Displaying items by tag: Celebrating At Home
Celebrating At Home - Dedication of the Lateran Basilica
A Living Temple
(John 2:13-22)
Today’s feast celebrates the dedication of the Cathedral Church of St John the Baptist in Rome. This cathedral is often referred to as the ‘Lateran’ because it is built on the site of a palace once belonging to the Laterani family. This palace served as the official residence of the Popes from the 4th to the 14th centuries. It is the cathedral church of the diocese of Rome of which the Pope is the local bishop.
We celebrate the dedication of this cathedral as the mother church of the whole Catholic community. Cathedrals, like all churches, are physical signs of God’s presence and the gathering place of the people of Christ. It is the living Body of Christ, which gathers to celebrate and witness, which becomes the living temple of God’s presence on earth.
The readings take up these themes. The first reading is taken from Ezekiel’s vision of a new Temple in Jerusalem. The old one had been totally destroyed. Interestingly, the reading does not focus on the glory of the building, but on the ‘life-giving water’ which flows out of the building.
In the second reading, St Paul makes the point that we are God’s building among whom the Spirit of God is living.
The Gospel is the story of Jesus cleansing the Temple in Jerusalem. This passage always reminds us of the need not to be distracted from our true purpose to be the living Church of God. It also reminds us that the new and true temple is Jesus.
We, who are baptised in Christ, are the living stones in the Temple of God.
Our feast is a celebration of Christ, the one in whom we are built into the true temple of God on earth; the ones through whom the living water of God’s Spirit finds its way into the world to bring growth, goodness and healing.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - Dedication of the Lateran Basilica [PDF] (2.87 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - Dedication of the Lateran Basilica [ePub] (2.63 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - La Dedicación de la Basílica de Letrán (485 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - Dedicazione della Basilica Lateranense (481 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - A dedicação da Basílica de Latrão (479 KB)
Celebrating At Home - Commemoration Of All Souls
Giving Thanks With Grateful Hearts
(Luke 7:11-17)
This weekend we celebrate those who are now in God’s care.
We pray for them with faith and hope.
As St Paul says, what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners, and by his death we have been made righteous in the eyes of God (Romans 5:8-10). God does not wait for us to be perfect before reaching out to us in love.
We thank God for the presence of our departed sisters and brothers in our lives. We recognise them as a gift and blessing to us. Even in the midst of our sadness we are aware of God’s graciousness in sharing them with us and we pray for them with grateful hearts. Our prayer for them expresses our Christian hope that death is not the end of life, and that we will meet each other again in God’s kingdom.
Giving thanks to God is a fundamental character of our liturgy. The word Eucharist means ‘to give thanks’. The word liturgy means ‘to do one’s public duty’. When we talk about the Liturgy of the Eucharist we are talking about the time we spend at mass doing our public work of giving thanks to God.
The Gospel for our commemoration today is both emotional and touching. Jesus meets the funeral procession of a young man. He is deeply moved with compassion for the young man’s mother and the young man himself.
The Gospel tells us that the mother is a widow and the young man who has died is her only son. In the times in which Jesus lived that meant that the mother, in addition to being grief-stricken, was now extremely vulnerable - having no male to act on her behalf in legal or financial matters and no bread-winner now to look after her.
In restoring her son’s life Jesus has also restored her life. It’s a double restoration, a double blessing and a double sign of God’s goodness and compassion.
Today, we join with the whole Church in praying that God welcome our departed sisters and brothers fully into the Divine embrace.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - Commemoration Of All Souls [PDF] (2.79 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - Commemoration Of All Souls [ePub] (1.91 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - La conmemoración de los fieles difuntos (476 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - Commemorazione di tutti i fedeli defunti (467 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - A comemoração dos fieis defuntos (460 KB)
Celebrating At Home - 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time
We’ve All Met Them!
(Luke 18:9-14)
We’ve all met them: people who only seem to be able to bolster their self-image by putting everyone else down. We meet such a character in the Pharisee in the Gospel for this Sunday. Like the Pharisee in this week’s Gospel, we can sometimes see religion as a set of personal rituals, actions and prayers that cause us to think we have been faithful to God’s calling because we have done this or that.
