Weekly Reflection

Sexagesima Sunday (C) – January 31, 2016

From the Pastor /

Some could speak in tongues, some had the gift of healing, and others could prophecy. These gifts were good in themselves, but the Corinthians were failing to value the greatest gift of all, the gift of love. For St. Paul love was practical, down to earth, a day-in and a day-out of dealing with each other. “Love is kind.” How could he have put it more simply and more directly? We have to be kind to each other: to say “please” and “thank you” and “pardon me.” “Love is patient.” How hard it is always to be patient with those with whom we live or work, not to let them get on our nerves or annoy us with their concerns when we are not interested. “Love is not jealous. Love is not snobbish. Love is not rude. Love does not put on airs.” Every item in his list is practical. Love never fails.

It has been observed by spiritual writers that St. Paul’s letter the word “love” can be replaced with the name “Christ.” Christ is patient, Christ is kind, Christ never fails. The Eucharist is the means for growing in Christ-like love. When we have received Holy Communion, we must pray: “Lord, transform me and all my affections. Help me to love, as You love.” St. Paul observes that the three great virtues are faith, hope and love. When we get to heaven we will no longer need faith because we will see God face to face. We will no longer need hope because we will achieved our goal. But we will have the greatest of all virtues; we will have love. We can begin eternity now by praying for and by putting into practice a Christ-like love for each other.

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Septuagesima Sunday (C) – January 24, 2016

From the Pastor /

Today’s Gospel reading takes us to the synagogue at Nazareth. There children would be taught, and adults would gather to pray and sing and discuss the scriptures. It is the sabbath day and Jesus is invited to read. Apparently He deliberately chooses a passage from Isaiah, long regarded as referring to the Messiah. Then, as was the custom, He sat to preach. Jesus uses Isiah’s prophetic words as His own statement of intent: He has come to “bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free.” Jesus is a man with a mission: He has come with good news. The Gospel of St. Luke makes it clear that sharing this good news is an essential part of following Christ. The good news first delivered in the little synagogue at Nazareth spread throughout the then-known world, because people passed it on, passed it on, until it finally reached Rome itself. St. Luke’s Gospel has been specially identified as the Gospel of the compassion of Christ: Jesus reaches out to those in need, sits at table with the outcasts of His day – sick people, criminals, those who were poor. The Jesus of St. Luke did not come to to call those who were righteous and respectable, or who thought they were; He has much more time for those who are sinners and know it. The Jesus of St. Luke keeps strange company; His life begins in a stable with a pose of low-grade shepherds gathered round Him; and it ends with His being nailed to a cross between two criminals.

Each time we come to Mass that episode in the synagogue is being repeated. Today Jesus is here, today He’s bringing us good news, today He’s assuring us that He loves us and wants us to be His friends. Above all today He is proclaiming that the time of “God’s favor” has arrived. As we reflect – we can also take the time to thank God for the precious gift that has been given us in the Gospel of St. Luke.

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II Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – January 17, 2016

From the Pastor /

The vast majority of us live – or have lived – as a part of some kind of family or household. For many of us, too, this daily or household experience is further complicated by the fractures, diverse choices and more complex family relationships that are increasingly a part of our societies. We can often find ourselves called to love the one we really don’t agree with, or the one who seems to have come in and disrupted what we had been used to. Opening our need to Jesus and His mother, and opening our hearts to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, transforms our mistakes, our squabbles, our brokenness and emptiness. The deeper our faith in these “ordinary mysteries,” the more often we can turn first to God in prayer, in all our household difficulties. And the more often, too, we will meet God’s grace and power in our own homes, and understand them as “domestic churches.”

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Lord’s Baptism (C) – January 10, 2016

From the Pastor /

We move the clock forward nearly 2000 years to find a happy couple bringing their newborn infant to the church to be baptized. A crowd of family and friends have come to witness the event and to share in the happiness of the day. As the parents hold the child over the font, the priest pours water over the child’s head, saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” He anoints the child with oil on the forehead and says some prayers. Is this the life-changing experience foreshadowed by the baptism of Jesus? It has to be said that for most of those witnessing the baptism described here, will be a fairly bewildering ritual, but for those of us with faith something extraordinary is taking place. In this way we are born again of water and the Holy Spirit and enabled to enter the kingdom of heaven. It took Jesus 30 years to grow in wisdom, in stature and in favor with God and with people before the events of His baptism changed His life. The voice from heaven affirmed that He was truly the beloved Son of God. He knew that He had been sent to bring Good News to those who were poor. Maybe now we should spend some time pondering on what baptism really means for us. We have been exposed to the cleansing water of rebirth and renewed with the Holy Spirit. We have been forged in the furnace of fire of God’s love join Jesus in His mission to bring God’s saving love to our world. So now what are we going to do?

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Holy Family (C) – January 3, 2016

From the Pastor /

What are our values? We may well need them in this Christmas period. Many families have a wonderful time at Christmas. Different generations can get on each others nerves. It is then that Christ’s values can keep a family together. St. John, in our second reading today, reminds us of the love that God our Father has “lavished upon us”, and calls us to put into practice the commandments that Jesus gave us, to “love one another as He told us to.” If we live out that love in our domestic lives, we will truly be happy and holy families. So much depends on what values the family live out. For Christians, family life is holy only when it embodies the values for which Christ lived and died. When we have these values we can happily celebrate at Christmas dinner – and when put them into practice when the mood changes and the party is over.

