A Homily – The Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year C)

First Reading – Micah 5:1-4 ©

Responsorial Psalm – 79 (80):2-3, 15-16, 18-19 ©

Second Reading – Hebrews 10:5-10 ©

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 1:38

The Gospel According to Luke – 1:39-45 ©

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

The prophet Micah foresaw the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, who was Joshua bin Joseph, the child of Mary, who Saint Paul called the Christ, and who we lovingly refer to as the prince of peace.

Be mindful.

Micah’s prophecy was not a reading of the future; we know this because God made the universe, and us in it, free, so that the future is not predetermined.

Micah’s prophecy is an expression of hope and trust in the way of love, which he believed all people are called to participate in.

As all prophets do, Micah calls our attention to the troubling times he and his people faced, and by extension the troubles we are facing today. Just as in Micah’s day, as in Jesus’ day, there is sorrow and there is pain and a deep sense of alienation felt among the people; we are isolated from each other and fell alienated from God who we cannot see or touch, but who we can hear…if we listen carefully.

This is the human condition

As a good prophet does, Micha pointed toward our future, to the hope that the Christ will come, the archetype of peace to which all human should aspire, a peace that all leaders should seek to serve.

Now consider the words of the psalmist for today, who misunderstands the natural unfolding of historical events by ascribing them to the will of God. God does not intervene in the affairs of human beings, God is not the author of our past, present or future histories…we are.

God is call all people to the divine self, not only Israel, and not only the Church founded in Jesus’ name. God call everyone individually, not by family, tribe and nation.

Know this.

God does not reside on a throne and God is not the general of armies.

Armies and kingdoms are human institutions and when we imagine God in the role of emperor or king, price or warrior we do a disservice to God’s spirit, which embraces everyone. God created the universe and everything in it, loving all who come to be with an equal share the inexhaustible and divine compassion.

Therefore, God will not rescue anyone from the human dilemma, not in this life, whether it is long or short, easy or hard, there is no deliverance from it, save by our own action, which is why we are called to share the divine love with our family and friends, the stranger among us, and even our adversaries, if we have the capacity to do so.

God’s face shines on everyone, look for it in the face of your neighbor, in the face of your enemy, in the faces of those who persecute you. God is as much present in them as God is present in you, and where God is present God is present fully.

God did not rescue the Israelites from Egypt; they rescued themselves (if you believe it), committing horrible atrocities and considerable crimes along the way. I am not talking about the promises they broke to God, God knew that they would, I am talking about the people they murdered, the cities they plundered, killing and robbing, utterly exterminating dozens of tribes along the way…God forgave them for all of it and loved them anyway.

God did not send the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Ptolemy’s, or the Romans, to punish the people of Israel, and God did not destroy their temples.

Each of those conquering Empire’s did what they did for their own reasons in their own time, just as the armies of Joshua son of Nun did in his…in most case it was for loot: gold and silver, access to clean water and farmland to feed their people.

The only lesson we are to draw from those events is this: God will not protect you, or show you favor in this world. We are all subject to the vicissitudes of change and its random nature.

It is up to us, God’s children, to act on God’s behalf by showing love, distributing justice with mercy, and caring for those downtrodden with humility…we are called to this work, for this is the way.

Remember:

Service is the seal of our baptism, to be a Christian you must accept the role of a servant, as Jesus showed us when he took up his ministry and followed it all the way to his death on the cross.

Consider the teaching of the apostle and know that Paul made a tragic error in his early conception of the purpose of Jesus’ ministry, and the reason for his murder.

When Jesus said, “God wanted no sacrifice, takes no pleasure in holocausts, or sacrifices for sin,” he meant it. Jesus did not mean to suggest that his own death was the sacrifice God wanted. The purpose of Jesus’ ministry was not that his death become an oblation to God or a holocaust rising to the heavens. He was murdered plain and simple, it was a political assassination.

Jesus stood in the tradition of the prophets against the cult of animal sacrifice, because he knew that the cult of sacrifice belonged to a corrupt institution, one that burdened the poor while fattening the wealthy. This is why he turned the tables of the money changers over in his tirade at the temple; this is why the priests plotted his murder and conspired with the Romans to achieve it.

