Christmas Mass - 2020 Faith, Hope and Love (episode: 268)
Surfers Paradise Catholic Parish, Queensland.
Today is born our saviour, Christ the Lord!
A Blessed, Happy and Healthy Christmas to you all.
And May God bless you and guide you through the coming year.
The Dawning of the Light (Christmas 2020)
Image Credit: Shutterstock Licensed stock vector ID: 335139557. nativity scene with the Holy Family --transparency blending effects and gradient mesh-EPS10. By www.iostephy.com
| Christmas Evening and Day Readings (Same for ALL Masses) |
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. Alleluia, alleluia!. Good News and great joy to all the world: today is born our Saviour, Christ the Lord. Alleluia!
Gospel: Luke 2:1-14
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To listen to the audio recording of the Surfers Paradise Catholic Parish Christmas Mass – (including readings, prayers and homily etc), The Nativity of the Lord. 2020. Please click this link here: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/faith-hope-and-love-christmas-2020-the-nativity-of-the-lord-jesus-episode-268
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PASTORS POST - SOLEMNITY OF CHRISTMAS
A SPECIAL CHRISTMAS REFLECTION
BY FR PETER DILLON.
'Twas the Night Before Christmas . . .
And all through the house there was utter chaos.
We've just found out that Friends from the Northern Beaches of Sydney just called to say that they'd got through the border without anyone catching them and could they stay for just a few days.
That the refrigerator door has been slightly ajar all night and all the ice for the margaritas has melted, not to mention the jelly for the trifle has not set and the chook looks like it has started to cook itself.
The gas bottle for the bar-b-que has been leaking for days, and so the recent humidity is really not the source of everyone's headache.
Nobody washed the novelty table cloth from last year's Christmas lunch, so we have now discovered what happens to spilt gravy and red wine when they are allowed to ferment together for a year.
The children's new action toys do not come with batteries and require a tertiary degree in engineering to assemble and the real Christmas tree we found two weeks ago has now started to shed it needles.
My brother and sister-in-law from Hervey Bay have just told us that their entire family of seven became vegan in November, so they will require only plant-based food for lunch tomorrow, and will there be space for their caravan on the front lawn as they don't want to be any trouble during their 3 week visit.
We now know why the Christmas crackers we got a last year's Boxing Day sale were so cheap. They only contain jokes but no paper hats or trinkets.
The burglar alarm on the next door neighbour's house has been screaming for five hours and they are in Launceston.
We think our dog has eaten one of the donkeys from the Nativity set or maybe we lost it last year.
The new style ATAR results arrived yesterday for our recent year 12 graduate and we don't know whether to congratulate him or tell him "at least you tried and it has been a really difficult year".
About 10 Christmas cards arrived to day from people we hadn't expected and it's too late to send them one in return and we have just discovered that the Lotto numbers we have religiously playing for years have finally turned up the week we forgot to put them in. It was only a 2nd division loss.
Just when we thought that all was lost and this was going to be the worst Christmas ever, we recalled that we had made early bookings for Christmas Mass and that the whole family would be there together for the first time in years.
And so it was a Happy Christmas to all and to all a Good Night.
Fr Peter Dillon.
(Ps, there is no Midnight mass in the parish, and Christmas masses are not necessarily at times from previous years, due of course to Covid. Masses are by booking only.
The dispensation from attending Mass continues to apply in these times of Covid restrictions and if people are unable to book into a mass we will have the Mass for you at home audio liturgy and also other streaming options. Thank you for your cooperation at this time.)
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
{{Happy Christmas to you all. And May the Peace and joy of the Christ Child shine upon you in this special season. }}
On this wonderful (feast of) The Nativity of the Lord Jesus… (the Solemnity of Christmas )
In order to worthily celebrate the sacred mysteries, let us first acknowledge our sins.
Lord Jesus, you are the Son of the Living God, Lord Have mercy .
You are the Son of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Christ Have mercy .
Lord Jesus you are Word made flesh, the splendour o 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
1. We proclaim your Death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again.
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PREFACE: Christmas I
Euch .Prayer: 1
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{I pray this Christmas Season brings you an ever deeper Peace… and profound experience of God's overflowing love…and compassion. Bless you all this christmas season… and may god protect you and guide you in your travels and gatherings at this special time – thanks be to god for the many acts of kindness, love and compassion experienced in so many people in these times of challenge.}
Dismissal:
Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.
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Prologue: (Fr paul Kelly).
