Author: Simon Sleeman

Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman. Today is the feast day of the Baptism of the Lord. What is happening here that is of interest to us? We know relatively little about Jesus Christ until he reaches the age of thirty. The angels, the manger, the straw, the magi, the star, the shepherds, the ox and the ass, these are all images which later generations plastered on the bare walls of fact. We know that he was born in Bethlehem, which still exists and which is now a city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank of Palestine, located about six miles south of Jerusalem; and at a particular time, in human history, ‘the time of Caesar Augustus, to be precise, when Herod was king of Judea.’ These are verifiable facts. At some point in his life, probably during his adolescence, the Gospel suggests at the age of Twelve, this remarkable human person, this boy similar to ourselves, at about the same age as many of you sitting listening to me at this moment; this person, who had been brought up as a Jew, who had his relationship with God filtered through the normal channels of Temple worship, yearly feasts and traditional prayers, experienced a traumatic transformation, a psychic upheaval.  He became aware that his relationship with God was different from anything that had ever been experienced by any other person who ever existed on this planet. 

Something strange had happened when he was twelve years old. He was in Jerusalem with his parents and a whole load of other people who had travelled there, as they did every year for the Festival of Passover. When the whole group, including his parents, left the city to travel home, He somehow knew that he had to stay behind without telling any of them. Three days later after agonising worries about his safety, they found him in the Temple arguing with theologians and experts about the God question. 

Today we are focusing on a later moment in his career. He is out in the desert beside the river Jordan. His cousin, John, is baptising people in acrowd. Suddenly he knows that he must be baptised also. When he goes into the water, something happens to him and something happens to the river. 

He comes up out of the water and he knows that he is the Son of God. This is no longer a hazy intuition, it is a certain conviction. He hears a voice from heaven saying: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’  

In a few moments from now, during this Mass, one of you will bring a flagon of wine to the altar. One drop of water will be poured into the chalice as these words are said: ‘By the mystery of this water and this wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.’

My dear friends: we are that drop of water, we are the Jordan  river; we are invited to share the same light-bulb moment that Jesus Christ experienced as he came up out of the water. 

One of these mornings
You’re going to wake up singing
going to spread your wings
And  take to the sky

That’s the kind of feeling when the message sinks in: You are being asked to hear these same words we have just had read in the Gospel passage addressed to you personally this morning: ‘you are my beloved, you are the one and only; and I am with you for ever more.’ 

If you are still looking for a New Year resolution: make it to find the switch to that light bulb and turn it on. No one else can do it for you, that is the meaning of free will. It should change your life and it should  make the year 2025 the most significant and the most creative you have yet to live.

Fr. Luke McNamara.  Most of what happens in life we don’t notice. Even if we do notice, the significance of what happens mostly passes us by. Today’s celebration of the Epiphany allows us to look again at the birth of Jesus, and what it signifies for us.

The Epiphany, which celebrates the manifestation of Jesus to the world over 2,000 years ago, is not a historic celebration. The antiphons that we sing repeat the word hodie or “today”. The manifestation of Jesus to the world is happening here and now in 2025. We don’t have to wait until the final coming of Jesus or even until the next visit of a new star or comet.

To avoid missing out on discovering Jesus and the love that he brings, today we have the opportunity to follow the Magi. Tradition says that they are 3 wise kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, and that they are from three different continents, Asia, Africa, and Europe. The Gospel is silent on all this. For the early Irish monks, the Magi were a large group of ordinary people, men and women, young and old, who travelled to see Jesus. Our ancestors understood that everyone has the possibility of going to see Jesus.

The Magi look for signs of Jesus’ coming – the star in the sky. They go on a long journey. They find at Bethlehem an ordinary sight, an infant with his mother. Yet, by observing the natural world (the star), by being attentive to those around them (the people of Jerusalem) and to the word of the Lord (the prophecy of Micah), they recognise the Saviour in their midst, as shown by the gifts they bring and by their worship. They are the first in a long line of disciples who come and worship Jesus.

They bring gifts of gold signifying his royal status, frankincense his priestly role and myrrh for his burial. The gifts, especially the myrrh point to the extent of Jesus’ love for us. Jesus will give his life for us that we might live. The Magi recognise the extent of Jesus’ love, as shown by their gifts and their worship.

