Monday 24 th December 2018 CHRISTMAS EVE MASS. Gospel Reflection Matthew 1: 1-25

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1 Monday 24 th December 2018 CHRISTMAS EVE MASS Year C Gospel Reflection Matthew 1: 1-25 Today, on Christmas Eve we are gathered here to remember the great event in the history of humanity and Salvation History the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Incarnation- God becoming man. The whole world rejoices with songs of praise, illumination, and solemn celebration. This is also a time for reflection and a time to listen what God is saying to us personally and as a community of believers. Today s Gospel presents us with long genealogy of Jesus. This shows that Joseph is born in the line of Abraham and David. But if Jesus is not born of Joseph how does he become a son of Abraham and David? Joseph plays a most significant role in Matthew s Gospel as the one who is to make Mary s son part of David s family, he is commanded to name the son JESUS. This name comes from Greek form of an underlying sematic YESHERA which means Yahweh saves. The name given to him thus identifies Jesus as the one who will save his people from their sins. Jesus is Emmanuel, God-with-us, a theme that will run through the Gospel until it is given its final expression in the concluding verse of the Gospel, I am with you always until the end of the world. (Matthew 28: 20) This Christmas let us remember Emmanuel, the Holy Child who was born in a stable and be mindful of those who are in need of our welcome. Let us make room in our hearts for compassion, love and forgiveness and reach out to those who are in need of them. MAY I WISH YOU ALL A HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

2 MIDNIGHT MASS CHRISTMAS DAY YEAR C Gospel Reflection Luke 2: 1-14 In the midst of darkness, we have seen a great light. Christ is born for us alleluia! Christ is our light for ever! God has shattered the darkness of night with the light of His Son, Jesus Christ. The first reading at this midnight mass is from the prophet Isaiah. We can only identify with this reading if we have personally walked in darkness and know the challenges of darkness or if we know someone who has this experience. For the prophet Isaiah, it was the whole people of Israel or at least the remnant of those who had been taken into captivity. The challenge is for us tonight is to long for the light, to long for freedom from all that oppresses us and all that keeps us form God in any way. We are invited to long with our whole being for God s presence in every aspect of our lives. The second reading comes from the letter of St. Paul to Titus. This passage tells us clearly that God has appeared so that we can know Jesus Christ who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good. Only in the Gospel from St. Luke do we come to see clearly how all of this will come about, through the birth of the Saviour, Jesus Christ. Yes, even here, the clarity is only possible if we open our eyes in faith. We must see through the darkness to the light God is giving us. We must see through the darkness to the light God is giving us. We recognize on this Holy Night that even after centuries of knowing Jesus Christ, our world still wanders in darkness. Even after proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ, our hearts are not yet

3 converted completely to Him and our world even less so. We humans are broken people and each of us is also broken. TONIGHT IS CHRISTMAS! The birth of the Saviour. We can rejoice, even though we are broken because the Saviour is born. We can rejoice even if we do not always respond so well to our Saviour because we recognize that the SAVIOUR HAS COME TO US AND WILL MAKE US FREE. All we need do is rejoice in the Saviour and trust in Him as much as we can. God wants us free. God sends the Saviour to give us freedom. This is a freedom from darkness so that we can live in the light. This is a freedom that is won for us by Jesus Christ. So no matter how terrible our LIVES may seem, no matter how enmeshed we may find ourselves in sin, no matter what bad circumstances we may find ourselves in let us rejoice because the door to heaven is open, the door to living just and pious lives even in this world is open: god s love has come to earth and we can rejoice now and forever. LET US WALK IN THE LIGHT OF OUR SAVIOUR! WISH YOU ALL VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS. MAY THE NEW BORN CHILD BLESS YOU AND YOUR FAMILIES WITH GOOD HEALTH, HAPPINESS AND PEACE! DAWN MASS THE NATIVITY OF OUR LORD YEAR C GOSPEL REFLECTION Luke 2: The shepherds simply discover that unto us a Child is born (Isaiah 9:5) and they understand that all this glory, all this joy, all this light converges to one single point that sign which the angel indicated to

4 them: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. (Luke 2: 12) This is the enduring sign to FIND JESUS. Not just then, but also today. If we want to celebrate Christmas authentically, we need to contemplate this sign: the fragile simplicity of a small newborn, the meekness of where he lies, the tender affection of the swaddling clothes. GOD IS THERE. With this sign the Gospel reveals a paradox; it speaks of the emperor, the Governor, the mighty of those times, but God does not make himself present there; he does not appear in the grand hall of a royal palace, but the poverty of a table, not in pomp and how, but in the simplicity of life, not in power but in a smallness which surprises. In order to discover him we need to go there where he is: we need to bow down, humble ourselves, and make ourselves small. The child who is born challenges us: he calls us to leave behind fleeting illusions and go the essence to renounce our insatiable claims to abandon our endless dissatisfaction and sadness for something we will never have. It will help us to leave these things behind in order to rediscover in the simplicity of the God-Child, peace, joy and the meaning of life. Let us allow the child in the manger to challenge us but let us also allow ourselves to be challenged by the children of today s world, who are not lying in cot caressed with the affection of a mother and father, but rather suffer the squalid mangers that devour dignity, hiding underground to escape bombardment, on the pavements of a large city, at the bottom of a boat overladen with immigrants, let us allow ourselves to be challenged by the children who are not allowed to be born, by those who cry because no one satiates their hunger, by those who have not toys in their hands but rather weapons.

5 The shepherd grasped the message angel has communicated. They went in haste (Luke 2: 16) to see the baby Jesus. Today let us allow ourselves to be challenged and convened by Jesus. Let us go to him with trust, from that area in us we feel to be marginalized from our own limitations. Let us touch the tenderness that saves. Let us draw close to God who draws close to us. Let us pause to look upon the crib and imagine the birth of Jesus: light, peace, utmost poverty and rejection. Let us enter into the real nativity with shepherds, taking into Jesus all that we are, our alienation, our unhealed wounds. Then in Jesus we will enjoy the flavour of the true spirit of Christmas the beauty of being loved God. With Mary and Joseph we pause before the manger, before Jesus who is born as bread for my life. Contemplating his humble and infinite love let us say to him: THANK YOU JESUS, BECAUSE YOU HAVE DONE ALL THIS FOR ME. WISH YOU ALL A JOYFILLED CHRISTMAS!