Spirituality, however, is about practising our ‘faith’ with a profound sense of God’s presence, God’s love for us, and ours for one another. We live work and pray out of our relationship with God, deeply aware of God’s gift of abiding love and mercy that surrounds us.
The background for the Gospel is set in the First Reading from Ecclesiasticus (35:12-14, 16-19) – God’s judgement is not fooled by outward appearances of wealth, or power, or religious shows of piety. God cannot be fooled into judging against the injured, the poor, the widow or orphan.
It is the person ‘who with his whole heart serves God’ whose prayers are accepted.
The parable in this Gospel, we are told, is addressed to ‘people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else’.
The Pharisee (people well respected due to their personal piety) prays to God, reminding God (and himself) what a good person he is and all the religious things he has done. He has thus fulfilled the duties of a ‘religious’ and ‘righteous’ person – unlike, he says, the tax collector.
However, the tax collector (considered a sinner in Jesus’ time), doesn’t see himself worthy to even lift his eyes to God and acknowledges that he has sinned and considers himself unworthy to be in the presence of God. But, as Jesus says, he leaves the temple ‘at rights with God’. His relationship with God is from the heart. Overcome with a deep awareness of God’s love for him, and his own unworthiness of it, he does not dare to even lift up his eyes. Whereas the Pharisee, through his lack of humility and apparent self-righteousness, leaves assuming that he is at rights with God.
Our prayer and worship should never be empty words or merely symbolic actions. They must truly come from our hearts and so lead us not only into a deeper relationship with God but also into the willing service of all.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF] (3.12 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub] (4.25 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - XXX Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (320 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - XXX Domenica del Tempo Ordinario (487 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - XXX Domingo do Tempo Comum (483 KB)
Celebrating At Home - 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Don’t Give Up!
(Luke 18:1-8)
Jesus tells this story of a persistent widow who wins the day against an unjust judge. St Luke says that the story is “about the need to pray continually and never lose heart”. God is not like the unjust judge, who delays in answering and finally gives in only when threatened. God will hear and answer the persistent cry of his people.
We, too, can be tempted to lose heart as we live in the midst of the evils of our own day. When will there be justice for the poor, the hungry, the disabled, and the disadvantaged, we wonder.
Sometimes in prayer, we realise that we are called to play our part with concrete actions which help to relieve the suffering of others. We know we cannot do it all by ourselves, but perhaps there is something that we can do.
St Luke uses this story to encourage his community of believers – to urge them not to lose heart as, surrounded by the evils of their day, they wait for the return of Jesus. They should keep faith and rely always on God’s goodness. Their persistence in prayer is an expression of their trust in God. Perhaps their prayer will show them what to do as they wait.
Just as Moses keeps faith with God in the battle against the Amalekites (first reading), so the disciples must remain in a faithful relationship with God. Prayer, understood as nourishing our relationship with God, rather than ‘saying prayers’, keeps us in this faithful relationship with God as we wait for Jesus’ return. That is the kind of faith Jesus wonders about in the final sentence.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF] (2.87 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub] (2.02 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - XXIX Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (326 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - XXIX Domenica del Tempo Ordinario (491 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - XXIX Domingo do Tempo Comum (323 KB)
Celebrating At Home - 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time
An Invitation for All
(Luke 17:11-19)
A major theme in St Luke’s Gospel is that the message of Jesus is for all: men and women, rich and poor, old and young, healthy and sick, gentile and Jew. No one is excluded.
It is no accident that the one grateful leper in this week’s Gospel is not a Jew but a Samaritan – an outsider, excluded by race, religion and his illness. He joins the others in asking a Jewish Rabbi for mercy.
In curing the ten lepers, Jesus gives them back to their families, their communities, their religious practice. No longer confined to isolated places for fear of spreading disease, they are free to take up their lives again. In short, as well as healing them physically, Jesus gives them back their lives.
All ten are cured, but only one, the Samaritan, fully experiences his healing as a moment of salvation; a moment when the mercy of God has broken into his life. Jesus says that it is the Samaritan’s faith that enables him to see what the other nine do not. The man is so moved by this realisation that he turns back to Jesus breaking into shouts of joy, praising God at the top of his voice.
The Samaritan’s faith has drawn him deeper into his relationship with God who heals him and sets him free. And that is God’s great desire for each of us.
