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For example Year C 2010 is being replaced week by week with Year C 2013, and so on.

Friday 25 November 2016

1st Sunday of Advent Year A 2016

1st. Sunday of Advent (A)
(Isaiah 2:1-5; Romans 13:11-14; Matthew 24:37-44)
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Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, our Gospel reading is indeed suited to an Advent time of anticipation and expectation, but it is apparently in anticipation of something much more serious and solemn than our traditional celebration of Christmas for which normal preparations are usually choosing gifts, arranging festive gatherings of family and friends, and planning meals of more ample and diverse character than those for normal daily sustenance and modest pleasure.
During Advent, Catholics preparing to celebrate the birth of Our Lord Jesus in Bethlehem, commonly try to put their minds back nearly 2000 years while rejoicing whole-heartedly in their present awareness and experience of the joys and blessings those 2000 years of Christian faith and fulfilment have brought to the world throughout that history and in their own personal and family lives.  But  today’s Gospel, given for our appropriate blessing by Mother Church in her traditional wisdom, does not centre of the past Nativity of the Infant Jesus but rather on another and second coming of Jesus, ultimately as the Son of Man.
Modern disciples of Jesus -- up to date indeed but not up to standard with the fullness of wisdom and beauty embraced by Mother Church’s Liturgy for the right expression of authentic Christian worship of and love for God – rightly want to teach their children about Jesus, and give God thanks for the original coming of the Son of God as the Divine Infant born of the Virgin Mary for our salvation, but they tend to overdo the going back to what they have always loved.
It is a common fault to be found most frequently with indulgent grand-parents: they love their grandchildren and want to make and to see them happy, and so they often lower themselves down to a childish level of behaviour for immediate companionship and joy, but rarely indeed do they want to raise the children up -- even very gently -- towards more adult appreciations.  To try to lift up the mind of a child is a risk they prefer not to take; it is so much easier to behave as a child with the children, winning immediate and joyful laughter all round and, as a very acceptable bonus, they themselves get praise from all who are watching and admiring their easy rapport with their grandchildren!
Now that is what happens not only the home but also and too often, with Catholic and Christian use of the Advent preparation for the Coming of Christ: ‘just delight in the Infant Child, don’t spoil it by trying to somehow think about and prepare for a Second Coming, especially one with judgement somewhere to be involved.  After all, Advent is not Lent!
That of course is very true, Advent is not Lent.  Nevertheless, Advent does bear a marked likeness to Lent in so far as both are times of preparation for a more intimate sharing with Jesus in our appreciation of and co-operation with His work of salvation.  And in Advent that involves adults teaching and encouraging their children how rightly to express joy in, and learn gratitude for, the first coming of Jesus as a child of Mary, even as they are also preparing themselves for another coming of Jesus, personal and private in our time, but ultimately one with, and leading to, a Second most public and universal Coming at the  end of time for the fulfilment and joy beyond all imagining of God’s faithful ones, or one of reckoning and retribution for those who willingly rejected Him and the Saviour He sent.
As it was in the days of Noah so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.  Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken and one will be left.  Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one will be left.  Therefore stay awake for you do not know on which day your Lord will come.  Be sure of this: you must be prepared for at an hour you do not expect the Son of Man will come.
Jesus used ‘Son of Man’ when speaking of Himself as endowed with a most solemn and sublime mission, whereas ‘your Lord’ is much more personal and intimate, and I think we can legitimately see there the motive for Catholic adults’ adult celebration of Christmas harmonizing so well with the celebrations they share with their children.  The children’s joyful welcoming of Jesus is, as it were, the first flowering of their family’s Catholic faith; the parents’ peaceful awareness and humble yet hopeful anticipation of their Lord’s coming into their own loving hearts and watchful minds are more mature and more beautiful blossoms of true faith; the Second and universally public Coming of the Son of Man, however, will herald the ultimate fulfilment of all their hopes and aspirations arising from Jesus’ saving Death, Resurrection and Ascension and evoke the utmost love and glory for His Most Holy Name that saved mankind can offer.
Our second reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans is most apposite for adults in their con-celebration -- along with their children -- of Christmas:
Brothers and Sisters, our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed, the night is advanced, the day is at hand.  Let us then put on the armour of light, and conduct ourselves properly as in the day; let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.
And that teaching is expressed far more beautifully when the words of Isaiah from our first reading are understood in line with it:
Come, let us climb to the Lord’s mountain (lift up our hearts to Jesus), that He may instruct us in His ways, and we may walk in His paths. Come let us walk in the light of the Lord!
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Advent comes to help us prepare more fully (parents and children, not just children) for truly Christian and Catholic Christmas joy!  Advent calls us to become more truly children of God (both parents and children); let us, therefore, close our present considerations by recalling today’s Alleluia antiphon:
                Show us Lord Your love; and grant us Your salvation!