Jesus was right, and so was the prophetic tradition he stood in. God takes no pleasure in blood sacrifices and burnt offerings, their efficacy as a mean for the expiation of sins is a contrivance that is akin to witchcraft, it is ineffectual and meaningless. 

The only sacrifice God desires is the sacrifice of service, a gift that is offered in love and engenders hope. Your loving service, is the only offering God wants from you, service which furthers the ends of peace, fosters trust, seeks justice, and teaches a love in fulfillment of God’s law which is written on your heart.

Consider the gospel reading for today:

The authors of Mark begin their narrative when Jesus was a man, already an adult, at the beginning of his public ministry.

 The early Christians wanted more of a story, and so the authors of Luke went back in time by narrating a fable about his conception and birth. In this fable, or myth (whatever you think it should be called) they attempted to tie up various loose ends in the stories that were being told about Jesus in their time.

They intended, through their writing, to unite different factions within the nascent Church which were already falling apart just a half-century after Jesus’ death; the narrative from today’s reading, was meant to appeal to the followers of John the Baptist. It brought forth the notion that Jesus and John were actually cousins, and that even though John was older, he was a follower of Jesus…even from the time he was in the womb; by the same token they make John’s mother subordinate to Mary.

 Remember!

 These are just stories, they are fables, myths; the whole thing is a fiction…an unfortunate fiction, because a great deal of theology and doctrine has been hung from these exercises in make-believe, even as these fictions were in themselves naked political calculations meant to manipulate the burgeoning movement.

 The succeeding Gospels each in their turn reached back further in time; the writers of Matthew inserted a confusing genealogy, tracing Jesus’ heritage back to Adam, through David on his father’s side, and yet, at the same time, the Church insists that we believe Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father.

 The writers of John begin their narrative with the beginning of time itself, and the creation of the universe.

 It is sad to note, that over the centuries, what people believed about these fables, ended up being the cause of extreme, bitter and deadly partisan conflict among Christians. They set aside the actual teaching of Jesus, which was to love your enemies and pray to for those who persecute you, in favor of murderous pogroms based upon whether or not your community accepted particularly rigid formulations concerning the divine economy.

 Remember this when you pray; remember the errors of the Church, the fictions of Luke, the mistakes of Paul, the carelessness of the psalmist…and finally the hope of Micah for the reign of peace.

 

First Reading – Micah 5:1-4 ©

He Will Stand and Feed His Flock with the Power of the Lord

The Lord says this:

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, the least of the clans of Judah, out of you will be born for me the one who is to rule over Israel; his origin goes back to the distant past, to the days of old.

The Lord is therefore going to abandon them till the time when she who is to give birth gives birth.

Then the remnant of his brothers will come back to the sons of Israel.

He will stand and feed his flock with the power of the Lord, with the majesty of the name of his God.

They will live secure, for from then on he will extend his power to the ends of the land.

He himself will be peace.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 79(80):2-3, 15-16, 18-19 ©

Lord of hosts, bring us back; let your face shine on us and we shall be saved.

O shepherd of Israel, hear us,

  shine forth from your cherubim throne.

O Lord, rouse up your might,

  O Lord, come to our help.

Lord of hosts, bring us back; let your face shine on us and we shall be saved.

God of hosts, turn again, we implore,

  look down from heaven and see.

Visit this vine and protect it,

  the vine your right hand has planted.

Lord of hosts, bring us back; let your face shine on us and we shall be saved.

May your hand be on the man you have chosen,

  the man you have given your strength.

And we shall never forsake you again;

  give us life that we may call upon your name.

Lord of hosts, bring us back; let your face shine on us and we shall be saved.

 

Second Reading – Hebrews 10:5-10 ©

God, Here I Am! I Am Coming to Obey Your Will

This is what Christ said, on coming into the world:

You who wanted no sacrifice or oblation, prepared a body for me.

You took no pleasure in holocausts or sacrifices for sin; then I said, just as I was commanded in the scroll of the book, ‘God, here I am! I am coming to obey your will.’

Notice that he says first: You did not want what the Law lays down as the things to be offered, that is: the sacrifices, the oblations, the holocausts and the sacrifices for sin, and you took no pleasure in them; and then he says: Here I am! I am coming to obey your will. He is abolishing the first sort to replace it with the second. And this will was for us to be made holy by the offering of his body made once and for all by Jesus Christ.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 1:38

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the handmaid of the Lord:

let what you have said be done to me.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke – 1:39-45 ©

Why Should I be Honoured with a Visit from the Mother of My Lord?