We all need the power of God’s love in our lives. The question of the Magi, where is the newborn king of the Jews becomes our question. The search of the Magi becomes our search. The presenting of gifts and worship of the Magi becomes our worship, even at this very Mass. The transformation of the Magi who walk the earth in a new way, is also ours as we are sent forth from this Mass renewed with the gift of God’s love manifested to us in Jesus.

I conclude with a traditional Irish prayer for this time of year: 

A Íosa naofa, a Chara caomh, 

A Réalt na maidine, A Ghrian álainn an lánlae, 

A Bhreo ghil na bhfíréan agus na firinne, 

A Thobar bithnua, tabhair dúinn do ghrá.

Holy Jesus, gentle friend, 

Star of the morning, glorious sun of the noonday, 

Bright light of believers and of truth,

Well of everlasting life, grant us your love.

Fr. Fintan Lyons. This morning shortly after 9, the great double door of St Paul’s Basilica in Rome, was pushed open by the Archpriest of the Basilica, Cardinal Harvey, in the last of the symbolic acts initiating the Holy Year 2025. The Holy Year tradition is based on an Old Testament practice described in the book of  Leviticus 25:10: ‘Thou shalt sanctify the fiftieth year, and shalt proclaim remission to all the inhabitants of thy land: for it is the year of jubilee’. In the Old Testament it was realised that things could come to a breaking point in people’s lives and God in his mercy would intervene. 

The year of jubilee was revived in 1300, and in the course of the centuries the interval was changed to 25 years. In 1300, as now, the Jubilee began with the opening of the door of St Peter’s so that pilgrims could come seeking the mercy of God, it was an era when human misery was seen as the result of universal sinfulness, and hope for the future was grounded in being freed from sin. In addition to the spiritual benefits, the hardships involved in many pilgrimages can have a transformative effect on a pilgrim’s lifestyle. 

Besides Rome, there are many other places of pilgrimage and Ireland has its quota; Jerusalem would be the ideal destination but for many centuries it has been accessible only on an individual basis and the holy places are not accessible at all at present.. 

There is a special significance about today’s ceremony at St Paul’s, because Pope Francis, in the document inaugurating the year, quoted extensively from St Paul – his Letter to the Romans – and used four words from it as the theme for the year: ‘Hope does not disappoint.’  

Overall, this Jubilee year, is meant to encourage us at a time when everywhere, you can say, there is foreboding about what the year holds in store. In the Old Testament the nature of the jubilee was legislated for, it brought remission of debts, the liberation of prisoners. 

Today the pope can only make an appeal regarding prisoners in the world’s overcrowded jails or countries sunk under the weight of debt:

I propose that in this Jubilee Year governments undertake initiatives aimed at restoring hope; forms of amnesty or pardon meant to help individuals regain confidence in themselves and in society; and programmes of reintegration in the community. 

Pope Francis actually and very symbolically pushed open the door of one of Rome’s prisons the day after Christmas.   

How does this opening of the door touch the lives of all of us? For some, life can be experienced as a door closed against fulfilment – the way forward in a career blocked, a relationship aspired to denied, being held in the grip of addiction. Pope Francis acknowledges this when he says: ‘uncertainty about the future may at times give rise to conflicting feelings, ranging from confident trust to apprehensiveness, from serenity to anxiety, from firm conviction to hesitation and doubt.’

Is it really helpful then, to continue the quotation from St Paul, ‘Hope does not disappoint’ to its conclusion – ‘the love of God has been poured into our hearts’, because today many have no sense of this inpouring of God’s love?  Or if the passage in the second reading doesn’t seem to apply: ‘God chose us to belong to Christ before the world was created.’

But in fact, there is hope for all, though many today may not experience the power of the traditional Irish conviction: Is giorra cabhair Dé ná an doras. Instead of our having to knock we have only to open, because in the Book of Revelation Jesus says: ‘I am standing at the door, knocking. If anyone hears me calling and opens the door, I will come in and share a meal with them’. In the gospels this is what Jesus actually did, with the marginalised of society.

The initiative has always come from God, it is for us to open the door of our hearts. The door of the church here is open, encouraging all to enter and open our hearts to an encounter with God’s grace – of forgiveness, of healing, of encouragement, of faith itself, whatever our need is.

 

  

 

     

Fr. Jarek Kurek  It is rather perplexing that on the feast of the holy family of Mary, Joseph and Jesus we get a picture of their family that is far from perfection. It seems rather like an experience of any of our own families. Jesus leaves his parents, which leads them actually to a desperate search. Jesus who should be a model of human behaviour for us comes across as seemingly unkind, or inconsiderate to put it differently.

