Displaying items by tag: Celebrating At Home
Celebrating At Home - Solemnity of Christ The King
A royal shepherd
On this last Sunday of the Church’s year we always celebrate the Feast of Christ, the Universal King.
The first reading from the prophet, Daniel, speaks of the coming of one who will rule in the name of God in an eternal kingdom. The second reading from the Book of the Apocalypse speaks of Christ as the ‘faithful witness’ to God and ‘ruler of the kings of the earth’. Here is a king who loves his people and sheds his own blood to save them.
The Gospel comes from the Passion of Jesus in St John’s Gospel. It is Jesus’ dialogue with Pilate about his kingship and the nature of his kingdom.
Jesus is anything but a traditional king. This King reigns, not from a golden throne, but a cross of rough wood; naked, with no rich, flowing robes; no bejewelled crown, just thorns; no orb and sceptre, just nails in his hands.
He comes among his people, not as a tyrant wielding weapons of suffering and death, but as a powerless baby.
Jesus says that his kingdom is ‘not of this world’. It is not a kingdom with geographical and national boundaries. It is not a kingdom in the earthly sense where power and oppression reign, but a kingdom where justice, love, mercy, truth and peace reign.
At the end of the day, the disciple is called to be the Kingdom (the living presence) of God in the world and to transform the suffering of its people into joy by deeds of loving kindness.
Virtuous disciples are the living presence of Jesus in the world. They realise that until Jesus comes again, the kingdom has been entrusted into their hands.
In the Kingdom of Jesus, the disciple is not master but ‘servant’.
The power of the spirit of Jesus fuels deeds of loving kindness – reversing horrible human conditions, and bringing healing and salvation.
Whenever we act like Christ the Kingdom of God (the reign of God’s grace) breaks into our world.
Whenever we are moved by the Spirit to proclaim the truth, to respond to need, to work for justice, to transform and heal our society, the Kingdom of God breaks into human reality and the grace of God becomes clearly visible in our words and actions.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - Solemnity of Christ The King [PDF] (1.76 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - Solemnity of Christ The King [ePub] (5.53 MB)
- pdf Celebrando En Familia - Solemnidad de Cristo Rey (898 KB)
- pdf Celebrando In Casa - Solennità di Nostro Signore Gesù Cristo Re (882 KB)
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Celebrating at Home is a Liturgy of the Word centred around the Gospel reading for each Sunday. It includes a reflection on the Gospel and prayers.
It can be used personally or with your family. Parts for all to pray are given in bold print and all the other parts can be shared among those present.
We hope that Celebrating at Home will be a source of nourishment and strength for all who use it.
In the room you decide to use for this prayer you could have a lighted candle, a crucifix and the Bible. These symbols help keep us mindful of the sacredness of our time of prayer and can help us feel connected with our local worshipping communities.
Celebrating At Home - 33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time
When the Son of Man appears
With the approach next Sunday of the Feast of Christ the King and the end of the Liturgical Year, our readings this Sunday take on an ‘end times’ feel.
In the Gospel Mark presents a vision of the full establishment of the Kingdom and the coming of Christ as the final proof of God’s victory. The language is necessarily that of symbol and myth as it describes something yet to come, not an historical reality. But this does not mean that it has no relationship with reality.
The vision is set against the background of a time of distress. Early Christian communities, like Mark’s, certainly endured much distress through persecution and suffering and their struggles to follow the teachings of Jesus.
The coming in glory of the risen Jesus together with the great gathering of his people from every corner of the earth, were meant as reassurance to a weary and frightened community of believers.
They have followed the way of discipleship, sharing in Jesus’ suffering, some to the point of death. One day the final victory will be God’s and they will enter with Jesus into the fullness of the Kingdom.
In the meantime, however, disciples have to learn to read the signs of the presence of Jesus in everyday life. Jesus is not sitting passively at God’s right hand. Through the Holy Spirit he continues to be actively present in the hearts and lives of believers, and in the universe.