Mary set out and went as quickly as she could to a town in the hill country of Judah. She went into Zechariah’s house and greeted Elizabeth. Now as soon as Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. She gave a loud cry and said, ‘Of all women you are the most blessed, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord? For the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy. Yes, blessed is she who believed that the promise made her by the Lord would be fulfilled.’

 

A Homily – The Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year C)

Choros ton Titanon (Dance of the Titans)

 Sybyl veiled in vapors 

          shimmies in her cave

distant as Elysium

          or the whispers in our dreams

Vivian vaulting on her island

          the misty-quiet of Avalon 

Hy-Brasil

          beyond the western sea

          

Enkidu was Neanderthal 

          Gilgamesh, a Nephilim  

they striped Kubaba of her terrors

          the goddess of Kish

queen of the cedar forest

Selene, coursing through her orbit

          brighter than Aurora 

the light of poets

          she is sister to the sun

each thing is a concrescent being

          a society of mutuals

process and Perpetua

            impermanence and flux

lightning, thunder, wind and rain, the 

dust of our bodies on the burning-plane

Maya…Gaia…mother—earth 

          blue-green Midgard, 

which gave me birth

          spinning in the ether 

to the music of the spheres 

          dancing with the titans, while     

the rainbow-serpent 

                                 eats its tail

Livre des Maudite

        The Book of the Damned

A Homily – The Third Sunday of Advent (Year C)

First Reading - Zephaniah 3:14-18 ©

Responsorial Psalm - Isaiah 12 ©

Second Reading - Philippians 4:4-7 ©

Gospel Acclamation – Isaiah 61:1 (Lk4:18)

The Gospel According to Luke - 3:10-18 ©

 

(NJB)

Listen!

God, the creator of the universe, God is not a warrior. God does not intervene in human affairs, either to pass judgement or to grant reprieve. God has no enemies; God is love.

Consider the wisdom of the prophet and be patient, salvation flows from the divine-wellspring, it fills all of creation, from this life into the next.

God set the galaxies spinning in the heavens, and it is the desire of God that all people be well, loving and good.

God desires that we be tolerant and care for one another, that we serve the divine in humility, with justice, and love for our neighbors…no matter who they are.

 This is the way, and in it is the peace of God.

 Be mindful.

 God knows us, each and every one of us; God knows what we struggle with, God knows the content of our dreams and understands our experience, even as we experience it ourselves.

 Praise God, and give comfort to God’s servant. When the will of God is done, the message is clear and the mission is pure; they are one in the same, the message and the mission is love.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today:

 The authors of Luke are saying something about Jesus through a narrative concerning his cousin, Saint John the Baptist.

 Reflect for a moment on the wisdom of John; the spirit of truth was in him, as it is in all of us. God made us with innate capacities for reason, wisdom and love, and it is these qualities we are referring to when we say that we are made in the image of God.

 Know this.

 Everyone and everything in the universe, every moment of time flows from and is sustained by the providence of the divine.

 We did not then (in the time of John), and we do not now need to wait for the anointed one, for a Christ to preach to us and tell us the truth; we have the capacity for it now.

 The truth is spoken all around us, if you open the ear of your heart you may hear it spoken in  ordinary moments, in normal conversation, the truth is speaking to you at the core of your being; it is there, in the seed of God’s Word germinating within you, just as it was spoken by John to those that followed him, and by Jesus who came after.

 “What must we do?” The people asked.

 John and Jesus responded according to the best tradition of the prophets:

 Act mercifully.

Act justly.

Be humble.

Do no harm.

Ahimsa

 Adhere to the Shema by loving God with all your strength, all your heart and all your mind; love your neighbor as you love yourself…this is the golden rule, and in it is the whole of the law and the wisdom of the prophets.

 If you take up the way, you will execute the duties of your office and fulfill the trust that has been placed in you faithfully, and without corruption.

