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RELIGION LITURGY AND LIFE

17 Dec 2016

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

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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.

 

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10 Dec 2016

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

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This weekend we hit the pause button in our Advent preparation as we celebrate the third Sunday of advent which is also known as Gaudete Sunday. We light the pink candle on the advent wreathes also the vestments change from the penitential purple to the rose of expectation. As Christmas draws near, the Church emphasizes the joy which should be in our hearts over all that the birth of our Saviour means for us The often  repeated Veni is an echo not only of the prophets but also of the conclusion of the Apocalypse of St. John: “Come, Lord Jesus,”. We live an age when things seem to be hopeless and many people seem to be lost for great number of reasons but this weekend we look forward to the hope that the birth of the Christ child will bring into our lives and the lives of those around us. In the light of the gospel message of advent where do we stand in regard to our own faith and hope in Jesus?

Perhaps right now our faith is under some strain. Life in our community of faith may not have been as rewarding and helpful as we had hoped. Perhaps some of our fellow Christians have let us down, or some of our leaders have done likewise. Maybe our prayers seem to have gone unanswered. So many things happen that are the opposite of what our faith really means and often at this time of year we find so many people who are not able to rejoice because of the pressure that Christmas brings. The first reading in the liturgy for this day from the Book of Isaiah tells us “Be strong! Fear not rejoice for the lord is near” but many are fearful at this time of year.  If we stop and think for a moment all of us know someone who doesn’t like Christmas and there are many just reasons for this. As we rejoice today and during the non-stop activity of the forthcoming festivities we need to stop and spare a thought and a prayer for all those who are under pressure at this time of year.

There are people out there who are unable to provide for their families, who have little or nothing at all there are people who are homeless or refugees from other countries these are just a few examples of  people who are under pressure there are so many others. We also remember all those organizations such as the Salvation Army and the St. Vincent DePaul who do so much good at this time of year. The customs of the advent season are announcements of one single message: Christ is born for us, so let us rejoice and be glad. To hear the good news, we   gather together in our churches as we gather we rejoice in a god who sent his Son to be one of us in all our lives with the good who bad times that we all have. We are mindful of those who are fearful and under any kind of pressure personal or otherwise this Advent and we pray as Christmas approaches that we will be strong in faith and hope as we await the coming of the lord.

 

 

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03 Dec 2016

Second Sunday of Advent

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In the old style theatre you would have had the warm up guy, the warm up guy was the person who went on before the main act in order to get the audience going and build up their sense of expectation as they waited on the main event. This Sunday we hear about John the Baptist who was the warm up guy for Jesus and he certainly got the people’s imaginations going.  He did a great job as Jesus warm up guy because of the sense of expectation that built among the people as he told them that there was one who was coming after him who was the long awaited messiah. Our Gospel reading tells us about john being the voice in the wilderness telling the people to prepare the way for the Lord calling them to repentance.  John told them that what they were waiting for was finally coming. He was called to reawaken a sense of expectation among a people that had grown tired and distant from God as many have done in our present generation.  He also tells us to make the necessary changes in our lives that will allow the “kingdom of heaven” to take root and flourish in ourselves as well as the communities where we live.

It’s time, John insists, for us to look at the world around us and see what we need to do and then get on with ite. Is there a person with whom we must be reconciled? Are there wounds from the past that need to be healed? Are there problems we have not addressed? And to add to that list: what are we doing about the larger issues that affect, not just us but our community and our world – care for the poor, the stranger in our midst, and the other responsibilities we hear from these biblical texts each week? John urges us to take the initiative, when he tells us to “Repent!” His distant urging comes into the here and now of our lives. Are we waiting for some other person to do something we should really be doing ourselves? We are called over these weeks of Advent to prepare and we certainly do that as we get the presents and all the secular things that go with the Christmas celebrations so that we want for nothing. That is not the preparation that John the Baptist calls us to when he tells us to prepare a way for the Lord. Advent is the time when we are reminded that we have to wait for God to come into the world. We cannot grasp God, we don’t  see him; yet wait for God to let himself be known. When we wait for God, our waiting is a time of prayer filled preparation as we testify to our own poverty and to God’s greatness. As the journey of Advent continues, as we prepare to celebrate the nativity of Christ, John the Baptist’s call to conversion sounds out in our ears. It is a pressing invitation for all of us to open our hearts and minds to welcome the Son of God who comes among us to make the kingdom of God the Father manifest to all. As we continue our own Advent Journeys let us hear the call of John the Baptist to repent and make straight the paths for the lord.