               


Friday 18 November 2016

Christ the King 2016



            Christ the King
(2 Samuel 5:1-3; Colossians 1:12-20; Luke 23:35-43)


Today we are invited to rejoice in Christ our King Who is the Son of God made flesh.
We should be aware that throughout the New Testament the many mentions of "the God", for example, “the God of our fathers", "the God of the living", "may the God of hope", and other such expressions, all refer to God the Father, He is "God" because the Father is the origin and source of all. 
However, because He is eternally, and eternally the Father, therefore He always and eternally expresses His Fatherhood in His Son, His co-eternal Son, for without His Son He would not be Himself, that is, He could not be Father.  The Father withholds nothing from His Son, as Jesus told his disciples at the Last Supper:
Everything that the Father has is Mine. (John 16:15)
(Father,) everything of Mine is Yours, and everything of Yours is Mine. (John 17:10)           
And therefore we heard in the second reading that:
            He (the beloved Son) is the image of the invisible God.
Indeed, as the Nicene Creed in our Mass proclaims the eternal relationship between Father and Son in the one Godhead: He (the Son) is God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God, Begotten not made, of One Being with the Father.
Therefore, in the one God, the Son is the total, essential, expression of the Father's very being as God.  Creation, however, is not essential to God, it is a choice He makes and, being the result of such a decision, is an abiding choice of His will and a partial expression in space and time of His Fatherly goodness.  As true Father He loves His creation as He made it (Genesis 1:31):
God looked at everything He had made, and found it very good.
Because the Son is the total, co-eternal, expression of the nature of God the Father whereas creation is a partial, temporal, expression of God's fatherly goodness and care, therefore we can begin to appreciate there being a special relationship between the Son and creation, as we heard in the second reading:
He -- the image of the invisible God -- is the firstborn of all creation.
All things created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -- all have been created through Him and for Him.
Now we can understand why it should be the Son Who was sent by the Father for our salvation; and how, by taking truly human flesh of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, He became the Man Who (Colossians 1:17):
Is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 
Indeed, though appearing outwardly as the mysteriously humble figure of Jesus, son of Mary, from Nazareth, the same letter to the Colossians goes on to tell us (2:9):
            In Him dwells the whole fullness of the Deity bodily.
Let us, therefore, try to glimpse something more of the glory of the Father, manifested to us in the beauty, the truth, and the goodness of His Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
It was the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, bond of love between Father and Son in the one Godhead, Who guided, strengthened, and sustained, the incarnate Son Who -- having been made one with us in all our powers and potentialities, even to the extent of sharing in our native human weakness though without sin -- would be led to the full maturity of His human nature by the Spirit.  This began to climax, as you will recall, at the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan:
After Jesus was baptized, He came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened (for Him) and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon Him.  And a voice came from the heavens, saying, “This is My beloved Son, with Whom I am well pleased.”  Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. (Matthew 3:16-4:1)
The beloved, only-begotten Son of God, the Lord and Saviour of all mankind, had to be made absolutely perfect in the flesh for our sake; and -- because of our sins -- such perfection could only come through suffering:
It was fitting for Him, for Whom are all things, and by Whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. (Hebrews 2:10)
And now, as we begin to see the true nature of Christ's glory in its earthly manifestation, we catch a glimpse His goodness and His humility:
Since the children share in blood and flesh, He likewise shared in them, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life.   (Hebrews 2:14-15)
This He was able to do because:
