Showing posts with label Christmas Day Mass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas Day Mass. Show all posts

Thursday 25 December 2014

Raymond on Christmas Day Homily 2014 (Nativity Icon)

   Fr. Raymond on Christmas Day Homily.



CHRISTMAS  2014 

 “All the world’s a stage and all the people are the players”.  That’s how Shakespeare puts it.  And every stage, we know, has a painted backdrop to it; a painted backdrop that sets the scene and puts the characters in context.  The scene might be indoors in a quiet room, or outdoors in a forest.  It might be on the open sea or on a mountain top.  Whatever it is, the appropriate backdrop has a great role to play in creating the whole atmosphere of the scene.  So, this evening we can well imagine the events that took place on that first Christmas Night as being “A scene set on a stage”, a stage that was world-wide.
 
Centuries before the advent of the international television broadcast, this scene was destined by Divine Providence to be set on a world-wide stage, and it was to be set in fact, on a stage much greater than this world alone.  The backdrop to this scene reaches from the very dawn of our race to the end of time itself and it even reaches up into the very heavens themselves.  St Luke tells us: “Suddenly there was a great throng of the heavenly hosts praising God and singing: ‘Glory to God in the highest and peace to men of good will’. 

Here we have another very important part of the drama:  the musical accompaniment, the singing of the angels.  The musical score is always understood by the great film directors as something of the utmost importance in bringing the screen-play to life.   What kind of fee would Cecille B De Mille not have been prepared to pay for the heavenly chorus that the Babe of Bethlehem had?   And what kind of fee would he not have been prepared to pay for the centuries of world-wide publicity that this Christmas Story has had?  In all this, we are the audience to this wonderful play, this wonderful drama.  It’s a story thought up by the divine mind of God himself.  It is a play inspired by the Holy Spirit of God and produced by God the Father.  And we all know who the Hero, the leading character is, and who the Leading Lady is.   But noblesse oblige and we are bound to take this little scene very seriously and to analyse it, character by character and try to enter into the depths of their hearts, whether it be the principle characters, Jesus, Mary and Joseph themselves, or the choir, the angels in the  heavens, or supporting cast, the shepherds in the fields, and the magi from far away. 

We have all had the privilege of being invited to this great ‘First night’ of the play.  We have all been given free tickets to what is truly the ‘Greatest Show on Earth’.  So let us all, with the Shepherds, ‘hasten to Bethlehem to see this great thing that has come to pass’  and surely, if we hasten with faith, we will find the joy that comes from the inner conviction that it is all just as the angels have told us.   All the hype of the patriarchs and prophets of old was no exaggeration.  All the wonderful promises of old were so much less than the reality that has now come to pass amongst us.

In the beginning the  Word was with God.
And the Word was God
And the Word was made Flesh and came to dwell among us.


  

Shepherds and angels

 
   
In the picture, a couple of shepherds are on the right-hand side, and one of them is playing a flute. Below them, their sheep drink in a river. One of the shepherds looks up and is blessed by an angel looking down on him. The middle group of angels is kneeling or bowing in worship before Jesus, lying in his cave, while the angels on the left of the picture stand like a choir, singing.
  http://www.rejesus.co.uk/site/module/nativity_icon/P5/ 

Tuesday 25 December 2012

Christmas Day Mass Homily - Fr. Raymond


Nunraw Nativity Crib. Poinsettia gift


----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Raymond J...
Sent: Tuesday, 25 December 2012, 15:33
Subject: 
The Two Christmases

THE TWO CHRISTMASES 2012
        If we think of Christmas as the celebration of the Incarnation; the celebration of the Word of God becoming Flesh, then it is right and fitting, of course, that the event should be celebrated publicly by the whole world.  It should be proclaimed aloud from the housetops for everyone to hear, for everyone to learn about for everyone to rejoice in.

        But, by the very intimate nature of this event, it’s also right and fitting that there should  be another celebration, a secret and hidden one, one that would acknowledge quietly the ineffable wonder of this Great Mystery; a wonder too great for words; a wonder to great  for any kind of adequate celebration.  It was a mystery too great for even God’s angels to appreciate.  And in fact there is such a celebration.  And this celebration is found  in the liturgy of the Church, and  it is also found in the liturgy of  the living events of  salvation history and  even in the liturgy of heaven itself. 