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26 Nov 2016

FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

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Last Sunday we ended the year of mercy with the feast of Christ the King, although the Holy Year has ended we remember that the mercy of god is never-ending and is without any bounds. So this Sunday we begin our Advent journey the  period of waiting and watching as we prepare spiritually for the season of Christmas. We bless the Advent Wreathe and light the first purple candle it symbolizes our longing, our desire, our hope at this time of year. Christmas is a sort of spiritual birthday party, celebrating a past event, the birth of the Messiah.  That said if we think that Christmas is a secular celebration of a birth 2000 years ago we are missing the point it is not just about a past event it is also about the here and now of today and the future. Three particular things shape our preparation during advent.  We want to be renewed in the sense that Jesus came to save us from our sin and death.  We want to experience his coming to us in our everyday lives, to help us live our lives with meaning and purpose.  And we want to prepare for his coming to meet us at the end of our lives on this earth.

At the beginning of each church year we are reminded that Jesus the Christ is present in his church today.  When we think of his presence as something so exalted as to be beyond our own experience, we are reminded sharply that he was born in the lowest of places, a common stable.  His first visitors were stinky, rough shepherds who were the outcasts of the society at that time.  The preparation time that the season of Advent affords us is a time for us to prune, weed and convert our spiritual lives and our way of thinking as we prepare the way for the Lord so that he can enter into our lives.   The tragedy of this season is that we have been programmed over so many years to believe that Christmas is all about gift giving, and non-stop activity that leaves everyone so exhausted and happy it’s all over by Christmas Eve.  So then we forget about the 12 days of Christmas and dump the tree the decorations and the lights as soon as possible. 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.

This ‘vigilant responsibility’ 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 begin advent 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 is the reason for the season of Christmas.

 

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19 Nov 2016

THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

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This Sunday we celebrate the last Sunday of the year with the feast of Christ the King. This feast was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925, to remind us that our allegiance was to one who exercised power not by force or might, but by love and service for others. The gospel reading for this Sunday is part of the passion that we read on Palm Sunday the scene opens as Jesus hung on the cross between two condemned criminals. Jesus had uttered his famous words of forgiveness “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” and his last possession his clothes had been gambled away by the guards. Jesus had nothing to look forward to but death and the scene ends with one of the thieves asking Jesus to remember him in his kingdom. Jesus reply was the beautiful words “today you will be with me in paradise”. The “good” thief acknowledged he and the other criminal were rightly condemned for their acts by legitimate authority.

But Jesus was unjustly condemned by an authority which had no jurisdiction over him. Later when the disciples interpreted Jesus’ life and ministry they applied Isaiah’s image of the Suffering Servant to him,  the servant who was like a lamb led to slaughter; who bore our infirmities so that we could be healed and raised up. From the cross and through the power given us by the Holy Spirit, we are able to respond to hatred with love; forgive when we have been offended and serve those who cannot return the favour these are just a few of the ways Jesus gives us his power and shows us how to use it for the sake of his Kingdom and the good of all. While this gospel closes the liturgical year, it is not the end of the story. Here we are over 2000 years later thinking about the cross as well as Jesus’ promise of life given to the thief. The kingdom of God is a kingdom where everyone is valued and no one is left out. The cross is evidence that God, in the person of Jesus, really does care about each of us. God cares about both thieves in the gospel not just the one who acknowledged his sin.

God cares so much for us that he wants to share in every part of our lives. He knows our pain, the anguish that comes from living in an imperfect, often hate filled world. He embraces it as a standard, a light that demonstrates his unconditional love for each and every one of us. The kingship of Christ has nothing to do with triumphalism or lording it over other people. Jesus is no victor entering the city at the head of tanks, leading rank upon rank of infantrymen there is no fly-past with jets or other warplanes nor is there a great flotilla of warships or boats. The King we celebrate this weekend is the Son of God who walks the dusty roads of our daily lives finding the weak, the ill, the oppressed, the ones whose hearts are wounded, the ones whose minds are confused by the bright lights of materialism and the things that they see going on around them. Jesus finds all kinds of people as he journeys with us along the dusty roads, he finds ordinary folk as well as the elite, the powerful as well as the weak and he invites all of them and all of us to walk his way as we prepare to begin another Church Year with the advent season.Are we prepared to take up the challenge to start walking down the road that leads to salvation as we end this liturgical year and begin anew?