Not without reason then Mary asks her son ‘Child, why have you treated us like this?’ 

And Jesus gives her this bewildering response ‘Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?’

He leaves his human family to be with his Father, Jesus leaves Mary and Joseph to stay in his heavenly Father’s house. An important step towards manhood, towards his spiritual maturity takes place. And yet, having asserted his independence, Jesus returns obediently to his parents. 

Now this desire to be and stay with the Father is in us also, I believe, perhaps not as clear and compelling as in the twelve-year-old Jesus. We want to be in our Father’s house, but maybe we are not as determined to step out of our human family, and the human conditions we live in. There may be a feeling in us that we are stuck there, we are not moving on…

But… think of what happened in your life four days ago. On the day of Christmas all of us here renewed this very important desire to be with the Father, the Father of Jesus and our Father. It happened in a very solemn way when we reverently knelt at those powerful words of the Creed, while speaking of Jesus: ‘who for us, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, and was made man’. 

Something of a tremendous importance took place. On that day once again we were given power by God to become his children. A good reminder that what we perform here is not in vain, it has its far-reaching and wonderful consequences.

That’s how the desire that was in Jesus at the time is aroused also in us, with Jesus we want to stay in his and our Father’s house a little longer, maybe we’ll do so after this celebration of Mass? 

Jesus was also happy to please the Father and to do what he commands. And what is God’s commandment for us today so we can please our Father too? Something we apparently heard so many times before: ‘love one another’. But today, if we truly recognise that Jesus’ story is in fact ours, step by step we may be able to uncover a deeper meaning of that commandment. Slowly but surely, we’ll realise that the story of Jesus’s family is ours and that it is in the God’s house that we can learn the best lessons about love and family.

And my last thought, or rather a sort of wishes for you gathered here and for those who join us through the webcam: today, when we say Our Father together as one family during this Mass, may it have a different, somewhat renewed, and hopefully deeper sense for all of us. 

May everyone find their own way, in the depth of their heart, to address him truly as My Father.

Abbot Columba McCann OSB.

Here we are, four years after the appearance of Covid 19, seven weeks after the re-election of Donald Trump, three weeks after the fall of the government of Syria, twenty-six days after the Irish elections. That’s how you might date our gathering, if you didn’t have the numbering system to say ‘the 24th of the 12th, 24’.

In the reign of Caesar Augustus, while Quirinius was governor of Syria, there was a census, not just for fun.  You did it to get the size of a population, the extent of tax you could get off them, especially in order to pay your armies to rule over them.  You can just hear the tramp of soldiers’ feet across the Roman colonies to ensure that Roman rule would be obeyed, and Roman strength displayed.

But Caesar Augustus and governor Quirinius didn’t realise that there was another army, usually invisible to the naked eye, that was far more powerful.  One night it was seen by a group of shepherds in a far-off eastern province.  They saw what the gospel literally calls an army of angels.  

When we think of the great figures of history, perhaps we think of the Roman emperors, of Charlemagne, of Napoleon and of other great movers and shakers.  But all the while, almost under cover, is another power which whispers gently into our world, and only rarely shines out brilliantly, as it did for the shepherds of Bethlehem, as it did on Mount Tabor when Jesus was transfigured, and later at an empty tomb in Jerusalem.

These shepherds were the kind of people you would not generally let into your kitchen, and if you did, you’d keep an eye on them.  The kind of people that Jesus himself would later gather around himself.  Maybe that’s one reason why they saw angels that night.  Maybe it was also a smiling gesture from heaven recalling a little shepherd boy centuries earlier, a little nobody, almost overlooked, by the name of David, who became perhaps their greatest king.  He could have been minding sheep even in the same fields way back then.  And now the Son of David is born, the greatest shepherd of them all.  

He is born to a couple who are really quite poor.  We know that because, when it came to making an offering in the temple forty days after his birth, they couldn’t afford the normal offering and just offered a bird or two.  That’s all they could afford.  They were the kind of people that get pushed around on account of the great Caesar Augustus, and his census, like the people that are still getting pushed around in that part of the world today.  Jesus was born to a couple who didn’t have enough money or pull to get proper lodging for the night, born instead among the animals.  

And yet, when we look at world history, we know that something mighty happened that night, under the cover of darkness, under the cover of poverty, out at the edges, where people wouldn’t take a blind bit of notice of you.  Under the radar, while nobody noticed, except for a few shepherds, divine love sneaked into our world and became flesh.