 There is nothing extraordinary in these precepts. This is the ordinary way of life that we are called to it. Nevertheless, this message stunned the people who heard it when Jesus preached from the Mount of Olives, and John by the River Jordan; it stunned them to hear the truth spoken so simply and with such conviction.

 Why is this our response to the truth when we hear it?

 Because the solution to the world’s sickness (the desire to sin and the love of evil) is so simple that when we try to imagine these solutions coming to fruition in our own lives, we get lost in the overwhelming reality of what is.

 We are awash in sin and the consequences of sin, our own sins and everyone else’s, both the living and the dead. It is as if we were trying to hold back an ocean of greed, hate and fear with a gossamer veil, as thin as a wish.

 In the here and now, we know what the solution is, and yet we do not faith in one another, we do not trust that each of us will do our part to stop our sinful desire from overflowing. The realities of sin and evil are so prevalent that when we try to imagine a resolution to them with the only solutions that are available to us (love and mercy in the service of justice), the scope of the problems takes on a cosmic significance.

 Know this:

 No matter how great the reality of sin and evil are, they are rooted in time and space, they are finite, and as such they are infinitely less than the infinite love of God.

 This is the mystery of the Gospel…preach it!

 John was wise when he set aside a claim to divinity; when he set aside the expectation that he was himself an anointed being come to solve the world’s problems.  He knew that they would not be solved in his lifetime, not in the final sense, because sin and evil are a part of the human condition.

 He also knew that another would come to pick up his mantle and carry on that work, he was confident in this knowledge because he understood the nature and role of the prophet, and that the truth is spoken in every generation, in every community, in all times; the truth is spoken without cease.

 John was wise to point his followers to the future, because we are led into the place of justice and mercy only by our desire for it; we are led by the power of hope, through expectation to realization.

 It is not necessary for us to believe as the Gospel writers did, that John was pointing to the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, because, if it had not been Jesus, it would have been someone else, as it will be someone else in our own future, because God’s redemptive work never ends.

 Be mindful.

 When we are on God’s threshing floor, understand that we arrived there as we are, a complete person; we came in as the whole stalk of wheat, and that is how we encounter God, in our entirety; each of us as the whole of who we are. The wheat and the chaff are not separate people, sinners and saints. We are each of us the wheat and the chaff together, saint and sinner combined in one body.

 It is the encounter with the divine that frees us from the compulsions and addictions that bind us to our sins. Gods winnowing fan blows against us like the wind, it is the breath of the Holy Spirit blowing over us and flowing into us, freeing us from fear and hate, from the desires that cause us to lie, cheat, steal, to harm our neighbors, even those we love…and in so doing harm to ourselves.

 It is the Spirit, ruhah, that carries us to the fire where doubt is burned away, not in a fire of prosecution, judgement and destruction, but in the fires of transformation, purification, and hope.

 When we pass through it, we become a new creation.

  

First Reading - Zephaniah 3:14-18 ©

The Lord, the King of Israel, is in Your Midst

Shout for joy, daughter of Zion, Israel, shout aloud!

Rejoice, exult with all your heart, daughter of Jerusalem!

The Lord has repealed your sentence; he has driven your enemies away.

The Lord, the king of Israel, is in your midst; you have no more evil to fear.

When that day comes, word will come to Jerusalem: Zion, have no fear, do not let your hands fall limp.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior.

He will exult with joy over you, he will renew you by his love; he will dance with shouts of joy for you as on a day of festival.

 

Responsorial Psalm - Isaiah 12 ©

The Rejoicing of a Redeemed People

Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Truly, God is my salvation,

  I trust, I shall not fear.

For the Lord is my strength, my song,

  he became my saviour.

With joy you will draw water

  from the wells of salvation.

Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Give thanks to the Lord, give praise to his name!

  Make his mighty deeds known to the peoples!

  Declare the greatness of his name.

Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Sing a psalm to the Lord

  for he has done glorious deeds;

  make them known to all the earth!

People of Zion, sing and shout for joy,

  for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

Sing and shout for joy for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

 

Second Reading - Philippians 4:4-7 ©

The Lord is Very Near

I want you to be happy, always happy in the Lord; I repeat, what I want is your happiness. Let your tolerance be evident to everyone: the Lord is very near.