The way of Jesus (and, therefore, of his disciples) is not to exclude, but to proclaim God as the God of all by working for healing, restoration and the good of all people. And to recognise and celebrate the presence of God we read in the concrete realities of our lives.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF] (3.16 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub] (4.89 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - XXVIII Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (611 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - XXVIII Domenica del Tempo Ordinario (576 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - XXVIII Domingo do Tempo Comum (573 KB)
Celebrating At Home - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Does God Listen?
(Luke 17:5-10)
“Are you listening, God?” That’s the cry of the prophet Habakkuk in the first reading for this Sunday.
Everyone can resonate with the Habakkuk’s feelings of frustration and anger at the appalling injustice he witnesses. ‘Why is God so slow to act?’, he complains. God’s response to Habakkuk is a call to greater trust and faithfulness. God will answer, but not, perhaps, as quickly, or in the manner, Habakkuk would like.
The idea of faithfulness links the first reading with the today’s Gospel and the apostles asking Jesus to increase their faith.
What disciples on the ‘way of Jesus’ need more than anything is a deepening faith in the God of Jesus Christ who can and will rescue them from opposition and other destructive forces.
Jesus says that even a small amount of faith can bring about quite unexpected and seemingly impossible things - like uprooting a mulberry tree and planting it in the sea!
Essential to the faithful following of Jesus is letting go of the ego needs for power, wealth and position and living a life of faith in God and faithful following of Jesus which is expressed in true ministry to others.
Faithful disciples work diligently as servants of the Kingdom, not for rewards and honours, but keenly aware of God free graciousness to them and the need to extend that graciousness to others.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF] (2.91 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub] (3.29 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - XXVII Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (479 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - XXVII Domenica del Tempo Ordinario (470 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - XXVII Domingo do Tempo Comum (303 KB)
Celebrating At Home - 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fortunes Reversed
(Luke 16:19-31)
The story Jesus tells in the Gospel is about a rich man, his five brothers and a poor man, and how their fortunes get reversed.
The rich man does nothing particularly evil. He lives like a rich man, dresses like a rich man and dines like a rich man. But he does not see the poor man sitting at his door. He does not even notice him.
The story is told against the background belief that riches were a sign of God’s blessing. By the time of Jesus, the teaching of the prophets that blessing brings responsibility seems to have been forgotten.
So the story asks the hearers: will they follow the example of the rich man or heed Jesus’ teaching (and that of the prophets) about the care of the needy and prove themselves true children of Abraham and take their place at the eternal banquet?
Injustice and greed breed violence and often result in the exploitation of the poor. As Pope Paul VI once said, “If you want peace, work for justice”.
We are not called to hoard God’s blessings, but to be distributors of them so that all have a fair share of this world’s goods and can live with dignity and respect.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF] (2.92 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub] (3.32 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - XXVI Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (500 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - XXVI Domenica del Tempo Ordinario (492 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - XXVI Domingo do Tempo Comum (330 KB)
Celebrating At Home - 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Investing in the Future
(Luke 16:1-13)
When bad things happen to us we are apt to spend a great deal of time being angry at what has taken place – especially if we feel that what has happened is unjust, unfair or unreasonable.
Today’s Gospel episode is often called the ‘Parable of the Unjust Steward’. But perhaps he is the one who is being treated unjustly. After all, the Master hears a rumour that the steward has been ‘wasteful with his property’. Without conducting an investigation to find out if the rumour is true, the Master decides to dismiss the steward.
The steward spends only a little time trying to decide what he will do once he loses his job. Knowing he is too weak to dig and too ashamed to beg, he sets about altering the contracts of sale for his masters’ debtors.
Is the steward stealing from the Master? No. In the ancient world such stewards were not directly paid by the master. Their ‘wage’ came from the commissions they added to bills of sale. So the steward is giving up his commission for the sake of his long-term future; to build goodwill among the debtors that they might return the favour in the steward’s coming hour of need.
For astutely investing in his future the steward is praised by the Master. Jesus uses this allusion to advise the disciples that they, too, should invest in their future through the sharing of all that they have. The term mammon refers not only to money, but to all that a person has. The disciples, says Jesus, should be prepared to give away all that they have to the poor so that when the kingdom comes, in which the poor have the privileged places, the disciples will be welcomed into the ‘tents of eternity’.
