Fullerton T
RELIGION LITURGY AND LIFE
Archive for the category “Uncategorized”
4th SUNDAY OF ADVENT
This weekend we light the third purple candle on the Advent wreath as the anticipation grows to a crescendo as we draw closer to the celebration of the Christmas mysteries. Christmas is almost upon us: yet are we ready in the true sense of the word remembering that Jesus is the reason for the season? Christmas we are told is a time for so many things yet for many of us it is a time of stress and pressure with all the extra work to sort out everything that needs to be done. For many it is a time when we are fearful that the children won’t be disappointed or that there will be tension in relationships or there will be a breakdown in the ceasefire with the in-laws. And on top of all this there is a feeling of guilt for feeling like this when we should be happier that we are at this particular moment in our lives.
Now in the midst of the preparations we meet Mary and her cousin Elisabeth in our Gospel reading for this weekend. Mary, who herself had been prepared for the coming of the Messiah. She has heard the angel’s greeting, and his strange news, and has accepted her role in God’s plan. Now she hurries to her kinswoman, Elizabeth, who herself bears John the Baptist in her womb. John, alerts us to the presence of the Lord, as he leaps for joy in his mother’s womb. His joy is that God has kept his promise, and is with his people. That two women were chosen to play such a role in the story of salvation is remarkable, as women were often marginalized in the society of their time. In all of these events we see the great mission that Mary undertook as a privileged instrument in the hands of God. Mary is not only the mother of the source of grace; she is the very model of what a Christian heart should look like. We look to Mary to see our fullest Christian dignity.
In Lumen Gentium 68, Vatican II describes our contemplation of Mary as an act of entering our own deepest mystery, catching a glimpse of what we shall he at the end of our faith journey. Over the next few days the journey to Christmas will have many pressures for everyone especially those who are worried or afraid about so many things family and otherwise. Mary in her calm gentle way encourages us to trust in God’s word and to believe in God’s promises as she did. If we believe and have trust in God all the problems that might arise will assume their proper perspective and we will get through them and come out the other side wondering why we got so worried in the first place.
2ND SUNDAY OF ADVENT
This Sunday we light the second purple candle on the Advent Wreath and we hear the gospel story of the voice in the wilderness that is John the Baptist. John was called to be the herald of the Lord calling the people of his time to repentance John the Baptist plays a prominent role in all the gospels, but particularly in Luke. John hears the word in the desert and preaches prepare the way for the Lord make straight his paths” throughout the whole region of the Jordan.” The Jordan was another important place in the faith life of the Jewish believers. After their desert wanderings the people crossed over the Jordan river into the promised land. They left behind slavery, came to know God in the desert and were finally prepared by God to cross into new life. All the readings share a marvellous insight: people begin to change when they are encouraged to see the best in themselves, not when they are asked to dwell with the worst in themselves.
Blessed John Henry Newman reminds us that “Advent is a time of waiting; it is a time of joy because the coming of Christ is not only a gift of grace and salvation but it is also a time of commitment because it motivates us to live the present as a time of responsibility and vigilance. We all need help and encouragement to leave behind all the things that have become destructive in our lives. We need help in thinking about ourselves differently, and imagining the good effect that will have on others. We have to take time during advent to reflect what kind of person God wants us to be, what God’s plan is for us as we prepare the way for the Lord. We need to have faith in the future, to see the power of God working in the change that Jesus brings to us and through us to others. In this Gospel passages John calls all of us to a better faith filled life. This means the necessity, of an industrious, living ‘wait’ as we prepare the way for the Lord pruning away all that hinders us from making him welcome when he comes at Christmas .
As we continue our advent journey we need to ask ourselves what are we waiting for. Are we waiting for the presents and razzmatazz that the secular part of Christmas bring or are we preparing spiritually for the greatest gift of God, his Son, Jesus the light in the darkness who John the Baptist foretold.
