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Dear Friend, At Christmas we wish
each other a very Happy Christmas! For most people Christmas is a time of
merry making, of visiting friends and sharing gifts and partying. But
Christmas can also be a difficult time for people who have lost a dear one,
people on their bed of pain, people who are jobless or lonely or alone. We
need to remind ourselves that the first Christmas was not a merry affair.
Mary and Joseph had it tough, yet they brought Jesus into the world. If we
can hold the good and the not-so-good, the expected and the unexpected, the
desired and the undesired, the weaknesses and the promises of strength with
faith we can have a happy Christmas. Wishing you a Christ-filled Christmas! Fr. Jude Botelho |
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Isaiah foresees an ideal descendant of David who
will inaugurate a new era of peace and prosperity for God’s people. The
images used by the prophet and the titles he gives to the royal figure aptly
symbolize the glorious times ahead. The light that conquers the darkness is
the sign that the new era is about to dawn. The people seeing the end of
their distress will shout for joy. Their yoke will be removed. This future
prince is given glorious titles: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace! Security, justice and integrity will
characterize the life of the nation under the new king. The second reading from
Paul’s letter to Titus proclaims that God’s grace in the person of Jesus
Christ is the basis of all Christian conduct. The basis for the Christian’s practicing renunciation of worldly
passions and living upright lives is that Jesus sacrificed himself in order
to redeem us from all iniquity to form us into a people dedicated to God.
Holiness of life is a necessary condition for all those who call themselves
Christian and who await the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s grace and
manifold blessings have been revealed to us through Jesus born for us as our
Lord and Saviour. In simplicity and humility we contemplate Him and follow
him. A Christmas lullaby The presence of the Lord in humankind’s history is a permanent call to
return to the sources of our faith. “In those days a decree went out from
Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” In its simplicity
the text conveys an important message: Jesus was born in a determined time
and place under Augustus and Quirinius and at a time when King Herod was
King. Jesus was born at that moment, insignificant in the eyes of the
arrogant and cynical powers of the time, but all important for people who
waited for his coming and who believed in him. Christmas manifests God
breaking into human history not in power but in weakness. – a Christmas of
lowliness and of service in contrast to the rule of power of domination of
earthy kings. By mentioning that the birth took place in Bethlehem, the town
of David, and by referring to the shepherds, Luke was associating Jesus with
the great King David who first appears on the biblical scene as the keeper of
sheep. The presence of the shepherds would also make the point that it was
the lowly ones of society, and not the religious or secular elite, who first
heard of the wondrous birth. The angels who announced the birth of Christ
give him three titles: Saviour, Christ, and Lord. As Saviour Jesus would
bring deliverance to all peoples, delivering them from sin and the effects of
sin, and restoring them to the friendship of God. As Christ or Messiah, he is
God’s anointed one, the one expected for countless ages by devout Israelites.