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Humble Shepherds (C) – December 27, 2015

From the Pastor, PNCC /

Today as we recall how the shepherds and our ancestors in the faith were looked down upon, we should remember to always treat others with love and respect. This solemnity should be an encouragement to the poor, the humble and the lowly today, knowing that God cares for them and may be using them in a special way.

During the Holy Mass on this day we pray for our Prime Bishop, Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Seminarians. We also pray for sacred vocations to the Holy Priesthood, that those men whom God has called may answer His call and serve His people as shepherds. At a General Synod a motion was made and passed that a special offering be taken on the Solemnity of Humble Shepherds for Savonarola Theological Seminary, the seminary of the Polish National Catholic Church in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

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Christmas (C) – December 25, 2015

From the Pastor /

“In the beginning”: that’s how it starts. In the Bible there are lots of words to describe Jesus from the heavenly angle, like “wisdom”, or “image”, or “radiance”. But the most important one is “word”. Jesus is the Word of God. At Christmas, we see this Word of God as a tiny baby in the straw. To this baby, Mary and Joseph will give the name of Jesus. Yet He will always continue to be the Son of God. This tiny person is eternal.

Our response is simply one of adoration. When we behold the Christ child in the arms of Mary, or on the cross for that matter, we behold the fathomless Son of God. He has taken flesh for our sake. Thank you, Lord, more than we ever say. “To all who did accept Him He gave power to become children of God.” Dear Lord, may we always deserve that title.

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Mass of the Shepherds/Pasterka (C) – December 24, 2015

Frackville, From the Pastor /

If we listen to the Gospel with an open mind, Sunday by Sunday, it frequently gives us a jolt. The values lived and taught by Jesus are a long way from the values of 21st century secular Britain. He was born and grew up with none of our comfort and security. He had no material expectations. While He was still a baby, St. Matthew tells us, He was within a hair’s breadth of being slaughtered by a dissolute and pleasure-crazed king. He and His family became emigrants in Egypt. Life was precarious, and there was no insurance, no health service, no social security. Out of this background emerges the one who will save the world, give it hope again. We look at those small hands and reflect: those hands will one day be pierced by nails. We look at those tiny feet and reflect: those feet will carry the risen Lord out of the tomb. We look at the baby’s face, and reflect: this is the face that one Easter morning will delight Mary Magdalene beyond words, and send her running at top to the city to tell the apostles, “I have seen the Lord!” News of great joy, to be shared by the whole people. A very happy Christmas!

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Fourth Sunday of Advent (C) – December 20, 2015

From the Pastor /

Parents often make a great effort to find a particular present that their child wants for Christmas. It doesn’t seem ridiculous for the parents, if it is done out of love for their child. The gift in time may be forgotten, abandoned at the back of a cupboard, but the love shown in the gift will never be lost. If the parents cannot find the special present then the child may be disappointed, but the disappointment will not last for ever. The promise parents make to a child doesn’t depend on providing that special present, but upon doing their best for their child by constantly loving the child. This is the greatest gift a child can be given, and without this all other gifts are empty signs.

God our Father is the loving parent who never withdraws His love from us. If we turn away from God’s love, we look for things to replace that love. We search for other presents, other presences, which we think will bring us the joy we long for. We become like a child who mistakes a Christmas present for the love expressed in the present. A child will grow in maturity be recognizing that the most important thing is not the present, but the love of the giver. As children of God, human beings had turned away from God’s love and sought other things to replace that love. Like Mary we are invited to welcome this gift that prevent us from saying yes to God’s gift, those things with which we try to replace God’s love.

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Third Sunday of Advent (C) – December 13, 2015

From the Pastor /

The readings today proclaim joy in the near presence of God. Yet each is set against a background that militates against joyful expectation. The book of Zephaniah was written in the 7th BC at a time when Israel was surrounded by hostile nations. The call to rejoice because the Lord is in the midst of His people is almost unexpected, as it is in contrast with everything preceding it. St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written when he was in prison because of his missionary work. In Philippi he had established his first European church and he called the community there “my joy and my crown”. Though he is imprisoned and facing the possibility of execution, joy and peace are prominent in the latter, culminating in St. Paul’s wish for their happiness in the Lord and for the peace of God that is beyond our comprehension while on earth. When John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness and called the people to prepare a way for the Lord, and to a baptism of repentance, they were under Roman occupation with a Roman procurator and a Jewish subordinate ruler, Herod. The tax collectors had bought their positions from the Roman authorities. The soldiers gave armed protection to the tax collectors. They were in need of some protection for they were hated by both Jews and Gentiles alike, not least because many abused their authority. The people are attracted to John and his message. They go to him for baptism, and all, tax collectors and soldiers included, ask what they must do. He answers that they must act justly towards others.

From readings we see John the Baptist, Paul and Zephaniah dispelled oppressing darkness with the light that shone from God’s nearness. The Christmas trees with their glimmering candles and other decorations, which now illumine the period leading to the celebration of our Savior’s birth, can be seen as symbolizing that same light of that same light of God’s near presence among us. May we never forget that the Lord is in our midst. Christ, the Morning Star, will dispel our darkness.

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