The final sayings of this Gospel presuppose that Christian life is a stewardship in which the wealth that one handles is wealth God wishes the whole world to share, not one’s personal possession. Disciples must choose wisely and act decisively. When it comes to wealth, they must choose between the interests of God and their own self-interest.
If disciples do not share possessions, they will not be entrusted with the true riches of the kingdom. If they do share possessions, which are on loan from God, they will be given the treasure of heaven as their own. The disciples must give exclusive loyalty to God or succumb to the enslavement of mammon.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF] (2.88 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub] (2.84 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - XXV Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (503 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - XXV Domenica del Tempo Ordinario (496 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - XXV Domingo do Tempo Comum (503 KB)
Celebrating At Home - Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Not to Condemn, But to Save
(John 3:13-17)
It is rare for us to celebrate the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on a Sunday. This feast commemorates the dedication, in 335, of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built on the site of the Crucifixion by the Emperor Constantine.
There is a very clear relationship between the first reading (Numbers 21:4-9) and the Gospel. The people in the first reading are healed by looking at a bronze serpent lifted up in their midst by Moses. Jesus says in the Gospel that he, too, must be lifted up so that all who believe may have life. The second reading is the beautiful hymn from the letter to the Philippians (2:6-11). It is about God who willingly gives up his divinity in Christ to become one of us, accepting death on the cross to show the depth of God’s love.
The cross is a symbol full of contradictions: an instrument of cruelty and torture, and yet the means of saving love; an instrument of shame and death, yet the way of restoring true dignity and life; an instrument of hatred and contempt, yet the strongest symbol of Love.
The symbol of the cross also carries the mixed realities of human life: moments of crucifixion and resurrection, moments of sorrow and joy, moments of suffering and healing, moments of hatred and reconciliation.
We use the Cross continually in our Christian tradition. We use it to mark the beginning and end of prayer and the Eucharist. It marks the beginning and end of our Christian journey in Baptism and the Funeral Rites. So, we use the Cross in moments of joy and gladness and sorrow and distress.
The Cross draws us into moments of deep awareness of the mystery of God’s love for us. It reminds us that suffering and death are not the end of our story, that life and healing can come out of darkness and pain, that God in Christ remains faithful to us even to death and beyond.
Today we rejoice in a God who loves us that much and pray that we may be a continuing source of love, life and healing for one another.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - Exaltation of the Holy Cross [PDF] (3.43 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - Exaltation of the Holy Cross [ePub] (3.05 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - La Exaltación de la Cruz (506 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - Esaltazione della Santa Croce (503 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - A Exaltação da Cruz (501 KB)
Celebrating At Home - 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Real Reality
(Luke 14:25-33)
There is very little that is real in so-called ‘reality TV’. We know that, in fact, situations and circumstances are highly contrived and rather artificial. People are deliberately set up to fail, tensions are fuelled and contestants often exploited emotionally and physically.
Today’s Gospel contains a rather heavy dose of real reality about what is required in order to be a disciple of Jesus.
The words of Jesus have to be read against the background of the Kingdom life God is inviting us into and the central message of Jesus that we need to place God in the centre of our hearts.
The language about hating family members and even our own lives comes from a Semitic idiom which expresses preference. If you prefer one person or thing over another you are said to ‘love’ the first and ‘hate’ the second. The Gospel is not calling us to hate either our relatives or ourselves.
When we let the presence of God flood our hearts and minds all other aspects of our lives, including our relationships, find their proper place. Relationships become more genuine and less exploitive; possessions have less hold over us and we begin to share them more generously, our need for power and status fades.
To do this, however, is no easy thing. It requires many daily decisions, choosing to see with God’s eyes, to feel with God’s heart and to act according to God’s vision for human life: to choose love over hate, generosity over hoarding, to let go of power and status and be of real service to our sisters and brothers. That is what ‘carrying the cross’ is all about.
Jesus warns that this is a difficult and demanding way, and that a disciple needs to be clear-eyed and ready to take up the task.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF] (4.28 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub] (4.87 MB)
- pdf Celebrando en Familia - XXIII Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (353 KB)
- pdf Celebrando in Casa - XXIII Domenica del Tempo Ordinario (478 KB)
- pdf Celebrando em família - XXIII Domingo do Tempo Comum (505 KB)