Neither are the disciples to wait passively for the final coming. We wait in patient hope, but not in idleness, because the ministry of making Christ present in every thought, word and action, and every moment of history, continues.
The Gospel ends on a note of uncertain certainty: Christ will come, but we don’t know when.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF] (2.17 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub] (2.27 MB)
- pdf Celebrando En Familia - 33 Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (242 KB)
- pdf Celebrando In Casa - 33 Domenica del Tempo Ordinario (263 KB)
- pdf Celebrando Em Familia - 33 Domingo do Tempo Comum [Português] (243 KB)
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Celebrating at Home is a Liturgy of the Word centred around the Gospel reading for each Sunday. It includes a reflection on the Gospel and prayers.
It can be used personally or with your family. Parts for all to pray are given in bold print and all the other parts can be shared among those present.
We hope that Celebrating at Home will be a source of nourishment and strength for all who use it.
In the room you decide to use for this prayer you could have a lighted candle, a crucifix and the Bible. These symbols help keep us mindful of the sacredness of our time of prayer and can help us feel connected with our local worshipping communities.
Celebrating At Home - 31st Sunday of Ordinary Time
The Great Commandment
The first reading from the Book of Deuteronomy and the Gospel today are linked by the words of the Shema – the creed which observant Jews pray every morning and evening. These words come from the Book of Deuteronomy: Listen, Israel: The Lord our God is the one Lord. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. The title, Shema, comes from the Hebrew word for ‘listen’, the very first word of the prayer.
In a way, Shema is a call to conversion: to listen deeply with the heart and to respond to God’s grace and mercy with love, faithfulness and obedience.
When a scribe asks Jesus, “Which is the first of all the commandments?”, Jesus replies by quoting the Shema and then adds a quotation from the Book of Leviticus (19:18), “You must love your neighbour as yourself ”. According to Jesus, there is no commandment greater than these.
The scribe is impressed by Jesus’ reply. His words to Jesus show he has grasped what Jesus means. In repeating what Jesus has just said in his own words, the scribe also adds, “this is far more important than any holocaust or sacrifice”. Now it is Jesus who is impressed with the scribe’s depth of understanding: that love is the very heart of obedience to God and more important even than ritual worship. The scribe’s correct understanding of the Old Testament Law means he is very close to the Kingdom of God.
It also means that true faith, as Jesus teaches it, is about being in loving relationship with God and other human beings. Religious rituals are meant to be ways of reflecting on, savouring, remembering, celebrating and expressing that love. Sometimes they just end up as ‘empty’ rituals, when love has been replaced by fear, when we are trying to bargain with God, or when we are just ‘going through the motions’.
The Kingdom of God is not some far off place, but the moments when God’s life breaks into the human story. Those moments bring love, wisdom, grace, compassion, generosity, forgiveness and peace. Those practiced in the things of God recognise God’s presence most of all in loving relationships. If our rituals grow out of and express our sincere love for God and neighbour then they have value. We are always at risk of putting ritual above the practise of love, of thinking that we are at rights with God just by attending a liturgy, by ‘paying God off ’, in a sense.
The words of Jesus remind us of the importance of the other part of our religious lives – the liturgy of everyday life in which we make present and visible the love, mercy and compassion of God.
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time [PDF] (369 KB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time [ePub] (4.71 MB)
- pdf Celebrando En Familia - 31 Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (230 KB)
- pdf Celebrando In Casa - 31 Domenica del Tempo Ordinario (827 KB)
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Celebrating at Home is a Liturgy of the Word centred around the Gospel reading for each Sunday. It includes a reflection on the Gospel and prayers.
It can be used personally or with your family. Parts for all to pray are given in bold print and all the other parts can be shared among those present.
We hope that Celebrating at Home will be a source of nourishment and strength for all who use it.
In the room you decide to use for this prayer you could have a lighted candle, a crucifix and the Bible. These symbols help keep us mindful of the sacredness of our time of prayer and can help us feel connected with our local worshipping communities.
