The Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Sunday, February 8, 2026

Watch this homily! (begins at 36:30)

      A couple of questions to begin with this morning. What is a preacher to do when the moral imperatives of God’s Word in the scriptures – and our deeply-held beliefs as Catholics – are clearly at odds with the word coming from our government? What happens when to pretend otherwise or to look the other way would be nothing short of cowardice? That’s the time a preacher finds his deepest calling, and a community finds its greatest challenge. It is also the time when we awaken to the fact that the Word of God doesn’t live in isolation from our lives. On the contrary, it is right in the midst of our lives that God’s Word comes to life. That Word, simply because it is God’s Word, makes great demands and disturbs consciences.

        If we look to the scriptures, it is precisely this sort of thing that made life dangerous and difficult for the prophets of old. Isaiah is a good example. In today’s first reading we heard him challenging people to share their bread with the hungry, to shelter the oppressed and the homeless, and to clothe the naked. Why didn’t Isaiah stick to purely ‘spiritual’ things like prayer and keeping the Commandments? For one reason only: God. God had inspired Isaiah to speak out against people who thought they were fulfilling their religious obligations simply by observing the Sabbath, keeping their fasts, offering sacrifice, piously performing religious rituals - all the while turning their backs on the poor, the hungry, the homeless, and the dispossessed. In God’s name, Isaiah exposed their hollow religiosity for what it was and he challenged the people to make their religion real by caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless, clothing the naked. Only then, he told them, only then would they be truly honoring God. Only then would their light break forth like the dawn, their wounds be healed, their prayers be heard on high.

        Fast-forward to today. I’m no Isaiah, that’s for sure, but I have been sent to preach God’s word and I find myself wondering what God would have me say about a burning issue of our day – one that Father Gary and I have both addressed a number of times but which we need to keep before us. I’m talking about the way our government is dealing with - and has for years dealt with - the huge issue of immigration: with migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers. No administration has gotten this right, that’s for sure, and we now have one that is dealing with it by closing our borders to people simply on the basis of their race, color, religion, or national origin - people most of whom are fleeing violent conditions, oppression, maltreatment, and economic ruin in their homelands. Why else would they leave them? All of which makes this an ‘Isaiah moment’ for me. I simply cannot be silent when wholesale sweeps and dragnets are currently taking place across the country, and the indiscriminate mass deportation of people is being carried out by militarized, masked agents of the federal government who employ brutal and even deadly tactics, targeting not only migrants but people who are doing nothing more than exercising their First Amendment right to engage in peaceful protest.

       You hardly need me to remind you that all of this is a direct contradiction of some of our most deeply held beliefs and values as Americans. We are a nation of immigrants, after all, with a long and glorious history of welcoming ‘the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’ So many of our own parents and grandparents were among those huddled masses, and so are many of you!

        But this is far more than just an American issue: it is an issue that involves fundamental Judaeo-Christian beliefs. Words from the Book of Exodus come to mind, “You shall not oppress the alien… you shall befriend the alien, for once you too were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

       And in the Book of Leviticus Moses reinforces this when he says, “the alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you: you shall love the alien as yourself.” And that logic is repeated and reinforced in the Gospels when Jesus not only teaches us to welcome the stranger, he actually identifies himself with the stranger! And, of course, there is his foundational teaching, “do unto others as you would have them do to you.’

       None of this is to say that our immigration system isn’t badly in need of reform. It most certainly is. Nor does it mean that people guilty of crimes shouldn’t be brought to justice. They should, of course. And reasonable precautions need to be taken for the safety of all. But when reasonable precautions turn into a paranoia that whips up suspicion and hatred toward entire populations or religious or ethnic groups, we believers need to speak up and speak out.

        My friends, this is not politics from the pulpit, it is morality from the pulpit: basic Christian morality that flows from the gospels and has been articulated clearly by all our recent popes. Listen to these unambiguous words of Pope St. John Paul II: “It is necessary,” he said, “to guard against the rise of new forms of racism or nationalism which attempt to make any of our brothers and sisters scapegoats.” To that I would add these plainspoken words of Pope Francis: “It is hypocrisy to call yourself a Christian and chase away a refugee or someone seeking help, someone who is hungry or thirsty. If I say I am a Christian but do these things, I am a hypocrite.” And only two months ago, Pope Leo XIV, in an address at the Vatican, spoke these very pointed words (I quote): “Ever more inhuman measures are being adopted – even celebrated politically – that treat these ‘undesirables’ as if they were garbage and not human beings.”

      Let me say it again, my friends: this is not politics, this is gospel! And it is Church teaching.
 
       In today’s reading from Matthew’s gospel, Jesus challenged his disciples to engage with the world around them. He didn’t want timid followers – quiet, cautious, fearful - who would tiptoe around.  No, he wanted his followers to make a difference in the world around them – to add the kind of flavor and zest that salt adds to food. Jesus also wanted them – wanted us – to be light: to bring light to the dark and disordered world around us - the light of the gospel, the light we dare not hide under a bushel basket, the light that reveals, in this present moment, ugly things like racism, nativism, Christian nationalism, authoritarianism - calling them out for what they are.

        Dear friends, on the day of our baptism we were each given a lighted candle and told to keep it burning brightly and to walk always as “children of the light.” That is our calling, our sacred calling. We do it alone and we do it together, but do it we must, for we are the light of the world - our too dark world that is desperately in need of light. And we must be that light!

Father Michael G. Ryan