There is no need to worry; but if there is anything you need, pray for it, asking God for it with prayer and thanksgiving, and that peace of God, which is so much greater than we can understand, will guard your hearts and your thoughts, in Christ Jesus.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Isaiah 61:1 (Luke 4:18)

Alleluia, alleluia!

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me.

He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke 3:10-18 ©

'Someone is Coming Who Will Baptize You With the Holy Spirit and Fire'

When all the people asked John, ‘What must we do?’ he answered, ‘If anyone has two tunics he must share with the man who has none, and the one with something to eat must do the same.’ There were tax collectors too who came for baptism, and these said to him, ‘Master, what must we do?’ He said to them, ‘Exact no more than your rate.’ Some soldiers asked him in their turn, ‘What about us? What must we do?’ He said to them, ‘No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your pay!’

A feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to think that John might be the Christ, so John declared before them all, ‘I baptise you with water, but someone is coming, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’ As well as this, there were many other things he said to exhort the people and to announce the Good News to them.

 

A Homily – The Third Sunday of Advent (Year C)

Observation - December 9th, 2024, Monday

There are patches of blue in the soft gray sky

A few golden leaves 

    cling to the maple outside my window

The wind has turned cold and bitter

    the promise of a hard winter 

        on the far side of the sun

 

A Homily – The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Holy Day of Obligation (Year C)

First Reading – Genesis 3:9-15, 20 ©

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 97(98):1-4

Second Reading – Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12 ©

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 1:28

The Gospel According to Luke – 1:26-38 ©

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

The reading for from Genesis is a fable, drawn from a book of fables; we cannot take this narrative literally.

Eve is not the mother of all living beings and the garden of Eden was not paradise. This trope refers to the early agricultural civilizations of Summer and Akkad.

The name Adam, or Adamah, means the one who came from the soil, it is a name given to a class of bondsmen (and women), to people who tilled the earth.

This myth does not concern the creation of the universe. Rather, it narrates a critical moment in the history of the Hebrew people, known at the time as the Apiru, or Iberu. It recalls their transition from a time when they lived in a state of relative safety and security in service to the kings of one dynasty or another, a ruling class of priests, priestesses and warriors, followed by the hardship of exile and expulsion, whether self-imposed or forced on them as the consequence of a broken relationship.

Consider the teaching of the psalmist.

It is right and good to praise God, the creator of the universe, it is right and good because the created world is miraculous and beyond the scope of human comprehension…praise God for making it, it is a thing of wonder and beauty. But never forget that God does not determine who will be victorious in combat or any contest. God has no enemies, and in God, within whom all things exist and have their being…there is no conflict.

Be mindful.

It is not God’s justice that we demonstrate in our courts of law, it is human justice. When human justice approximates the justice of God we experience it as mercy, divine justice is restorative, healing…it is then and only then that justice is good.

Remember.

God is kind and faithful to all people, the divine promise is distributed to all people in equal measure.

If you seek to be an instrument of justice, then you must judge fairly, judge kindly and always keep before you the love God bears toward all.

Consider the life of Jesus, and God, whom he called Father and ask yourself this:

Is God glorious?

What is glory?

The apostle informs us that God’s greatest desire is to be in relationship to us, like a parent who loves their children; God desires that each and every one of us comes into the full knowledge of the divine.

There is hope in the knowledge of God, and the hope we have for ourselves, like the hope we hold out for those we love, is a hope that God wishes we would extend to everyone, even those we do not love. This is the way that leads to the knowledge of God.

If you think that God has promised riches and glories to be the inheritance of the saints, remember this, the first will be last and the last will be first. Spiritual riches are not counted in gold and silver and precious things; grace is a manifestation of love, we find it through companionship and friendship with God, and we discover God through our relationships with one another.

Be mindful.

God choses all of us, and in so doing God has determined to accept us as we are; God accepted us even when only the possibility of our being existed. God accepted us then, poured forth the divine love, and prepared a place for us in eternity.

God does nothing for the sake of vanity; God did not create the universe, and us in it, so that God could hear us praise the divine name. The divine has no interest in such things and gives no special consideration to anyone, whether they follow the way as taught by Jesus…or not, whether they were the first workers in the field of good works, or came to it late in the day, whether a person is  more-or-less good…or bad.