The Dawning of the Light (Christmas 2020) -
It is comforting to remember that the first Christmas, over two thousand years ago... things were not going very well at all in the world, for countless numbers of people.... Christ was not born into a world that was going along nicely... far from it, The people were walking in overwhelming darkness of spirit..... suffering terrible poverty and injustice...and with many generations praying desperately that a saviour would come soon, to help them....
The world today, especially this year, knows all too well what that feels like. At the end of a year where people all over the world have been plunged into the darkness of the worst global pandemic in living memory... //. in these last few months ..... Like the words of the first reading... "in the darkness... a great light has begun to shine..." - including real hope that an end to this crisis is in sight... with the development of promising vaccines... (not out of the woods yet - but there is certainly a light at the end of the tunnel).
A profound Light of hope has also shone in the darkness of this year, as we all offer heartfelt thanksgiving, deep appreciation and gratitude for the precious and fragile gift of life, an even deeper cherishing of how precious good health and well-being can be, the irreplaceable treasure our family and friends are to us.... the value of community and church, the pricelessness of so many people who have shown enormous reserves of kindness, generosity, compassion, adaptability and practical assistance in the community, especially when things got very bleak... - again, echoing the Our Lord's message and example... "A light has shone when it was darkest..."
Darkness and bleakness aren't usually words we would use here in Australia at this time of the year, in hot mid-summmer. But certainly after this years experience, these words have new and powerful resonance, symbolically.
And we keep in mind:
winter darkness and sombernness defined the location and predicament of the very first Christmas in Bethlehem: The place of the Lord's birth.
- cold, dark, bleak, the shortest of days, everything seems asleep, or lifeless or hibernating ,,,,
(the traditional shepherds field in Bethlehem is a series of caves on an exposed hill- trees bent sideways from centuries of powerful, relentlessly freezing winds, cutting through the region)...
Gillian Bouras, a writer who was born here in Australia, very familiar with Christmasses here: - boiling hot, and bright-as-can-be from eleven minutes to five am on Christmas morning until sunset - at 6.42pm, Christmas lunches with air coolers turned right up, outdoor bbqs and picnics in the park or at the beach.. She now lives with her family in Europe, and observes as this particular year ends- "I think every southerner should experience the starkness of a northern hemisphere Christmas, where one cannot help but notice and feel the Birth of Jesus being the one ray of light and hope, so much needed this year, penetrating the gloom."
Through the Birth of our Lord, wherever we are in the world ... In summer or winter.. in light or darkness ... whether we are reunited again with family and friends or still cherishing them in our hearts and prayers from afar.... we are all truly united in love, prayer and in spirit. Our absent friends and family are also truly one with us tonight/today. "We carry you in our hearts." all Gods beloved children everywhere.
Two thousand years ago - God loved us so much that God was not content to worry about us from a distance... and so He sent his only son to be with us , and be born as one of us; - to truly and fully share our condition; and save us from ourselves... (to be the model of self-forgetting love and service), He was the ray of light that broke through, into a world of cold and darkness, selfishness, despair, injustice, and violence... and truly shared our suffering; experiencing with us all our joys and all our sorrows, and calling us in turn, to lift up others around us in their struggles.
Our Lord constantly gets right "in-there" - into the messiness of life and never leaves us to muddle on alone. And that is the cause of great joy.
God's miraculous decision to join-in with us, and be with-us, means that...." there is absolutely nothing too complex, too messy, or too vulnerable about our own lives into which God cannot or will not enter."
Let us rejoice, for our saviour has come... He has been born to us... humble and lain in a manger... and who grew up to offer his life as free and full self gift- to save us all... he is the light that scatters the darkness.... He is the promise and fulfilment of all our Hopes and prayers.
He is Christ the Lord.
{Prayer of the faithful - For people throughout the world suffering in any way from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. That the Lord will grant healing, and recovery and continue to inspire acts of compassion and generosity. And in thanksgiving for medical teams and care workers, emergency services and support groups – that they will be uplifted and strengthened in their important work} .
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HOMILY BY FR PETER DILLON.
While it might seem a relatively new practice of stringing stands of coloured lights outside our homes to signify the approaching Christmas season, we are really simply reviving a centuries old tradition that originated in Europe, when people lit fires outside their houses in their wintery climate, to let people know that that they believed the presence of Christ would bring light into their darkness, and warmth into the cold.