There is tremendous hope for us and our world in this.  We look at the bewildering changes that are happening around us, wondering where it will all end, saying perhaps to ourselves, ‘Sure what can I do about it?  I’m not one of the big movers and shakers!’  And that’s the point.  It’s because I am not one of them that I am ideally suited for God’s work, the real work, much of which may remain unnoticed.  Pope Francis said recently, ‘Small is not a handicap, it’s a resource.’

That’s how God works.  As undramatic and life-giving as the dewfall.  Dewfall happens so quietly overnight, so subtly that you don’t even realise it is happening, until suddenly you notice the ground is soaking wet with life-giving moisture.

Every time I turn my attention even a tiny amount towards God, the army of angels sings ‘Glory to God in the highest’, because Christ has a new point of entry into our world  Every time I make the smallest move of generosity, of reaching out to another, of being fair and honest, of forgiving and helping, the angels sing, ‘Peace on earth to those favoured by God’ because Christ is coming to birth now in my flesh.   .  What about when we share the Eucharist together, as we will shortly?  When we share the Eucharist, what do they sing? Maybe they are struck dumb with amazement at what is happening between heaven and earth.  Maybe they are reduced to silence. So this night of the 24th of the 12th, ’24, and into 2025, let’s make sure the angels get no rest!  Let’s give them lots to sing about.  And moments to be amazed.

Fr. Senan Furlong.  Already it is the fourth Sunday of Advent, and Christmas is just a few days away –days that can be hectic and stressful. While some are well organised and ahead of themselves, most of us are busy, rushing here and there trying to get things done at the last minute. Many are full of anticipation and are looking forward to Christmas. Still others may be dreading Christmas, especially if they are feeling alone, suffering from illness or are grieving. Whatever our state, we are called this Sunday to stay in Advent, to wait, to seek moments of quiet prayer, and reflect on what it is all about. To help us do this, today’s readings introduce us to three people to be our companions in the coming days. 

The first is Micah, one of the so-called Minor Prophets. Micah looks forward in hope that God will transform our broken world and usher in a new era of justice and peace. That hope lies in the coming of a future king of the house of David, a good shepherd and person of peace. And where will this happen? You, Bethlehem of Ephrathah, says Micah, least among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me the one who is to rule over Israel. You, little town of Bethlehem, who would have suspected that in your dark streets would shine the everlasting light? Micah opens our eyes to the importance of small things, for it is often through the most improbable of sources that God realises his purpose. Do not spurn the lowly and the insignificant, Micah teaches, otherwise we might miss the gift God is giving us. 

Our second companion is Elizabeth, wife of Zachariah and mother of John the Baptist. Elizabeth’s story is like that of a number of Old Testament women before her: Sarah, the wife of Abraham and mother of Isaac; the wife of Manoah, mother of Samson; and Hannah, mother of Samuel. Elizabeth was elderly and unable to have children. And then, God did a wonderful deed. After the angel’s annunciation to Zachariah, he went home and Elizabeth miraculously conceived, despite her age. God often chooses the most unlikely of people to manifest his glory. Where there is barrenness, he can bring forth life. When we feel lifeless, purposeless or powerless, Elizabeth teaches us never to give up hope. 

  Our third companion is Mary. At the angel’s annunciation to Mary, she was told that she would conceive and give birth to the Son of the Most High. Mary puzzled how this could happen but accepted that this was the word of God and said to the angel, ‘Let it be to me according to your word.’ Mary listened, she believed and then she acted. In openness to the word of God, she undertook the long journey from Nazareth to the hill town in Juda. And there the two mothers met, and Elizabeth rejoiced with Mary, ‘Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.’ Did Mary see where her life would go? Did she fully comprehend what had happened? No. But Mary believed in the presence of God in her life and trusted his plan, even though she could not see the future. Our own life stories too can be strangely touched by events we do not understand. As we look forward to Christmas, today’s gospel challenges us to look back to our own lives and to sense like Mary the presence of God in the unfolding mystery of our own story. It could be said of each of us, ‘blessed are you because you have believed in the promise made you by the Lord’, but only if we respond, ‘Let it be to me according to your word’.    

On the threshold of Christmas when we celebrate the birth of the Prince of peace, we ask that like Micah, we may glimpse the rich possibility of God’s purpose in what seems little and insignificant; that like Elizabeth, we may never abandon hope in the life-giving power of God; and that like Mary, we may say yes to God’s amazing plan for us.

