Deacon John

Homily Nativity of the Lord – I wish you a happy and holy Christmas

Homily (Sermon) – I wish you a happy and holy Christmas

The Readings for the Mass During the Day Christmas Day or Nativity of the Lord Year
Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 97
Hebrews 1:1-6
John 1:1-18
[There are four masses for Christmas day. The Vigil, Midnight, Dawn and the Day. All these readings can be found at www.universalis.com for the next few weeks.]

There is something really special about Christmas. Some of our faith spills out into the rest of the world, for a small time the world thinks of others first, they visit friends and family, they give presents, the think about the poor and needy. The world is genuinely a better place at Christmas, it’s a happier place at Christmas, and it’s a holier place at Christmas. If you think about that, and I really do want you to think about that, isn't it right that our faith should wash across the whole world today.

Because, on that first Christmas day something incredible, something fantastic, something wonderful, something divine happened here on earth. The creator of everything; the creator of you and me; the creator of the seas and oceans; the creator of the land and mountains; the creator of the planets, stars and galaxies; the Word through whom all things were created, came to earth. He came to us, He came to be with us, to teach us, and to save us. He came because He loved us. Isn't that amazing!

I have just read to you the start of John’s gospel, one of the most beautiful and one of the most remarkable passages in the bible. John doesn't tell us about the nativity, he doesn't mention Mary & Joseph, he doesn't mention the stable, the shepherds, the wise men, the angels or Herod. While the other Gospel writers tell us about the birth of Jesus, what happen from the human side. John mirrors the Genesis opening of the Old Testament, he tells us the Divine and eternal story.

John uses a language that’s poetic, beautiful and maybe a little confusing. He talks about Jesus as the Word. We all know words are powerful; they have the power to bring both pain and joy. How do you feel if someone teases or bullies you, and how do you feel when someone tells you they love you. Words are powerful things. John knew his, but that was only part of John’s reason for referring to Christ as the Word.

The first line of John’s Gospel today was, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.” This is almost a copy of the opening words from Genesis, “In the beginning God created heaven and earth.” John is deliberately linking his Gospel to the creation story. John wants you to know, no he needs you to know that Christ wasn’t just a man, he was at the same time God. He wanted you to know that the baby born in that stable was around at the start of everything, had always been there, would always be there, but at that moment in time he came directly into our world, God became man, and walked among us.

So where was Jesus in the Genesis story, you don’t hear Him mentioned by name? But you do, and that’s the main reason why John refers to Him as the word. As God creates the world and universe in seven days, he speaks them into existence. “God said, “Let there be light” and there was light.

Everything is created because God said something, what was spoken was Words, it was through the Words that all things were created. Jesus was those Words, He was there at the start of everything, He was God, He was the Word that created everything, so John said in today’s gospel, “Through Him all things came to be.”

The coming of God into our world was so important; God spent thousands of years preparing us. Making sure we were ready to hear Christ words, ready to understand the salvation He offers us. He showed the future to the prophets like Isaiah, who left us tempting visions of Christ, “How beautiful on the mountain, are the feet of the one who brings good news, who heralds peace, brings happiness, proclaims salvation, and tells Zion ‘Your God is King!’” Doesn’t this sound like the sermon on the mount.

Our universe is almost 14 billion years old, mankind has been around for 200,000 years, civilisations started about 10,000 years ago, and God has always been there. 6-8 thousand years ago the Old Testament starts to tell us how God choose Israel, and how he prepared them for the messiah, for Christ.

Two thousand years ago, in a stable, in Bethlehem, a light entered our world, a light to shine in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower. Welcome that light, the Word, Christ Jesus, into your hearts today. Allow it to burn in your hearts, and let it shine on everyone you meet, so that this Christmas it’s your faith that spills across the world and makes it a happier and holier place.

I wish you a happy and holy Christmas, and may God bless us, everyone!

About the Author - Deacon John Scanlon
Homily Index

Homily – 2014 2011 Year B – Advent 3rd Sunday

Homily – (Originally 2011 but valid for 2014) Year B – Advent 3^rd Sunday

Readings
Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11
Luke 1:46-50, 53-54 Rsp Is 61:10

Thessalonians 5:16-24

John 1:6-8, 19-28

Gaudete (Gow-Day-Tay) my friends, Gaudete. Christ is coming, Rejoice.

