as he promised, he also gave us the greatest commandment: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment” (22:37-38). Jesus then added, “The second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (22:39).

These are the same commandments that Saint John the Evangelist spoke of in today’s first reading: “And his commandment is this: we should believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he commanded us. Those who keep his commandments remain in him, and he in them. . .” Love of another is secondary to the greatest commandment, which is to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. . .” and to “believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ.”

This is how we know that the Spirit of God is in another but, most importantly, that the Spirit of God is in us: “. . .every spirit that acknowledges Jesus Christ come in the flesh belongs to God, and every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus does not belong to God. This is the spirit of the antichrist.” How are we to understand the “antichrist”? Perhaps this insight from St. Hippolytus can help us better understand: “the deceiver seeks to like himself in all things to the Son of God. Christ is the lion, so the Antichrist is also a lion; Christ is a king, so Antichrist is also a king. The Saviour was manifested as a lamb (John 1:29); so he too, in like manner, will appear as a lamb, although within he is a wolf”. . . “resulting in Christians having doubts about their holy Catholic faith.”

Pope St. Pius X observed that “the distinguishing mark of Antichrist [is man] raising himself above all that is called God,” leading to a terrible sickness in society that is “apostasy from God.” Moreover, in 1976, in Philadelphia for the Eucharistic Congress, then-Cardinal Wojtyla, St. John Paul II warned: “We are now standing in the face of the greatest historical confrontation humanity has ever experienced. . . We are now facing the final confrontation between the Church and the anti-Church, between the gospel and the anti-gospel, between Christ and the antichrist.”

How are we to respond to the “spirit of the antichrist”? The answer, my sisters and brothers in Christ, is by turning away from sin and temptation and keeping the commandments of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, by coming to Mass and receiving our Lord in the Eucharist, and by frequent reception of the Sacraments. Jesus is the “great light” that “has arisen” to dispel the darkness. Jesus comes to us proclaiming the gospel of God: “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15; Matthew 4:17).