Begin with a blessing. Epiphany is the perfect time for blessing our homes, families, and futures. If you don’t want to use a downloadable standard blessing from the USCCB, the parish council might want to compose one for the local community.

Mary “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.” During the Octave of Christmas, the church has been contemplating the newborn Jesus, God’s gift of self to us and all of creation.

Is there another word in the English language more loaded than the word mother? Some people melt at the sound of it; others grow rigid at the thought of it. Behind the word for every hearer is a memory, or the absence of one; a woman, or the outline of where that woman ought to have been; a warm, nurturing, irreplaceable emblem of love or an iceberg of unrequited affection and unmet need.

They left, running, and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in the manger. Seeing was believing. They told everyone they met what the angels had said about this child. All who heard the sheepherders were impressed.

I met a man who told me this story. He had three sons. And from the time they were first born he would bless them every morning and every evening.

In the past few years I’ve been to more funerals than I care to count as my parents’ generation crosses the threshold into all that is unseen. One theme that runs constant at the funerals for mothers is “Mom was a good listener.”

There is always a market for nostalgia. Depending on our age, we look back at the ’40s or ’60s or even the ’80s as the “good old days.” On the internet and in specialty stores, we can listen to music from Guy Lombardo to the Jackson 5. We can purchase lava lamps and bean bag chairs.

On this day we honor Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the church, who brought into the world our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us. Let us ask God’s continuing blessing on creation and all it holds.