31ST SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME
This weekend we celebrate the 31st Sunday of ordinary time and last Thursday we celebrated the feast of All Saints. Each of us are called to be saints and the feast of All saints honours all those unsung heroes of the faith who are saints even though the Church has not Canonised them. They are the men and women who “hung in there” despite all sorts of obstacles, to faithfully believing in God and His Son, Jesus. All of us have this “universal call to holiness.” What must we to do in order to join the company of the saints in heaven? We “must follow in Jesus footsteps and try to conform ourselves to his image as we seek to do the will of the Father in all things In this way, the holiness of the People of God will grow into an abundant harvest of good, as is admirably shown by the life of so many saints in Church history”.
Our Gospel reading this weekend is all about the first and greatest commandments of the law. In his reply to the scribe Jesus makes it clear that you cannot compose summaries of the Law while forgetting love of neighbour.
The scribe is pleased with Jesus’ reply and adds his own point, that the love of God and neighbour is far more important than any ritual worship. In supporting the scribe’s addition, Jesus places the demands of liturgy far below the demands of active love.The transformation caused by God’s love is so profound that it flows from us towards God and is expressed in love of neighbour. Like Moses, Jesus calls us to love God with our entire being because his life and death are a manifestation of God’s love for each of us. The scribe in this Gospel states that the law of love of God and neighbour is greater than any of the religious observances and laws concerning sacrifices. Revered Temple worship and sacrifice must take second place to the observance and sacrifice that comes with loving God and neighbour. Jesus says that the scribe has answered wisely about the superiority of love over any sacrifice and then says to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God. Our God is the God of history. Our God is the creator of all that is. We are God’s dream. Our living with God is not only in our places of worship and community. God is with us in the market place, on the factory floor, in the politics of life. Our God is with us on the streets, in homeless shelters, in the hospitals and mental institutions that seek to heal us.
As a matter of fact God is with us wherever we are and in whatever we are doing in his name. Our lives are not divisible into secular and religious though some might want it that way. We are called like the pharisee in this Gospel story to love the Lord our God and our neighbour as well and to bring that love out into the world where we are.
21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
Pope Francis has Landed. I am in shock as I write this I didn’t think that nearly 40 years after the visit of Pope John Paul to Ireland I would be writing about another pope visiting Ireland with the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland for the world meeting of families. I remember as a 12 year old the anticipation of the visit and even now the excitement is there as the pope comes to Ireland. So much has changed in terms of faith and people and it would be easy to be critical and many are with good reason but we need to stop for a while and bask in spiritual sunshine that the world meeting of families and the pope’s visit bring to us and the world. There is much that has changed in my lifetime in relation to the faith that we profess and family life and I am sure that much will change if the future. But the words of Oscar Romero who will be made a saint in October sum up what we are about we are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own. So as we go forward we thank God that we are at this point and we acknowledge that we are not perfect as the Church is not perfect as we look to the future that is gods not ours to own.
In this Sundays Gospel, Jesus puts the choice to His apostles of following Him, or of leaving Him. Many of the Lord’s followers had left Him because of His teaching that He Himself is the Bread of Life. After hearing Jesus’ teaching on the bread of life, many of the people find Jesus’ language intolerable. As a result of this intolerable language some of them choose to leave him. Today in a similar way so many people find the words of Jesus to be intolerable language as many Christians have got up and left their faith behind them and some may never return again. When Simon Peter answered Christ’s challenge—”will you too go away?”—he spoke not only for his fellow-Apostles that day with: “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” but for all of us in our own time and place as well, people who really believe that Christ was the incarnate Son of God.
Peter made his act of faith before he was fully convinced of the divinity of Christ, but he was already convinced that Christ was close to God and spoke nothing but the truth. We have the proofs of Christ’s divinity which Peter and the Apostles later got. We have also the faith of two thousand years of Christian people whose belief in the bread of life as a sacrifice and sacrament was at the very center of their Christian lives. This belief was passed down to us through each generation. We have also the noble example of many martyrs who gladly gave their lives in defense of this truth. “Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” Lord we will go to you for you have the message of eternal life now as in the past and will lead us into the future by your grace and hope.