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12 Nov 2016

33rd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

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Well here we are at the 33rd Sunday of ordinary time we are near the end of the liturgical year as well as that we are at the end of the year of Mercy.  These days we live in very uncertain times, things in the world at large are very different with the election of Donald Trump as president of the USA. As the saying goes what a difference a week makes. So what does our Gospel for this Sunday tell us, This gospel reading from Luke is there to help us to be honest with ourselves as we go forward to the feast of Christ the King and then on to Advent as it talks about the end times. This weekend Luke’s gospel places Jesus in the temple. Those around him were marvelling at the temple, the stone carvings, the offerings of the people to God were a source of amazement. Jesus threw cold water on their thoughts about the great temple. When people commented on its  glory Jesus prophesied that doom and gloom would come from their spiritual slumber. Jesus also stated that there will come a time when the temple with all its glory will lie in ruins, its magnificence gone and the place a place of desolation. To the crowd around him who heard what he said this was inconceivable.

The temple was the hinge of Jewish life, something solid to hang onto in hard times. Naturally they wanted to know when it would happen. Jesus didn’t give them or us a date or time when this would happen. Jesus also assured his followers of divine help of God when the time of trial came. Those people who have the courage to live the Way of Jesus are often questioned, interrogated, and abused because they are following Jesus. They give witness by how they live their daily lives and many persecuted people have given their lives in so many places in recent times. In these first 16 Years of the twenty first century we are faced with terrible inequity of living standards in many countries. For many people there is the awful crushing experience of being left out, being left behind. Many people don’t want to understand the pain and isolation that comes from being excluded from so many things for instance exclusion from education and healthcare these are just two examples of people being denied opportunities for a better life there are many more and there are many people around and about us who are afflicted and Jesus came to comfort them in what he did and what he said.

How are we responding to the issues of our time as we look towards the future this weekend wondering what that future holds for us as we think about this we also remember that the words of Jesus in the Gospels are there to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted! None of us have the answers if we had the answers, I don’t know that we would be any better than we are. This weekend when we think about the end times in the scripture we pray for one another, for faith that endures, a faith that perseveres, and a faith that lasts till the very end of the doom and gloom of the dark night that we sometimes have to go through until we come to the light of Christ!

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05 Nov 2016

32nd SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

 

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In the course of his public ministry Jesus came across many people who had differing opinions about his message. This Sunday we hear about the Sadducees they accepted Roman rule and customs as a trade-off for retaining the power they had. The worldly influence of led them to be religiously conservative. Unlike the Pharisees, they accepted the written Law of Moses and rejected the authority of oral tradition. In our Gospel story they attempt to ridicule the resurrection of the dead by recalling the Mosaic Law on levirate marriage. The Sadducees develop an example to the point of absurdity in giving the example of seven brothers each of whom marries the same woman, but each of the brothers dies childless. None of the brothers has proved husband in terms of producing an heir: in that case, whose wife would the woman be in the resurrection?

In his reply Jesus makes it clear that there is no comparison between human life, shared by all, those who are children of God. Jesus makes the distinction between two ages and two peoples: the people of this age who live a life peculiar to this time, and those who are resurrected from the dead into a new age. The tightly wound arguments of the Sadducees and of Jesus present an interesting contrast. The Sadducees pointed to an ordinance in the Law to prove the absurdity of a popular belief. Jesus countered by refusing the key issue in their argument the afterlife was an extension of present life. Then, he proceeded to fuse the belief in the resurrection with the revelation of God to his people.Through his argument Jesus reveals something of his own image of God – a God who keeps his promise to his faithful ones even when they die. Jesus does more than argue that case he leads by example when the time comes he himself becomes the argument. He undergoes death on Good Friday and then he experiences the glory of resurrection on Easter Sunday when God the Father refused  to let death have the last word. The risen Jesus is the greatest argument against the Sadducees and their idea of religion and faith. Death has been overcome and sin need not dominate our lives. We may not have the plans for the arrangements of the next life, but what we do know is that we have the hope of God’s promise to us that He will rescue us from the darkness of the shadow of death and lead us into the light of Christ in our heavenly homeland.

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31 Oct 2016

NOVEMBER

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During the month of November we remember those who have died. In the parish where I live we as a community celebrate a Mass for the bereaved remembering all those who have died during the year and their families are invited to attend. During the Mass the names of those who have passed on will be read out and a family member will come forward to light a candle in their memory. Also for the whole month of November the remembrance book in which the names of those who have died over the past year will be inscribed will be on a table in the Church and the candle will be lit near this book during every Mass. We also keep up the venerable tradition of the November Dead List in which we list the names of our dead friends and relations and the lists are placed in the church for the month of November and we remember all those people as well. Goodness is not limited to any age of history: neither the past nor the present has a monopoly on saints because all of us are called to be saints and we find that most if not all the saints were also sinners!!

