The Feast of the Nativity of the Lord. Year C -
(25th December 2018)
Photo by Caleb Stokes on Unsplash
THE LITURGY OF THE WORD
First Reading: Isaiah 9:1-7
Psalm: Ps 95:1-3. 11-13. “Today is born our saviour, Christ the Lord.”
Second Reading: Titus 2:11-14
Gospel Acclamation: Luke 2:10-11
Gospel: Luke 2:1-14
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Please listen to my audio recordings of the readings, prayers, and reflections for the “The Feast of the Nativity of the Lord. Year C” - by clicking this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/christmas-2018 (EPISODE: 131)
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The wonder of this Christmas season is shown by the sight of so many people… family, friends, and parishioners gathered together at Christmas masses and at wonderful gatherings for meals. And (tonight/today) we gather to give thanks and praise to God who loved us so very much that he took on our human condition and came close to us, so as to share our joys and sorrows, our successes and failures, our hopes and fears.. and to save us from the mess we have made by all our wrong choices and actions… and more wonderfully…to make us members of God’s family forever. (This is despite the fact that none of us have really earned or deserved this love). But the love just IS there... and it is never going away.
Christmas, at its heart, is the most beautiful love story. It is a celebration of the absolute and astounding depths of God’s love for us, whom he even goes to the amazing length of naming as his beloved children. It is about how our God chose to be very near to us, (closer than a heartbeat).to share with us the blessing and struggle of being human. God cares very much for each and every one of us and wants us to return that care, gentleness, and respect by how we treat people around us. God doesn’t just love us a ‘little bit’ - but God loves us utterly and completely, and the message of Christmas (in fact, the whole message of Jesus’ life and ministry), is that God gives up everything to put this love into action.
God is absolute love – completely and deliberately choosing to be the opposite of aloof or distant. God constantly gets right “in-there” - into the messiness of life and never leaves us to muddle on alone. God rejected any distance and coldness from us and our worries… God chose to be interested, involved and participate in our lives. And that is wonderful beyond imagination.
Christmas shows us the way God thinks and acts…. And it is in such stark contrast with the many of the ways of the world….
Social researcher, the Australian writer Hugh McKay, in his new book “Reimagining Australia,” says that our society is suffering at the moment from an unprecedented crisis of confidence in so many significant institutions that form the core of our wider community -
People are having huge problems with trust and confidence in core groups… whether it be government, the banks, medical bodies,The church, Sporting bodies, Universities, Media groups, Big Corporations, and so many more. It is a broad problem of lack of trust, broadly felt in our society (and around the world). Our trust depends on whether we perceive that these organizations are working in our interests and the common good. Our respect for them declines rapidly when they are seen as preoccupied with their own power, or placing their institutional interests ahead of the interests of the society they are meant to serve; or if they have become distant, unapproachable, uncaring, and unengaged in the lives of ordinary people.[i]
Jesus was born to SHOW us that God's ways are all about approachability, nearness, care, compassion, and involvement. And secular studies on what is good for our society agree as well, (which is wonderful); As Hugh McKay writes: "I have been inspired by the many communities and individuals who are showing us how to become a more generous, more compassionate, more cohesive and more harmonious society. Their example reminds us that the state of the nation actually starts in our own street.” (McKay).
We remember today, the birthday of a man whose life, death and resurrection showed us the way to act and respond purposefully with kindness and generosity to life, come what may. (Even in the face of the absolute worst things that an ungrateful world threw back at him, the Lord steadfastly refused to stop giving freely of his compassion, his mercy, his generosity, and healing,).
On any day when we follow Jesus and live our Christian life to the full, (living life intentionally; choosing gentleness, generosity, graciousness – even when this is not what the world around us is serving up to us – Refusing to respond to the world by how we are treated, but rather, choosing daily to act with love, and justice , irrespective of the response or the prompting).
Fr Richard Leonard in his new book “What Are We Waiting For? -Finding Meaning in Advent & Christmas.”
He quotes Rev. John Bell of the Iona Community in this beautiful poem:
“Light looked down and saw darkness. / “I will go there,” said light.
Peace looked down and saw war./ “I will go there,” said peace.
Love looked down and saw hatred. “I will go there,” said love.
So he, the Lord of Light,
the Prince of Peace,
the King of Love,
came down and crept in beside us.” **
What a wonderful phrase:……
God “came down and crept in beside us.”
As Fr Leonard points out…..
“No fanfare. No palace. No earthly prince. ...... ..
God thought it fitting and right to enter our world through a very complicated conception story, a messy birth, a willing midwife, and to arrive as a vulnerable baby. God crept in beside us. And as a result, there is nothing too complex, too messy, or too vulnerable about our own lives into which God cannot or will not enter.”
This is indeed news of great joy.
Joy to be shared by all the people of every time and place.
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References:
Fr Paul W. Kelly
“Australia Reimagined - Towards a More Compassionate, Less Anxious Society” By Hugh Mackay. Pan Macmillan Australia. 2018. ISBN: 9781743534823
FR RICHARD LEONARD, SJ. QUOTED IN “THE TABLET” PAGE 7, 15TH DECEMBER, 2018. TAKEN FROM REFLECTIONS IN “What Are We Waiting For? Finding Meaning in Advent & Christmas” Richard Leonard, SJ. Paulist Press New York / Mahwah, NJ.