Ascension
This weekend we celebrate the feast of the ascension, In many places throughout the world this feast was celebrated last Thursday. Throughout our lives we see the departure of so many people, Perhaps it is a son or daughter leaving for university or maybe it was someone leaving to go to another country or the hardest departure of all someone close to us dying. Our lives are made up of so many different times and places of departure or leave-taking and really that is what Ascension is really about Jesus taking leave of his beloved Apostles. In the Bible when people climbed a mountain they wanted to encounter God. On the mountain top, God would reveal himself to the person. So, the mountain symbolized the place of teaching, revelation, and mission Now, on a mountaintop, he would commission his followers to make disciples of all the nations before ascending to the Father.
The ascension is the completion of Jesus mission on earth. It was also the beginning of the church, however before the disciples begin their mission they must be clothed with the power of the Holy Spirit. Before Jesus began his public ministry he was filled with the Holy Spirit. So in similar fashion the new church and its leaders needed to be clothed with the Holy Spirit before they began their mission to the world. The programme of redemption and salvation was to begin at Pentecost and continue in every generation until the end of time. So many things have changed in the Church and society since the time of Jesus and the church continues right up until this present moment. The Church continues because two things have not changed they are the person of Jesus and his message. The message of Jesus is ignored by many people inside and outside the Church for many reasons.
Again and again we as people of faith need to ask ourselves what are we doing to make disciples of all the nations remembering that Jesus and his message are always new for each generation. May we be heralds of faith by the lives we lead as we place the message of Jesus before others by word and example.
5TH SUNDAY OF EASTER
The Gospel reading for this Sunday is a story about Jesus and the disciples. He is helping them get ready for his suffering and death. For the apostles this was a huge reversal from the adulation of the entrance into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to the despair of the Cross on Good Friday. Remember when he asked them whether they would leave him, along with the rest of the crowd? Now it is he who is leaving. They are stunned. Peter’s reply at that time might have been appropriate now. “Where will we go? You have the words of eternal life” (Jn 6:67-8) Jesus helps them. “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God, have faith also in me.” The straightforward meaning of this directive is, you know how to trust, you do it with God. Use that same trust with me.
This fifth Sunday of Easter tells us that Jesus speaks to us not at us. His presence is in the word proclaimed in the Assembly of the people of god gathered together in Church. His word is proclaimed to us in the readings from scripture as well as in lived example of others in the community where we live. We come to Church week in week out to hear the Word. We come to share the joys and sufferings of all the community gathered together. We receive the Body and the Blood of the anointed one, the Christ, risen from the Tomb. We hear the word while we work in the world through those around us. We don’t stay in Church all the time as the hard pew might well become the soft bed. We have duties and obligations to family, work and the communities where we live. We take the Word and Work of the assembled people of God into that life with all its short comings. The Word of God stays with us because through the death and resurrection of Jesus we receive the Spirit of God Jesus breathed on the disciples. This breath of the Risen One imparted the Spirit to them and to us. We are released from sin that harms our spirits and blocks our ears. The Word of God is available to us: we should open our ears and listen. As the Good Shepherd puts it in the gospel, we will no longer be at risk of either being lost or stolen away by thieves and bandits. On the contrary! He is both our Good Shepherd and the gate that swings open to bring us to green pastures and a magnificent banquet. So, in fact, the light of the Risen Christ, the one whom Peter today calls ‘the shepherd and guardian of your souls’ will be shining on us and on all whom we love.
When we’re confused about decisions we should make, Jesus Himself will show us the Way. When we don’t know what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong, the Holy Spirit through the Church and its members will enlighten us. And when we are drawn into false pleasures that promise us life, Jesus will bring us back to real living and the joy of that life through the power of His love. As we walk along the roads of life let us take up the call of Jesus In the gospel to trust in him and he will not let us down.
4TH SUNDAY OF EASTER
This Sunday we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Easter and we hear the story of the Good Shepherd. The parable that Jesus tells us today seems to be easy to understand: it is the parable of the good shepherd who leads his sheep to pasture. The figure of the good shepherd is very well known. From the very first centuries of the Church, this image was used to represent the Lord when a sacred place was being adorned… However, according to Saint John, it seems that the listeners who were present at the time did not completely understand the exact sense of this parable: “This figure Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.” The flock that he is talking about is the Church and we also think about our priests and the role that they have as shepherds after the heart of Christ. We also remember the vocation of priesthood in a special way today.