Whoever you are and whatever you bring with you, God loves and has prepared a place for you. Hod has promised to heal you, to make you well, and God will do so before the end.

Consider the Gospel reading for today.

You must understand that the stories of his Jesus’ birth, beginning with the annunciation as it is presented here, is just another fable like the Genesis fable we discussed earlier.

More significantly, they are intentional fabrications that amount to a heap of propaganda and in some cases they are adorned with outright lies.

While the Genesis mythology aggregated slowly from an oral tradition before it was ever set down in script, this took place over the course of centuries, possibly even millennia. Whereas the Jesus mythology was a contrivance from the outset, and the version of it that we inherited from the Church was ultimately a product of Roman imperialism, forever conditioned by the machinations of an empire. 

Be mindful.

The spirit of God is the spirit of truth; God’s spirit can never be served by falsehoods and lies.

The annunciation did not happen as recorded, the spirit of God did not impregnate a virgin woman, like Zeus when he impregnated the princess Danae and begetting Perseus…and so forth and so on, ad nauseum.

First Reading – Genesis 3:9-15, 20 ©

The Mother of All Those Who Live

After Adam had eaten of the tree the Lord God called to him. ‘Where are you?’ he asked. ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden;’ he replied ‘I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.’ ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ he asked ‘Have you been eating of the tree I forbade you to eat?’ The man replied, ‘It was the woman you put with me; she gave me the fruit, and I ate it.’ Then the Lord God asked the woman, ‘What is this you have done?’ The woman replied, ‘The serpent tempted me and I ate.’

  Then the Lord God said to the serpent, ‘Because you have done this,

‘Be accursed beyond all cattle, all wild beasts.

You shall crawl on your belly and eat dust every day of your life.

I will make you enemies of each other: you and the woman, your offspring and her offspring.

It will crush your head and you will strike its heel.’

The man named his wife ‘Eve’ because she was the mother of all those who live.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 97(98):1-4

Acclaim the King, the Lord.

Sing a new song to the Lord,

  for he has worked wonders.

His right hand, his holy arm,

  have brought him victory.

The Lord has shown his saving power,

  and before all nations he has shown his justice.

He has remembered to show his kindness

  and his faithfulness to the house of Israel.

The farthest ends of the earth

  have seen the saving power of our God.

Rejoice in God, all the earth.

  Break forth in triumph and song!

Sing to the Lord on the lyre,

  with the lyre and with music.

With trumpets and the sound of the horn,

  sound jubilation to the Lord, our king.

Let the sea resound in its fullness,

  all the earth and all its inhabitants.

The rivers will clap their hands,

  and the mountains will exult at the presence of the Lord,

  for he comes to judge the earth.

He will judge all the world in justice,

  and the peoples with fairness.

 

Second Reading - Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12 ©

Before the World Was Made, God Chose Us in Christ

Blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all the spiritual blessings of heaven in Christ.

Before the world was made, he chose us, chose us in Christ, to be holy and spotless, and to live through love in his presence, determining that we should become his adopted sons, through Jesus Christ for his own kind purposes, to make us praise the glory of his grace, his free gift to us in the Beloved, and it is in him that we were claimed as God’s own, chosen from the beginning, under the predetermined plan of the one who guides all things as he decides by his own will; chosen to be, for his greater glory, the people who would put their hopes in Christ before he came.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Luke 1:28

Alleluia, alleluia!

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!

Blessed art thou among women.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Luke – 1:26-38 ©

'I Am the Handmaid of the Lord'

The angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph, of the House of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. He went in and said to her, ‘Rejoice, so highly favoured! The Lord is with you.’ She was deeply disturbed by these words and asked herself what this greeting could mean, but the angel said to her, ‘Mary, do not be afraid; you have won God’s favour. Listen! You are to conceive and bear a son, and you must name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David; he will rule over the House of Jacob for ever and his reign will have no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘But how can this come about, since I am a virgin?’ ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you’ the angel answered ‘and the power of the Most High will cover you with its shadow. And so the child will be holy and will be called Son of God. Know this too: your kinswoman Elizabeth has, in her old age, herself conceived a son, and she whom people called barren is now in her sixth month, for nothing is impossible to God.’ ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’ And the angel left her.

 

A Homily – The Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Holy Day of Obligation (Year C)