Copyright © 2014 by Richard Leonard, SJ
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/reimagining-australia/10003652 ;
And
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drawingroom/hugh-mackay-reimagining-australia/9832974
* * Wild Goose Worship Group, Cloth for the Cradle: Worship Resources and Readings for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany (Wild Goose Publications: Glasgow, UK, 1998).
“Poem for Christmas eve” and “incarnate” © Godfrey Rust, godfrey@wordsout.co.uk [ii]
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Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul: paulwkelly68@gmail.com
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Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
“Faith, Hope and Love, A time of Christian worship and reflection” - Led by Rev Paul W. Kelly
Texts used in this programme are for the purposes of worship and prayer for listeners wherever you are.
Prayers and chants are taken from the English Translation of the Roman Missal, edition three, © 2010, The International commission on English in the liturgy.
Scriptures are from the New Revised Standard Version: © 1989, by the national council of Churches of Christ, USA. , //adaptations to conform with Catholic liturgical norms, © 2009, by the same.
Psalm verses are taken from “The Psalms: the Grail Translation. Inclusive Language Version.” ©1963, 1995, 2004 The Grail (England), published by HarperCollins. London.
Prayers of the Faithful are adapted from Robert Borg’s 1993 book “Together we pray”. Published in Sydney Australia By E.J. Dwyer. (out of print).
{ “Mass In Honour of St. Ralph Sherwin” -published 2011, Composed and Sung by Jeffrey M. Ostrowski
Featuring the….Gloria. COPYRIGHT @ 2018 CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. www.ccwatershed.org/vatican/Ralph_Sherwin_Videos/
“Faith, Hope and Love” theme Hymn: Words, based on 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, set to original music © 1996 by Paul W. Kelly.
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May God bless and keep you.
The Feast of the Nativity of the Lord. Year C
(24-25th December, 2018) (EPISODE: 131 )
Hello everyone and happy Christmas.
It is such a beautiful time, this Christmas Season. We celebrate God who
loved us so much that he pitched in with us and made his home with
us… to share our joys and sorrows, our graces and temptations, our
successes and failures.
Let us pray this Christmas for all the values Christ was born to
establish… that they will take hold deeply in our hearts and in our
world… peace, compassion, love, generosity, mercy, justice and so
many more…
Let us all rejoice in the Lord, for our Saviour has been born in the
world.
Today true peace has come down to us from heaven.
The Lord be with you.
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Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins,
and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries.
Lord Jesus, you are mighty God and Prince of peace. Lord have mercy// You are Son of God and the Son of Mary. Christ have mercy// You are Word made flesh, the splendour of the Father. Lord have mercy.
May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us to everlasting life. Amen.
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Memorial Acclamation
When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup, we proclaim your Death, O Lord, until you come again.
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Nativity I
Eucharistic Prayer II
Communion side. pwk: LH
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I pray that you have a truly blessed and joyous Christmas and that Our Lord's love and peace will completely fill your hearts and minds, and safe traveling to and from your destinations…
God bless.
Go forth, the Mass is ended.
[i] It is also interesting that people distinguish between an institution and the individuals who work in them at the grassroots level, where they are indeed engaging with people and are interested in their lives and issues. SO, a person can be suspicious of the Banks, but deeply trust their local Bank manager whom they know and deal with personally. People can be very ambivalent about the Church, but have a lot of time for the local pastors who are in the community with them. People can have no time for Media sensationalism or opinion masquerading as fact but have enormous respect for a journalist they know. “Australia Reimagined - Towards a More Compassionate, Less Anxious Society.” Hugh Mackay. Pan Macmillan Australia. 2018. ISBN: 9781743534823
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[ii] Today’s celebration of the Gospel is, after all, a profound love story.
As the English poet Godfrey Rust writes:
God the father looked down at his world
and the world was like a sleeping, fitful child
and the child was spoiled.
Its nations called each other names
and roamed earth's playground like a gang of children
who choose sides, always brandishing their terrifying toys.
The world thought it was abandoned;
and hunted restlessly for some new sign or token
as if Christmas had come and gone, its presents all unwrapped, already broken,
and the father God looked at his child
and counted the cost of love's freedom:
but he had a plan,
to step from out of time,
and into history;
and become a human.
With an eternity to find the spot,
he chose with the greatest care.
One night a workman stood
in a barn with a group of animals
watching the birth of God,
while out on the hills some shepherds were astonished,
as a skyful of angels appeared then disappeared,
and a few astrologers saw a change in the stars they'd studied for years
and almost everyone else knew nothing.
Caesar turned and settled in his luxurious bed
while in Bethlehem the power and the glory cried for milk in a shed.
It was quite an entrance. The only Son of God
homeless, ...........a refugee,
(owning nothing but the world that he grew up in),
- had made himself quite empty,
his birth itself a kind of dying where
he abdicated power, omniscience,
was needy, hated and misunderstood.”
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