The Gospel of the Good Shepherd teaches us how to embrace the gift of redemption by hearing and recognizing the voice of Jesus the Good Shepherd. There are so many voices out there calling us to believe and to practice things that might seem nice, but are not truly of or from the Lord. We need to tune our ears and hearts into recognizing the voice of truth that comes from Jesus, the Good Shepherd. Just as Jesus is the Good Shepherd, we have the call to be Good Sheep. Men and women who are able to recognize the voice of the Lord and to faithfully follow him.
FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT
This weekend we come to the last Sunday of the Advent season. In our churches we light the last purple candle as well as the other three leaving the last candle the white one for the first Mass of Christmas Day. It’s only in this last week before Christmas that we begin to hear about the “Christmas story” itself. For the past weeks we have been preparing ourselves to greet the Lord, when he comes. Now we prepare to remember how he first came, by listening to the prophecies of his coming, and by hearing of the events before his birth. At Christmas we will concentrate on the simplicity and poverty of Our Lord’s birth: how human he was, born of a young woman, not in luxurious comfort, but in the discomfort of a stable. That shows him as one of us, the human side of “Emmanuel.” God enters into our world: it’s a world where plans don’t always work out and where people have to adjust to the reality presented to them. Joseph was betrothed to Mary; he had his plans. Mary’s pregnancy turns his world and plans upside down. Instead of exposing her, he “decided to divorce her quietly.”
He was a “righteous man” and he will protect Mary from being publicly dishonored. He is not vengeful and, though wronged, displays mercy. Joseph, “took his wife into his home after the angel appeared to him in a dream. The world God chose to enter was not only one of poverty, hard labor and political and military oppression but, from the beginning, messy – even while the child was still in his mother’s womb. God took a big chance being born among us. Surely there must have been neater options for God, to make the savior’s path and work a bit smoother. But who has a “smooth path” through life anyway not many if anyone has it easy. It’s good to know that Emmanuel, “God with us,” chose to be with us people of the world and living in the messiness of the world. God is with us in our daily lives with all the ups and downs! Christmas with the child in the manger with Mary and Joseph with the angels and the shepherds challenges us to enter into an intimate relationship with God who is Love itself. We are challenged to keep on trusting that we will receive love, and keep on receiving love, from God and others.
28TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME
This Sunday in our Gospel Reading we hear the story of the ten Lepers and their lack of gratitude. This is one of many such examples of ingratitude that occurred during Christ’s public ministry, most of those he cured forget to thank him. In today’s incident there was one who had the decency to return and thank his benefactor, and he was the one least expected to do so,. This pleased our Lord and led Him to remark on the ingratitude of the others. “Were not all ten made whole, where are the other nine?” This Gospel story is not only about the Lepers it’s also about our lack of gratitude for the many good things that we have in our lives given to us by God. When we were youngsters growing up we were taught to say, “Thank you” by our parents when they gave us a sweet or whatever, when we didn’t we would be dutifully reminded, “What do you say?” and of course we said the magic words ‘Thank You.’
All the lepers showed great faith and confidence in Jesus’ power to heal but only one of them said thanks. They had not heard Him preach nor had they seen any of His miracles. They lived in isolation camps because of the leprosy, yet they believed the reports they had heard. The nine lepers were appreciative of what Jesus had done; we don’t know, why they didn’t bother to show their gratitude to Jesus. We can only look to ourselves to ask why we are often reluctant to say thank you for all the things we have. There is seems to be great deal of awkwardness surrounding the attitude of gratitude and saying thank you. Personally I find that to be thanked means more to me than being given a gift for a task just done. Whatever the reason for our own ingratitude, we know that it diminishes us and those who help us. All of us have reasons to give thanks for so many things yet very few turn to the Lord with words and hearts expressing our thanks for all the wonders he has done for us in our lives. We need to ask ourselves today, “Am I really grateful for God’s constant love? Or do I just take Him for granted?”
Do we have the attitude of gratitude which thanks god and those around and us for their goodness to us. When we gather each Sunday we come to join God in the midst of the assembly with gratitude in our hearts. We give praise and thanks to God and we thank God for all those who have given us their help. May all of us have the attitude of gratitude for all the good things that we have in our lives which means that we are thankful for all that we are and all that we have.