Though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.  Rather He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and being found human in appearance, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.    And when He was (thus) made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him.  (Philippians 2:6-8; Hebrews 5:9)
Human eyes cannot clearly see nor can the human mind fully comprehend the glory of Christ, but, having learned of His majesty and glimpsed something of His goodness and humility, let us now raise up our minds by faith to look at the beauty of Him Whom the prophet Malachi (3:20), in the name of God, described as the "sun of justice":
For you who fear My name, the Sun of Justice will arise with healing in its wings.
For this Son of God, made flesh and perfected as man through suffering the ultimate humiliation of death on the Cross, this Son was revealed in all His beauty by rising from the dead as the prophet Isaiah had foretold :
Your eyes will see the King in His beauty, they will behold a land that stretches far away.  (Isaiah 33:17; NRSV)
This is indeed the case, because it is only the beauty of the risen Christ that enables us to raise our eyes in hope to the promised land of our heavenly home with Christ.
The prophet Zechariah (9:16-17) had foretold:
The LORD their God will save them like a flock on that day; how good, how lovely! 
If He, the risen Lord, gives such comeliness His faithful flock, what then must be the Personal beauty of Him Who, rising like the sun, brings such beauty to those who once:
Sat in darkness and in the shadow of death? (Psalm 107:10)
For St. Paul is in full agreement with the ancient psalmist, when he says of Jesus, as you heard in the second reading:
He delivered us from the power of darkness.
To understand a final aspect of the glory of Christ the King let us now just consider Him in heaven.  There, He is seated at the right hand of the Father, and there we can recognize His eternal truth and faithfulness; for, we are told that, in heaven, He is eternally solicitous for our well-being:
It is Christ Who died, and furthermore is also risen, Who is even at the right hand of God, Who also makes intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)
He is able to save forever those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:25)
How are we, for our part, to approach God; to draw near to Him in accordance with the prayers of Jesus Who lives before the Father and intercedes eternally on our behalf?  Let us carefully attend to Jesus on the Cross and learn His ways.
The people stood looking on (and) even the rulers sneered with them saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself”.
But Jesus did not save Himself.
One of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, “Are You not the Christ? Save Yourself and us.”
He was the Christ, indeed He knew He was the Christ, but still He did not save Himself.  Why?  Listen yet more closely:
The other criminal, however, (after) rebuking him said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”  He replied to him, “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”
Jesus, so calmly and completely certain what was to happen to Himself, did not promise that He Himself would take the former thief into Paradise: “You will be with Me”, He said. In other words, ‘He Who will receive Me into Paradise will draw you there with Me’.  Notice Jesus’ absolute commitment to and total trust in His Father and the Spirit Who was working in Him for the Father’s glory, for that is Jesus’ royal way for us too that will ultimately lead us from this world to the Kingdom of His Father as children of God.
All the conceits of our human sinfulness have gradually to be set aside until we are totally convinced that we can neither grab the fruit of tree of Paradise, nor can we merit it for ourselves.  Such fruit is given only to those who, through faith in Jesus, and in the fear of the Lord, become aware of and responsive to the Spirit of God at work in their lives: those who pray for, and are willing to wait for, His lead in all things; those who sincerely seek to distinguish aright between His guiding and their own passions and fears, their own imagining, wishing, and wanting; and finally, those who will then seek to commit themselves totally in an endeavour to follow His lead as closely as their trust in Him and death to themselves will allow.
Yes, dear People of God, Jesus Christ Our Lord is, indeed, King of all creation and most particularly our King in Heavenly Glory; may our celebration today promote and further His rule on earth, in our lives, our society, and in our world.