Fr. John O’Callaghan. This Sunday is traditionally called ‘Gaudete Sunday’. That is because, on the surface level, “Gaudete” is the first word sung during the entrance hymn, “Rejoice….”. But, on  a deeper level, it is because, as we move closer to Christmas, we have very good reason to rejoice. Someone might suggest that, on the contrary, we have a great deal to complain about: apart from personal challenges, there is the rising cost of living, record levels of homelessness, wars new and old, climate challenges and political inertia in the face of it. A list of current dangers and disasters, here and around the world, is available in any newspaper. So, why rejoice? Because, precisely it is into a troubled world, into a conflicted space, that God is sure to make Himself present. 

A core message from Zephaniah, from whom our first reading is taken,  is that ‘the Lord will have his day against all the proud and lofty, against all that is high and arrogant’. Zephaniah was aware of evil, especially idolatry, among his own people and he was aware of threats of invasion from neighbouring populations  but, nonetheless, he spoke the word of truth that God would protect his chosen people and offer a time of favour and reconciliation. This allowed him to proclaim, in God’s name, ‘Have no fear!’ and to assert, despite appearances, that ‘The Lord your God is in your midst!’

The same but better, with John the Baptist, in today’s gospel! His time was also one of conflict, corruption and challenges of all kinds, between Romans and rebellious Jews, and amongst the different factions of the Jewish people etc. There were hopes of a messiah.  John announced the coming of ‘someone more powerful than himself and of whom he was not fit to undo the strap of his sandals.’ This exalted figure was Christ himself and this ‘day of the Lord’ was of a much higher order than anything gone before.  Born of the Virgin Mary, and of the smallest tribe of Israel, Christ came in silence and humility, to share in our humanity. In him God did not just send somebody else, he came himself. He wanted to inaugurate his kingdom by being born in an insignificant place and amongst the common people, to make ordinary people His people.  He came without needing us; it is we who have needed him. And the way he has done it touches our hearts. It can change the direction of our lives and thus change the world. In this season of advent we recall the special ‘time of favour’  when love came (in person) close to the human race. Love was the only reason for the incarnation. By it our minds are enlightened, our hopes are enlivened and our energy renewed; and so it is that we can live as the people of God. 

Immersed like everyone else in the complexity of modern life, Christians remain unshakably certain that God is our Father and loves us, even when his silence remains incomprehensible. “If you understand him,” as St Augustine said, “He is not God”.

Faith, hope and charity go together. Faith is seen when one accepts the mystery of God through humility and trusts him even in times of darkness. Hope is seen when one  continues to do good work for the common good, even in the face of apparent failure. Love is the light, in the end the only light, that can illumine a world grown dim.  We can practise it because we are created in the image of God.  Let us spread this light of God in the world; then, of its own, the darkness will disappear!

Luke McNamara. Mary’s birthday falls on the 8th of September and therefore we celebrate her conception 9 months earlier on the 8th of December. This year the 8th falls on a Sunday and the celebration is transferred to Monday. Mary’s immaculate conception is the preparation for her role as mother of Jesus through whom we are all one family. We are all the result of an act of love of our parents. Through that love we were conceived, spent 9 months in our mothers’ wombs and then were born. Jesus shares in our human family. Jesus is conceived through an act of God’s love and spends 9 months in the womb of his mother Mary. His conception we celebrated at the annunciation on the 25th of March and his birth we will celebrate at Christmas, the 25th of December. Our human nature is transformed when Jesus comes among us. Death and sin do not have the final word. Instead, we have a new destiny with Jesus and through him become part of the family of God. 

God initially placed our first parents in the garden of Eden where he also walked each evening. This closeness to God was to be our destiny but sadly instead of feeding from the tree of life, they took the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which led to their expulsion. One of the first acts after this disaster was for Adam’s wife to be named Eve because she was to mother of the living. Although access to the tree of life blocked, this name points to the promise of future life.

This promise is not without hope of fulfilment. God is always seeking us. As the letter to the Ephesians states: “Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted children, through Jesus Christ.” Today God prepares our adoption by choosing Mary from the moment of her conception to be the mother of his new holy family, beginning with Jesus and through him, all of us. Mary is the new Eve, the new mother of all the living but this life is to be as God’s children who live in love in his presence.

Mary’s immaculate conception occurs through the power of God’s love. She is holy so that she may bear holiness itself. She is loved so that she may bear love itself. She is the yes to God’s call: “let it be done unto me according to you word.”