Today is Gaudete Sunday, the middle of Advent. We take our penitential purple and add a little white for Christ and we get pink. So today we light a pink or rose candle. Today we have the option to wear pink vestments. Today is a day to lighten the penitential mood just a little. Today is a day to stop and think what the coming of Christ means to us, and when we really get that meaning, it's a day to rejoice. That's what Gaudete means, it's Latin for rejoice.

Our reading today are full of joy, exultation and rejoicing.

“My soul rejoices in the Lord”

“I Exult for Joy in the Lord”

“Be Happy at all times.”

“God has called you, he will not fail you”

So today our challenge is to live, to exult, to rejoice, to be truly happy. When you leave today go and do something wonderful. Visit friends, go for a walk, play your favourite music, watch your favourite film, come to the carol service this afternoon, do something you love, and as you do reflect on the joy you feel. Every joy comes from God, so know that the joy you feel is the Spirit flowing through you, and offer that joy to God in love and prayer.

Tomorrow we return to the purple of Advent, a time of preparation. A time to make ourselves ready for the coming of Christ. With all the worldly concerns of Christmas, the shopping, the parties, the trips to family or friends, it's all to easy to forget we are preparing our souls to be ready for Christ. John the Baptist knew he was preparing, and he knew who he was preparing for. It would be wise for us in our preparations to reflect on John's words and actions.

John was different. He lived a humble and meagre life in the desert. He challenged the people of his day, he baptised Jews. No one baptised Jews, Jews were already Gods people, it was only gentiles that needed baptising when they became Jews.

But John's preached that the people needed to repent, to make themselves ready, for the coming of the light. John created such a phenomenon, that the authorities began to question who he was or who the people might think he was.

In the answers to the questions they asked him, he made it clear, he was there only to prepare. To help people prepare. To let them know the lives they were leading fell short of the expectations, of the one who was coming.

Our lives also fall short. We have two weeks to head out into John's wilderness and prepare. Have you been to confession this advent? Have you been to a penitential mass yet? Have you altered your reading this Advent? Have you eaten or drunk a little less? What have you done to prepare?

John, one of the greatest servants of God, gives us an image today of who we are waiting for, who we are preparing to meet. In John's own words, he was not fit to undo the sandal-strap of the one who was coming after him. This seems an odd phrase to us now, but it was a phrase steeped in the culture of the time. A disciple would expect to do anything for his master, to act as his servant in all thing, except undoing his sandals, a task so low that it was only fit for slaves. John's statement today, tell us that he felt, he wasn't even fit to be a slave of the one to come after him. If John wasn't fit to be even a slave of Christ, then what about us.

Well we know the next part of the story, we know that as a result of Christ's gift, Christ's sacrifice for us on the Cross, we are redeemed, we are called to Christ's family as sisters and brothers.

Are you ready to stand here on Christmas day and great your Lord, to welcome the light into the world, to share the divine joy he brings, to offer yourself, to him, to accept the gift he offers you. Are you ready? Have you prepared? You have two weeks my friends.

Joy is coming. Light is dawning. Christmas is almost here. Christ is almost here. Think about that, when the meaning sinks in rejoice, Gaudete (Gow-Day-Tay). Live a little in the pink today, look at everything through rose colour glasses. Tomorrow take a walk with John, find forgiveness for what you have got wrong. Let us all make sure we are ready for Christmas, ready for Chris.

For The Fallen

Laurence Binyon was too old to enlist at the start of the First World War, he turned 45 ten days after the war started. Seven weeks after the war started this poem was published as news of the British casualties began to be reported. The war that everyone thought would be over by Christmas went on for another 4 years and claimed the lives of 65 million people.

Laurence Binyon was born in 1869, I was born in 1969, so there is 100 years between our births so this year 2014 as we remember the 100 anniversary of the start of World War 1 I am the same age as Laurence Binyon. I would be too old to enlist. I am left thinking would I be disappointed I could go to serve my country or would I be relieved. With hindsight, relieved is all I can think I would have felt, but 1914 was a different time. While Laurence was too old to join the army he did join the Red Cross and served as a medical orderly.

I always assumed that this poem was written after the war or at least towards the end of it. I never dreamt it was written right at the start. The horror of trench warfare hadn't really started by September 2014. The battles the British Expeditionary Force had fought in were across open ground and were critical in stopping the German advance. As the front line stretched out from coast to coast the troops dug in and 400 miles of trenches connected the North Sea to the Alps.