        This other hidden celebration of the Incarnation is what I would like to call, the “Other Christmas.”  This “Other Christmas.” isn’t a kind of  “Second Christmas”.  In fact, it was the first of the two Christmases.  It was that most precious moment when the Blessed Virgin Mother first conceived the Word of God in her sacred womb.  This moment was The moment of the Incarnation.  It was the very highest point in human history.  All human history that preceded it was designed by divine providence to lead up to it. And all human history that follows it is moulded and shaped by its meaning.  No matter what happened after that moment, nothing could ever equal the sublimity of it.  It was the very moment when Heaven first touched the earth in an altogether new way; the moment when the Creator bestowed his most loving kiss upon us his creatures.  So let’s compare these two very different celebrations of the Incarnation.
At the first moment,”the annunciation”, it was most intimate and private and secret.  Not only was no one else in the world present, but not even the angel Gabriel was present for this most sacred of moments.  We read first that the angel Gabriel announced: “Behold you will conceive and bear a Son” and then he assured the frightened little Maid by telling her that “nothing will be impossible to God” and then comes that most significant phrase, “and the angel left her”.  Yes not even the greatest of the angels was worthy to be present at the moment.  It was the most intimate and sacred, one to one event of all human history. How fittingly it is said then that “The angel left her”.
The second celebration, the Bethlehem Scene, is open to all the world and to heaven itself.  There are myriads of angels in the skies above singing “glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men of goodwill” and the representatives of  all peoples, the shepherds the magi; the poor the rich the jews the gentiles, are all there.  And now we too join the whole of Christian society down the centuries openly proclaiming and exulting and rejoicing in Mary’s bringing forth of the Divine Babe.
This is all most fitting, of course, but, as we join with the whole world and with the angels of heaven themselves in the joy of our public celebrations on this Christmas of the year 2012 let us remember also that most silent and intimate moment of the incarnation when only two were there: God and Mary.  And let us beg her that she may share something of  the sublimity of that moment with us her children.



Sunday 25 December 2011

Nunraw News


Sancta Maria Abbey: http://www.nunraw.com.uk  
Blogspot :http://www.domdonald.org.uk/

----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Raymond .....

Sent: Sunday, 25 December 2011, 10:21
Subject: 
CHRISTMAS 2011
When we consider all the characters involved in the Christmas Story we find first, of course, The Divine Infant, Jesus himself, the focal point of it all.  Then there is, Mary his Mother and Joseph, his foster father.  Then, outside of the Holy Family, we find the Shepherds, the first to learn the glad tidings; and then there were the Angels, who first proclaimed these glad tidings. Then, there were the Magi who came from some distant lands to worship the new-born King.  Then unfortunately, we have to a knowledge the presence of the tyrantHerod and his soldiers, and this brings us lastly to the Holy Innocents and their weeping Mothers.  This pretty well sums up, as far as I can remember at the moment, all the characters in the great Christmas drama.
Next, we can consider that this point in time is the culmination of centuries of revelation gradually unfolding the plans and purposes of God; his plans for taking his own place to come and live among us and his plans to bring our human race into a share in his own divine life.   So it follows that all these different characters, as they come into contact with the Divine Child, must represent the different responses of a complete cross section of humanity to God’s unspeakable gift.  There is something universal in time and space about the story of Christ’s birth.  There is something universal in the significance of each of the characters we find involved in it.  The Shepherds are the most easily recognisable.  They representing the poor and the simple; all the have-nots of this world; the weak and the helpless.  In these poor and simple shepherds we see a living commentary on the Bible.  In so many of its stories it reveals that God resists the proud and draws near to the humble.  The Magi represent all those who have not had the fullness of revelation but who come close to God and find him through the uprightness and innocence of their lives.
The Holy innocents are representative of all those who, through no fault of their own, suffer at the hands of the wicked.  But, perhaps, and even especially because of their obvious lack of personal merit, they represent the ultimate nature of God’s grace – it is, in every case, whether in them or in us who have had to fight the good fight – it is ultimately in every case an absolute free gift of God.  The great sorrow and weeping of their Mothers of the innocents  reminds us that all things, no matter how tragic, and painful, are caught up in God’s plans and purposes.  “All things work together unto good for those who fear the Lord”, even the doings of the Herods of this world.
The presence of The angels, who appear so often in the infancy stories,  tells us that Jesus is Lord, not only of men but also of angels and both they and we are called to be one great heavenly kingdom; one great family of  God.  Both our destinies and theirs are inseparably intertwined.
Joseph, in a way, represents all of us, taking our own little part in God’s plans; following blindly the paths his Providence opens up before us.  We all walk in ways that are above us and beyond us to comprehend.  And finally, we come to Maryherself.  She stands, alone and unique, in the greatness of her response to God’s intervention in her life.  We can only guess at the purity of insight she had into the import of the angel’s message.  We can hardly imagine the greatness of her faith, her astounding faith in the reality and truth of God’s promise that was being made to her;  we can only wonder at the depth of her humility before the greatness of what she was being called to.