Ancient religions as well as modern ones have always used the themes of light and darkness as a way of speaking about religious experience. Light has always been associated with goodness, knowledge, and hope. Darkness has symbolised evil, ignorance and despair.
In my lifetime, I cannot think of a more oppressive year for the whole world, which has had to rethink the ways we live together and the way we relate to each other. Without our knowing how it happened, a dark cloud came over the globe and we were all tested as to how we would address the changes that would forever alter our fragile environment. How we endured the pandemic should be a good indicator as to how we incorporate our belief in a God of hope into how we live each day.
In the Christian tradition we interpret the light to be Jesus the Christ. Without him we are stumbling around in the dark; without him we can eventually come to prefer the darkness to the light. He is the only light that darkness cannot overpower. Yet this light does not force itself upon us, not like some bolt of lightning, but as a child born as all children are, from their mother's womb. With the birth of every child there is new life, new hope, and a new innocence which graces a world that is tired of pain and contradiction.
But this is not the birth of just any child. Luke is anxious to tell us the true identity of this child. So the angels announce to the shepherds, who represent us, the meaning of all that is happening in obscurity. Their announcement pierces the disguise of obscurity and peals out the identity of this child:
"Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."
But what did the shepherds believe they were witnessing. At the time they could have had no comprehension of what it might mean for him to be "the saviour of the world". He was a mere baby who had not yet revealed himself to the world. He was not full of wisdom and authority, he performed no miracles or broke open the ancient texts of scripture. They simply had hope that this child would grow to be the fulfilment of God's promise that the Messiah would come into the world. For the moment they were just happy to be connected to this new life.
The angels proclaim at the beginning of the Gospel what Jesus' followers came to understand only after the resurrection: that Jesus was the saviour, Christ the Lord. The one prophesied by Isaiah. Because we have been given access to his life and his words and words through the Gospels, we have to come to believe that this child grew to maturity and understanding of his mission, and that he died and rose again, so we can take the light of our faith back to the manager.
One of the unique aspects of Christmas is that it achieves a great levelling off of society. Even people who do not have the birth of Christ as part of their faith tradition, accept that nobody feels superior to another on this day. It seems to put an end to elitism, even though it may only be for a short time. It achieves this levelling, not by lowering us all, but by lifting us up.
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References:
HOMILY BY FR PETER DILLON
PROLOGUE - Fr Paul W. Kelly
POEM: "In the bleak midwinter." BY CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53216/in-the-bleak-midwinter)
Gillian Bouras, "The way we were at Christmas," In – "Eureka Street - A publication of Jesuit Communications Australia." © 2020. (edition 08 December 2020). Read more: https://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article/the-way-we-were-at-christmas
Image Credit: Shutterstock Licensed stock vector ID: 335139557. nativity scene with the Holy Family --transparency blending effects and gradient mesh-EPS10. By www.iostephy.com
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Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email: paulwkelly68@gmail.com
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Archive of homilies and reflections: http://homilycatholic.blogspot.com.au
To contact Fr. Paul, please email: paulwkelly68@gmail.com
To listen to my weekly homily audio podcast, please click this link here.
NB - It is often a week or so Ahead: https://soundcloud.com/user-633212303/tracks
You are welcome to subscribe to Fr Paul's homily mail-out by sending an email to this address: paulkellyreflections+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Further information relating to the audio productions linked to this Blog:
"Faith, Hope and Love - Christian worship and reflection" - Led by Rev Paul Kelly
Roman Missal, 3rd edition, 2010, (ICEL)
Scriptures - New Revised Standard Version: © 1989, and 2009 by the NCC-USA.
"The Psalms" by The Grail - 1963, 2009.
Prayers of the Faithful - Robert Borg "Together we pray" - (1993) .
St. Ralph Sherwin Gloria - written and sung By Jeffrey M. Ostrowski. 2011 ccwatershed.org.
Christmas Hymn - "Word Made Flesh" by Paul W. Kelly. Based upon: John's Gospel 1:14, 1 John 4:9 , & Isaiah 9:2, 6, 7.
(Written on 8/5/20; 10/9/20). Arranged and sung by Stefan Kelk, with adjusted lyrics. 2020. https://www.airgigs.com/user/stefankelk
Traditional hymns:
O Holy Night (Vocal Duet),
Joy to the World (Choir),
Away in a Manger (Choir), performed by the Bobby Cole Chamber Choir, licensed via Shockwave-Sound.com
( https://www.shockwave-sound.com)
[ Production - KER - 2020]
May God bless and keep you.
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