By referring to Jesus as Lord, Luke was implicitly declaring that he was on
level with the God of the Old Testament, sharing in his power and Glory. The incarnate Christ Longfellow tells of a monk whose duty it was to give food and clothing
to the poor at the monastery gate. One evening, a vision of Christ appeared
to him in his cell. The face and the features were indistinct so that he even
doubted if it were there, then it would glow a little. As he gazed with joy
at the vision, the bell sounded the hour when the poor were waiting at the
monastery gate. How could he leave now? What should he do –stay with the
heavenly Visitor, or go to his duty of distributing help to the needy? He
bade farewell to Christ and went to relieve Christ’s poor. Darkness fell
before he finished, and as he entered his cell he struck a light. The room
was immediately filled with heavenly brightness. There stood Christ not
indistinct but now shining as the sun, smiling upon him with divine
tenderness. Jesus spoke, “If you had not gone I would have left indeed!” –One
part of our veneration of Christ in the crib at Christmas is to help those
who represent Christ in the flesh around us. Bishop Tihamer Toth in
‘Tonic for the heart’ “Carved,
painted and printed images of Mary holding the Christ Child have so flooded
the world that we can hardly imagine a world without them. For all the rich
drapery in which Mary and the baby are often clothed, the image is so
touching and so human that it one would think that to hold an infant in a nurturing
way is the most natural thing in the world for human beings. Isaiah suggests
that it is natural to hold and cherish an infant when he asks: "Does a
woman forget the Child at her breast?" But he immediately adds a
disturbing note by admitting that the forsaking of an infant by its mother
can and does happen, in contrast to the God of the Israelites who would never
forget a helpless infant…… The infancy narratives in Matthew and Luke give
clear indications that the world was not seen as necessarily a friendly place
for a child to be born in. However, it should be noted that there simply is
not room for a child, whether the child is divine or human, or both. It does
not matter if the dwelling place referred to in Luke is a commercial
establishment or not. The point is the same: a pregnant woman about to
deliver is not given special consideration. When Herod hears word about the
birth of a special child, he seeks to kill him. It is only the protection of
the Heavenly Father who communicates through dreams and his human agents that
saves Jesus from being killed before he even has a chance to speak the Word
of God with a human voice.” –Andrew Marr OSB – A
Christmas meditation. Lighting the light The English writer John Ruskin left us a splendid image of
what Jesus wants us to be in our world. In Ruskin’s time electricity hadn’t
been discovered yet. City streets were lit at night by gas lamps. City
lamplighters had to go from lamp to lamp, lighting them with a flaming torch.
One night, when Ruskin was an old man, he was sitting in front of a window in
his house. Across the valley was a street on a hillside. There, Ruskin could
see the torch of the lamplighter lighting lamps as he went. Because of the
darkness, Ruskin couldn’t see the lamplighter. He could only see his torch
and the trail of lights it left behind him. After a few minutes Ruskin turned
to the person next to him and said: “That’s a good illustration of a
Christian. People may never have known him. They may never have met him. They
may never even have seen him. But they know he passed through their world by
the trail of lights he left lit behind him.” –Christmas is an invitation for
each of us to be for the world what Jesus was for his world: a beam of light
in the midst of darkness, a ray of hope in the midst of despair. Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’ God came down to us… During World War II plane travel and television were still
in their infancy. One Christmas day during the war a young family- father
mother and children, were outside making a snowman. Suddenly a plane passed
directly overhead. The mother shouted to the children. “That the plane your
uncle is on. Let’s all wave. Maybe he’ll see us.” The children jumped up and
down, waved frantically, and shouted on top of their voices. Seconds later,
after the plane had passed, the tiniest child turned to her daddy and asked,
“Daddy, how do people climb into the sky to get into the plane?” Her daddy
explained that passengers didn’t have to climb to the sky to get into the
planes. The planes came down from the sky to the passengers. –That story is a
beautiful illustration of what Christmas is all about. Christmas celebrates
the fact we don’t have to climb to the sky to get to God. God has come down
to earth to us. Christmas celebrates the fact that the infinite God at a
point in time crossed the unimaginable border and personally entered our
world. Before such an undreamable dream the intellect reels. Fortunately, a Christian writer has helped
our understanding of this mystery. He simply said, “Well, love does such
things.” Mark Link in ‘Sunday Homilies’ May we discover that Jesus
Emmanuel is one with us and for us! Fr. Jude
Botelho |
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Other Sunday Homily Websites Daily Reflections Immaculate Heart Retreat Center Gospel Commentary from Ireland Daily Scripture |
Recent
Sunday Reflections Fourth Sunday of Advent 23-Dec. 2007 Third
Sunday of Advent 16-Dec. 2007 Second Sunday of Advent 09-Dec. 2007 First Sunday of Advent 02-Dec. 2007 Thirty-Fourth Sunday of the Year 25-Nov. 2007 Thirty-Third Sunday of the Year 18-Nov. 2007 Thirty-Second Sunday of the Year 11-Nov. 2007
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