This celebration reminds us that we too are chosen to be holy and spotless and to live through love in God’s presence. God is constantly seeking us. God’s powerful love is near – stay close in prayer and allow that love to overshadow you, transform you and make you holy. Rest in love in his presence. By saying our yes to God’s love we discover freedom, life and love, for ourselves and for all those around us, every member of our human family, every child of God.

 

Fr. Henry O’Shea OSB.

We have tested and tasted too much…- 

Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder. 

But here in the Advent-darkened room 

Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea 

Of penance will charm back the luxury 

Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to 

Doom The knowledge we stole but could not use.

 Walking on the beach, you sometimes find seashells, gnarled and wrinkled by salt, sand and tide. Turning them over, you discover the smoothest mother-of-pearl, a surface shimmering and beautiful. We can take this as an image of the Church and the saints. Pummelled and polished by the tide of time, by the storms of life, the Church waits for the rising tide of God’s timelessness which will engulf all, before casting up on the shore of eternity, miracles of patience and fortitude which remain hidden today.

The first Christian community experienced the tension between the two comings of the Lord, the tension between his earthly life and ministry and his return at the end of time. Believing this second coming to be imminent, they also believed in the necessity of living blameless lives. But, by the time St Luke was writing to-day’s gospel, his listeners were already aware that this second coming would not take place in the immediate future. 

With this realisation came the growing awareness of another dimension. For Luke’s listeners, the Lord’s coming is not for some unknown time in the future, or at least not only for some unknown time in the future. He is already here in the now which is salvation history. At any moment, he may suddenly pass judgement on the inner meaning which we give to our human existence – at every moment, whether we are aware of it or not, he is passing this judgement. In the letters of Saint Paul, there is also present this tension between the already and the not yet.

To-days’s gospel is a favourite text for so-called hellfire preachers, particularly among radical evangelical sects, some even nominally Catholic. They wallow in the apocalyptic signs and disasters, the movements of the sun, moon and stars, the clamour of the oceans, wars and nations in agony. These preachers move on to describe in lurid detail various aspects of human wickedness and sinful behaviour, debauchery and drunkenness featuring prominently in the catalogues of iniquity. The message is ‘repent or burn – in the meantime, this is our bank-account number.’ The effect is frequently to instil in listeners that perfect fear that drives out all love. Again, modern secular entertainment revels in horror, in violence, wars, even star-wars – revels to the point where many become deafened, insensitive, to true evil, to true horror. 

Looking at the first two readings this morning, there is no reek of sulphur, no glimmering of the flames of hell. Jeremiah promises the coming of a time of honesty and integrity, of salvation and confidence. But how the honesty and integrity, the salvation and the confidence that come from the knowledge of being saved come about, are indicated in the second reading from St Paul to the Thessalonians. 

Firstly, it is the Lord who makes us able to love and increases that love. He does this by loving us even before we are born. This is called grace. This grace makes us in our turn able to respond to this love and to allow our hearts to be strengthened, confirmed in holiness and thus able to love the whole human race. But, if grace comes first, our own efforts have to be added to it. St Paul urges us to make more and more progress in the kind of life we are meant to live. An important aspect of this life is remembering, in not forgetting – in remembering the good things God in Christ has done and is doing for us, remembering his promises, particularly in the great promise which is the Eucharist we celebrate, remembering the future he is calling us to. 

Elsewhere in his writings, Saint Paul refers to the Christian communities as the saints. As saved, loved and baptized we may be saints – this is the ’already’, but most of us have a long way to go to make this sanctity a living reality. In most of us, there is much of the ‘not yet’. To-day’s gospel is perfectly right, perfectly realistic, in calling for prayerful watchfulness, in reminding us of the reality and possibility of a coarsening of the heart which makes us forgetful of and eventually incapable of the one thing necessary. Christ has promised to be with us always – and he is. Christ has promised to come in glory at the end of time – and he will. But for many of us that end of time can be to-day, to-morrow, any minute now. For those who recognize its signs, this coming is and will be a liberation, a liberation looked forward to, a liberation lived towards with heads confidently held high.

O, after Christmas we’ll have no need to go searching 

For the difference that sets an old phrase burning- 

We’ll hear it in the whispered argument …

Wherever life pours ordinary plenty. 

Won’t we be rich, my love and I, and… 

God we shall not ask for reason’s payment… 

Nor analyse God’s breath in common statement. 

 

We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages 

Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour- 

And Christ comes with a January flower.