Another wrong assumption I had was that the poem was written in the trenches. As Laurence never went to war the poem wasn't written there. It was as he sat above the cliffs in north Cornwall at Pentire Point, near Polzeath. Such beauty in sharp contrast to the subject.

For the Fallen

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

by Robert Laurence Binyon
First published 21st September 1914 in The Times

Wanted: Photos of CWL Wartime Recreation Huts and Canteens

During World War 1 and World War 2 the Catholic Women's League setup and ran recreation Huts, canteens and tea vans for the troops all over the world. Very few photos remain and we would love to find some more. Can you help?

If you have and photo's please contact me john@deaconjohn.co.uk

God Bless,
J

CWL ladies in uniform

Mobile Canteen Geldrop, Holland, WWII

Westminster Hut WWI

Homily for the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica and Remembrance Sunday

Homily (sermon) - Remembrance Sunday

Readings for the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica Year A:
Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12, Psalm 45, 1 Corinthians 3:9-11,16-17, John 2:13-22

[All these readings can be found at www.universalis.com for the next few weeks. Remember to scroll down for the readings of the day.]

The Church today is celebrating the dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome. The feast is one of unity towards the See of Peter and is celebrated across the world. The readings teach of Christ’s love for His father’s house and Paul describes how Christ built the foundation of the Church, the Church that each one of us is a part of.

We are called to build our Church, to continue to grow our Church. We are the stones, the bricks, the steel and glass, the beams and windows of our Church today. We are building our Church as we were instructed, we are building our Church from our love of God, we are building our Church to serve our world today. Our children will build on us and their children will build on them. The Church therefore always grows, always adapts, and is always ready to face the challenges of the current world.

We may think the world of 2014 has it problems. But 100 years ago the problems the world had were much worse. Since the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28th 1914 the world had been descending into war. The Great War started on August 1st, and Britain declared war on Germany on August 4th. One hundred years ago today British troops were dying at Ypres.

Today we remember the sacrifice of those who fought and those who died. The 888,246 British soldiers who lost their lives in The Great War. The 65 million people that were killed during that war. The 170 million who have died in war in the last 100 years.

But today we are directed by our scripture to look to our Church, we need to look at the stones we have been laid upon, the people who were the Church 100 years ago, we need to thank God for them and for their work. Then we need to challenge ourselves to build a Church to serve the world we see today. The smallest of things can make a surprising difference.

During the first world war the Catholic Woman League made a request for funds to build a recreation hut for the soldiers in Boulogne. Immediate and generous donation allowed the ladies to open this hut for the soldiers. More followed all across Europe, and all were staffed by the Catholic ladies of the CWL. By the end of The Great War there were 35 huts providing for practical and the spiritual needs of the soldiers. Meals were provided 24 hours a day, and Mass was said on Sundays. Some huts even had permanent alters. After the war these huts provided help in rebuilding the shattered towns and villages.

As the world descended into World War II the CWL restarted the huts and over the next few years opened and staffed over 180 canteens and huts around the world. These continued long after the war and again helped to rebuild.

There are now shrines in many of the places where these huts stood. A crucifix in Westminster cathedral is made from the Cross that stood next the Westminster Hut. Next time you are there I think you can see it on the wall in the gift shop.

The huts are now all gone and few people would remember or know of the work those ladies did during the two wars. But the work, like the work of the Church we are all called to do, didn’t stop with the last hut. No, as the huts were closed and the land sold, the money was put to good use and is still being used today. The CWL Service Committee works closely with the Catholic Bishop to the Forces to help anyone connected to the forces, who is in need. Beds, wheel chairs and school books have already been provided. During the most recent war in Afghanistan the committee was asked to provide flip-flops and shorts for injured soldiers who they heard only has combat boots to wear while recover from leg wounds.

As Ezekiel said in our first reading, there is a river that flows from our Church, and where that river passes there is life. The ladies who built and staffed that first hut almost 100 years ago, built the Church their world needed, and where they passed they brought life. The ladies who manage the Service Committee today are building the Church our world needs and their work brings life. You are a stone in that same Church. What are you building for the world today and where will you bring life to today’s world.