We are related to those who went before us, those who linked their belief to those who went before them. We are part of that chain of holiness we are a small part of the marvellous company of heaven that is the believers who have gone before us. We are not abandoned to our own devices; we have our ancestors in faith the saints who are blessed in heaven. In John’s vision he sees “a huge number, impossible to count, of people from every nation, race, tribe and language”. Among them are counted people who know us and love us Who we are is what we have been given. Our faith also educates the hope we share that we will return to the source of life, the God of all beginnings. Death is not a door into the dark, it is a dark door which opens into the light. Those we have loved and all the faithful departed have passed through that door, and during the month of November we pray for their eternal peace and joy. During November we hold holy the memory of all the faithful who have been called to return to God. We bless God for the many ways they have enriched our families, our communities, our life of faith. We pray that as we remember their names before God, they will remember us. The faith and love that bound us together with them in life still binds us in their new life. We pray that their prayers will support our own hope as we continue our journey in faith. Our journey is the road that will take us to eternal joy of the heavenly kingdom.                                      

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29 Oct 2016

31ST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

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This weekend our gospel story tells us about Zachaeus the Tax Collector. The tax collectors in Jesus time were despised because they were seen as enforcing the tax system of a foreign country. It seems that Zacchaeus was a small man who was anxious to see the person that all the fuss was about; personally I think he was looking for something more in the spiritual sense as he climbed up into the branches of the sycamore tree to get a look at Jesus as he passed by.  Zacchaeus put his dignity and the prestige of his position on the line when he scrambled up the tree Jesus saw him and he saw his willingness to accept the message of salvation. The story of Zacchaeus encourages us to seek and find Jesus in our daily lives.  Sometimes we need to let go and climb up the sycamore tree of faith to a different level to see the Lord as he passes by .  

All of us have a role to play in the ongoing work of building up the kingdom of God in our own place.  Our task is to bring love and care to all the people we encounter whoever they may be.  If we ignore people and bring them down to our own sometimes self-centered level we end up being the thorns and weeds that are removed from the harvest and cast into the fire as rubbish. We come to worship in our churches each week to get a better glimpse of Jesus as our Faith is the “tree” we climb. Our hope is that Jesus will  give us a clearer view of where he is in the midst of the issues and struggles we face day and daily. We’ll stay in this “tree” where we meet the Lord each Sunday but just for a short while, then we will climb down to return to our daily lives. The final verse in today’s Gospel can help us interpret many other stories about Jesus. His key mission was “to seek out and save what was lost.” Jesus wants to come to the lost and confused parts of our lives. The parts we cover up and want to forget and there are so many dark places in people’s lives these days for so many reasons.

Jesus wants to make a home with us in the very places we have closed up and locked away. He knocks on the door of our hearts and invites us to let him in to change what we have given up on and so many people have given up on Faith and all it entails in recent times. He knocks on the door to bring out into the light the broken and discarded parts of our lives that need healing and Love. In the days ahead may we be like Zacchaeus not afraid to go out into the world climbing the tree to look for Jesus and not be afraid to bring his message to the people of our time.

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22 Oct 2016

Mission Sunday 2016

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This Sunday we celebrate Mission Sunday. Since 1926, the Church has remembered its universal mission during the month of October. On Mission Sunday, we celebrate the work of all missionaries throughout the world. We thank God for them, for all who support them in our own countries and we unite ourselves in prayer with them and with the communities with whom they work. So many men and women  have gone to foreign lands to bring the faith of our fathers to those who might not have got the faith otherwise. We think of all the members of the religious orders such as the Columbans, Mill Hill Fathers, St. Patrick’s Fathers the Medical Missionaries of Mary and all the other religious orders who along with the Lay Missionary movements like Viatores Christi who have brought Christ and his message to the far flung corners of the world. This Sunday celebrates the great missionary spirit that has brought the faith to all corners of the world since the Apostles first missionary Journeys .

Mission Sunday gives us the opportunity to acknowledge all those missionary men and women who left everything in order to bring the faith to the ends of the earth with love of god and his people in their hearts. In his message for Mission Sunday Pope Francis says “As they travel through the streets of the world, the disciples of Jesus have a love without limits, the same measure of love that our Lord has for all people. We proclaim the most beautiful and greatest gifts that he has given us: his life and his love”. This year the mission Sunday theme is ‘Every Christian is a missionary’ all of us are called to pray that the Lord of the harvest will continue to inspire many people to join the missionary orders and bring the joy of the Gospel to those who haven’t heard the Good News of the Gospel.

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