Celebrating At Home - 12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Life in the Kingdom of God
In Mark’s Gospel the Kingdom is not something yet to come, it is a present reality. It is the presence and action (reign) of God among his people. That may not always been readily seen, but it is there none the less.
Last Sunday Mark used two parables to talk about the reality of the Kingdom. Over the next few Sundays he begins to talk about the mystery of the Kingdom present in Jesus and what living in the Kingdom requires. None Mark’s stories are about about some awesome display of power. Mark’s stories make it clear that Jesus is about saving human beings, healing them and calming hearts disturbed by life’s storms. In Jesus is the power of life and liberation.
Sudden storms on Lake Galilee were well-known and still happen today.
Many of our ‘boats’ and those of our loved ones have been tossed about on turbulent seas since the sudden arrival of Coronavirus last year. Many of us know exactly the kind of fear and uncertainty that the disciples felt as they were tossed about in the darkness on the stormy lake in this Sunday’s Gospel. Many may also feel that Jesus is asleep somewhere.
And yet, signs of Jesus are all about us: in healthcare workers and medical researchers, in people trying their best to look after others, to provide meals and shelter, to keep themselves and their loved ones safe, to bring comfort and to pray.
Vulnerability is an uncomfortable experience. Mark helps us understand that life in the Kingdom begins with faith and confidence in God especially in the midst of epic struggles which threaten to overcome us.
The disciples’ question is ours, too. Who is Jesus for us? A magician, a wonder-worker, or a person who found the way to let the reign of God’s grace out of his heart and into the lives of those around him?
- pdf Celebrating At Home - 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time [PDF] (7.81 MB)
- default Celebrating At Home - 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time [ePub] (5.22 MB)
- pdf Celebrando En Familia - 12 Domingo Del Tiempo Ordinario (302 KB)
- pdf Celebrando In Casa - 12 Domenica Del Tempo Ordinario (435 KB)
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Celebrating at Home is a Liturgy of the Word centred around the Gospel reading for each Sunday. It includes a reflection on the Gospel and prayers.
It can be used personally or with your family. Parts for all to pray are given in bold print and all the other parts can be shared among those present.
We hope that Celebrating at Home will be a source of nourishment and strength for all who use it.
In the room you decide to use for this prayer you could have a lighted candle, a crucifix and the Bible. These symbols help keep us mindful of the sacredness of our time of prayer and can help us feel connected with our local worshipping communities.
Celebrating At Home - 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time
Partners with Christ
The Gospel today begins with the foundational cry of Jesus’ ministry: The Kingdom of God has drawn near; repent and believe the Good News. The call of the disciples follows immediately. This Gospel builds on last Sunday’s readings about vocation, and specifically, about how becoming a follower of Christ leads to transformation and the proclamation of the Good News.
The idea of repentance here is not about turning away from sinfulness, but about leaving a known way of life behind and turning around to face in a totally new direction as a follower of Christ.
We see that played out in the call of the fishermen - called away from everything they know and even from their family to set off in a new direction, following Christ.
The fact that Jesus called (and still calls) disciples is not about creating a flock of ‘blind followers’ but a people who live and work in active partnership with Christ to establish the Kingdom and preach the Good News. Becoming ‘fishers of people’ they draw others into the circle of God’s life.
Using the proclamation at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the story of the call of the first four disciples, the Gospel invites us to think about our own vocation, our own call, as followers of Jesus and what might need to be left behind in order to enter more fully into the mystery of God’s Kingdom; how we might work in partnership with the Spirit of Jesus in making the Kingdom a living reality in the world.
Note that the Kingdom does not exist apart from human beings – it is to be incarnated (enfleshed) in the new people of God, the disciples of Christ.
Celebrating At Home - 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Called to be a living Gospel
This Sunday could very well be called ‘Vocation Sunday’. Both the first reading and the Gospel are stories of call and response.
The episode we read in the first reading is well described as ‘Samuel’s Call’. Three times he hears God calling but thinks it is Eli (a Temple priest) and goes to him. Eli finally understands that it is God calling Samuel and tells him that next time he hears the voice to say, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening”.
The reading concludes with the thought that God was with (dwelt with) Samuel and that Samuel spoke in God’s name.
Taken together with the Gospel, it’s hard to escape the thought that this Sunday is Vocation Sunday for all disciples. Just as God calls Samuel and Eli points the way, Jesus calls Andrew and the other disciple and John the Baptist points the way. Andrew responds (follows) and goes to ‘see’ and ‘dwell with’ Jesus. Next day, he calls Peter and both go to ‘see’ and ‘dwell with’ Jesus.
Andrew’s meeting with Jesus transforms him into both a follower and an evangeliser. Peter’s meeting with Jesus (coming to ‘see’ Jesus) transforms him into the ‘rock’, the ‘foundation’ and the ‘shepherd’ (in John’s Gospel) of the flock.
Using both these readings the church returns to Ordinary Times calling us to reflect on our vocation, our call, to be disciples – to ‘come and see’ Jesus, to ‘dwell with him’ and to become evangelisers and shepherds in our own day.
Spending time in the company of Jesus (dwelling with him) we come to see who Jesus and God really are – often very different from the images we have grown up with.
Christians are called to a ‘mature’ faith in Jesus, a living relationship which is not dependant on rules, threats and fear, and is motivated only by love.
We learn to live in faithful relationship with Jesus. Eventually, we become the living ‘voice’ of Christ in our thoughts, words and actions.
It is not a passive following to which we are called. This is not about simply putting our feet in the footprints of Jesus. This is about dwelling with him, making his home ours, making our home his. It’s about making
Celebrating At Home Christmas - Nativity of the Lord
We began Advent with the cry, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’. Now we end it with the joyful shout, ‘God is with us!’
Reflecting on the historical birth of Jesus, the Church proclaims the truth that God is, and has always been, with his people. And if God is with us, then God is for us. God is on our side.
God has no desire to live in houses made of wood, stone or gold. God’s deepest desire is to live in human flesh. Just as God did that in the human flesh of Jesus Christ a long time ago, God continues to do so now in us.
Like Mary, we accept God’s invitation, allowing Jesus to become flesh in us, too; to be seen and experienced in good thoughts, good words and good actions, in deeds of loving kindness which bring life, not death, to God’s people
Celebrating At Home - Fourth Sunday of Advent
Receive your God!
The great Christmas feast is almost here. As always in Advent, what is promised in the first reading is brought to fulfilment in the Gospel reading. We began Advent with the cry, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’. We will end it with the joyful shout, ‘God is with us!’
In the first reading King David wants to build a house (temple) for God, but God says that, instead, God will build David and his descendants into a great house. God is not about building temples to himself and it’s not dwelling-places made of wood or stone that God wants. God is about building a dwelling-place in human flesh. God is about building a people among whom and in whom he can live.
In the Gospel, Mary accepts God’s invitation to make herself into a dwelling place for God by receiving Christ and God makes his dwelling-place in her human flesh. Through her God has come to live permanently in humanity.
That is what we, too, are about – making ourselves into a living dwelling place for Christ. The great gift of Jesus to the world is not meant to be frozen in one moment of time. Through us, that Gift is made present in every moment of history so that through us Christ is able to continue to touch, to hold and to heal the world.
"We must ourselves be the Mother of God.
God must be conceived in us, we must bring him into the world.”
(Blessed Titus Brandsma, OCarm, 1881-1942 )
- Celebrating At Home 4th Sunday of Advent 20 December PDF
- Celebrating At Home 4th Sunday of Advent 20 December EPUB
- Lectio Divina for 4th Sunday of Advent 20 December PDF
- Lectio Divina for 4th Sunday of Advent 20 December EPUB
- Celebrando en Familia - Cuarto Domingo de Adviento Carmelitas
- Celebrando in Casa - Quarta Domenica di Avvento
- Celebrando em familia - Quarto Domingo do Advento Carmelitas [Português]
Celebrating At Home - Third Sunday of Advent
Rejoice! The Lord is near!
Today is Gaudete Sunday. The name comes from the first word of the Entrance Antiphon in Latin, which means, ‘Rejoice’. The full text of the antiphon is: Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say, rejoice! Indeed, the Lord is near.
That is what we are rejoicing in: God’s nearness to us. We recognise that nearness in the presence of Jesus, born so long ago, and his continuing presence through the Holy Spirit in our lives now. We rejoice that God has always been with us, whether we realised it or not. God has never left us.
Advent is very much about a fresh discovery of God’s presence and grace in our lives, in our own moment of history.
This is what we are celebrating on Christmas Day, too. Christ is God’s great present to the human family. Christmas celebrates not only the birth of Jesus in one moment of human history, but his continual birth in us so that he may be present in every moment of human history.
As we wait for the final coming of Jesus we, like John the Baptist, are called to be witnesses to the Light. We do that best by taking up the mission of the prophet in the first reading, just as Jesus did.
The Lord has anointed us to bring Good News to the poor, to bind up hearts that are broken, to proclaim liberty to captives, freedom to those in prison and a year of favour from the Lord. God trusts us to do that. We have been commissioned by the Church through our Baptism to do that.
Our faith in (that is, our living relationship with) Christ is meant to be lived openly, generously and graciously, at the service of our brothers and sisters in the world by being the living presence of Jesus in our day and age.
- Celebrating At Home 3rd Sunday of Advent
- Celebrating At Home 3rd Sunday of Advent ePub
- Lectio Divina for 3rd Sunday of Advent
- Lectio Divina for 3rd Sunday of Advent ePub
- Celebrando in Casa - Terza Domenica di Avvento
- Celebrando en Familia - Tercer Domingo De Adviento
- Celebrando em Familia - Terceiro Domingo do Advento Carmelitas [Português]
Celebrating At Home - Second Sunday of Advent
Repentance and forgiveness console God’s people and prepare the way for the Lord to enter our hearts. The magnificent first reading from the prophet Isaiah today looks forward to the appearance of God. Great preparations take place for his arrival - hills are lowered, valleys filled in, a straight highway is made in the desert. The joyful message of God’s approach is proclaimed from the mountain tops and shouted in the streets.
How will this God show himself to his people? Not as a warrior-king with a frightening display of military power or with thunderbolts in his hands, but as a shepherd-king: feeding his flock, gathering the lambs in his arms, holding them against his breast and leading the mother ewes to rest. God’s coming liberates and frees his people through tenderness and forgiveness.
The Gospel presents John the Baptist as one who comes preparing the way for the Lord by proclaiming ‘a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins’. According to Mark, all Judea and the whole of Jerusalem come to John for baptism and to hear the proclamation of forgiveness – a moment of real conversion. John says that another will come, more powerful than himself, who will baptise, not with water, but with the Holy Spirit.
Our Advent readings help us realise God’s profound love for us and his presence within us through the Holy Spirit. Knowing that God will always treat us with love and tender care helps us to turn again towards him and to trust in the depth of his mercy.
Our Advent journey is showing us how to prepare our hearts for a fresh discovery of God’s presence in our lives; how to recognise the hidden presence of Jesus among and around us; how to turn around and face towards God with faith, hope and love; and how to be the living presence of Jesus in our moment of history.
The candles of the Advent Wreath remind us of the growing light and warmth of God’s love made visible in Christ.
- Celebrating At Home for 2nd Sunday of Advent 6 December
- Celebrating At Home for 2nd Sunday of Advent 6 December EPUB
- Lectio Divina for 2nd Sunday of Advent 6 December
- Lectio Divina for 2nd Sunday of Advent 6 December EPUB
- Celebrando em familia - Segundo Domingo do Advento Carmelitas [Português]
- Celebrando in Casa - Seconda Domenica di Avvento - Carmelitani
- Celebrando en Familia - Segundo Domingo de Adviento - Carmelitas
