December 30th, 2007
Today we celebrate the beautiful feast of the Holy Family. I mention this every year that religious, pious art has really distorted the harsh reality of the life of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. In today’s gospel we see them as a refugee family, fleeing for their very lives into a strange country. We know that when they eventually returned to Nazareth Joseph struggled to make a living as a carpenter, teaching Jesus the trade. We all know the story of Jesus disappearing for three days in Jerusalem, driving his parents to distraction – talking to them about having to be about his father’s business. Mary must have been distraught many times as she heard reports of Jesus and what he was preaching and how he was alienating the powers that be. Good Friday had to be the low point in the life of Mary as she saw her son betrayed, denied, rejected and finally put to death as a common criminal. We know there has been only one Holy Family and we know too they had their problems.
Family life is not what it used to be. Stability and permanency are hard to find. Just recently it was reported almost half the families in the country are single parent families and there was an article in the Star recently about the poverty of single mothers as they struggle to raise a family. We have the reality today of same sex couples raising families.
We can romanticize the family, thinking back of the good old days when divorce was a rarity. But as someone mentioned one time, in those days there were all kinds of marriage breakdowns, financial circumstance would not allow marriage break ups. Wives and mothers were at the mercy of their husbands.
No matter what form a marriage or family life may take, the advice of Paul to Colossians is so important for sustaining any relationships – if a relationship between husband and wife, parent and child, brothers and sisters is to be sound and healthy then there must be compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. We have to be willing to bear with one another’s foibles and weakness – none of us is perfect – we have to be willing to forgive another as we have been forgiven. Every day we try to keep the great commandment, “love one another as I have loved you”. It is not easy but with God’s grace and our willingness, families can be holy and healthy.
We belong to different families – we all belong to the family of the Church, the family of God’s people. But there is one family and our membership that I’d like to think about today. It is our membership in the family of all the living species on earth. We are part of the family of life that inhabits planet earth. For too long we have been out of sync with this family. We’ve presumed upon this family, ignored it, imperiled it by our treatment of its other members. We’ve divorced ourselves from our family – we imagine we don’t need the other members of this family of life; in fact we’ve become unaware of our belonging to this family.
Our ventures into space gave us a whole new image of planet earth and scientists have helped us to recover an ancient truth of which we lost sight. We are not over and above other life forms; we are one with them in the circle of life, inter-dependent on them for our own survival. As I’ve mentioned before – we did not weave the web of life, we are a strand in the web and what we do to the web we do to ourselves.
Someone has described our human species as being autistic in our relationship with the earth family, we are abnormally self absorbed, and we lost our ability to be responsive to the life forms that surround us. We fail to see and respond to our relationship with the rest of life. We are unmoved by the extinction of other species of life. I think we catch a glimpse of this with the failure of the nations of the world to really do anything substantial about global warming at the recent congress in Bali – we are unwilling to give up our sense of ownership or superiority of the earth and it limited resources. We are deaf to the cry of the wounded earth.
All this heavy stuff, frightening stuff but it is our reality, a reality we deny at our peril and the peril of future generations.
As we continue to celebrate this Mass on this feast of the Holy Family we pray that God’s blessings be on all families, the strong ones and the wounded ones, the happy ones and the unhappy ones. We pray too for a more expanded awareness of our belonging to the family life that is sustained by Earth. May we all be graced to do what we can, by the choice of our life styles and the curbing of our consumerism, to heal the woundedness we’ve inflicted on our family and come to find the compassion, the kindness, the humility and meekness we need so that we can live in harmony with all the other species of life that share this home with us, as family.
| Posted in Homily |
Please pick up your box of envelopes in our Gathering Space. It is important that you throw away all envelopes from previous years as your number may have been assigned to another family. Remember to enter your full name and address on each envelope so that we may allocate donations correctly for income tax purposes. If you do not have envelopes and would like a box, please contact the office.
Please help us to update our parish records by calling the office with your new information at 416 221-8866.
Marilyn, who has been on staff at St. Gabriel’s since 1972, will be retiring at the end of this year. We would like to thank her for her many years of service and ministry by having a reception in her honour Sunday January 6th from 3:00 – 5:00 PM in our Gathering Space. All are welcome.
Friday January 4th at 9:30 AM – 12 Noon Please see the time schedule on the table inside the Church.
Saturday, January 5th at 3:15 PM in the Library We welcome all who wish to share this time with us. For information contact Linda law 416 918 – 8029.
SUNDAY JANUARY 6th at 3:30 PM in the Gabriel Room For information contact Linda Law at 416 918 – 8029.
SUNDAY JANUARY 6th at 11:30 AM in the Gabriel Room On the first Sunday of each month, the Passionist Centre for Ecology and Spirituality facilitates a 30 minute reflection and discussion prompted by the readings for that Sunday’s liturgy. The guided reflection brings an ecological perspective to the readings. All are welcome.
There will be no Family Mass in January 2008. The next one will take place on February 3, 2008.
| Posted in Bulletin |
December 23rd, 2007
In our first reading and in our gospel we have these words, ‘look, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son and shall name him Emmanuel, God is with us.’
When Isaiah wrote these words he was not referring to Jesus. He was trying to encourage a frightened king named Ahaz. Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel had entered into an alliance against the southern kingdom of Judah. Together they lay siege to the city of Jerusalem and things were not going well for Ahaz. Isaiah was trying to encourage the king to trust in God. He gives him this famous sign, a sign the king distrusted. ‘A young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel’ The young woman was in fact Ahaz’s wife and her yet born baby would be sign that the Davidic line of kings would continue, would survive this attack from the north. The yet born baby would be a sign that God is with his people, a proof God did not abandon His people.
Centuries later when Matthew wrote his gospel he was writing for a Jewish Christian community, a community seen as apostates, traitors to the ancient faith of Israel. Their decision to follow Christ split families, caused them to be driven out of their synagogues, made them outcasts. Matthew wrote his gospel to convince his community that by accepting Jesus as Messiah they were being faithful to their Jewish heritage. In Matthew’s telling of the birth of Jesus and Joseph’s dream and his willingness to take the pregnant Mary as his wife he quotes Isaiah famous lines about the young pregnant woman having a baby to be named Emmanuel – God with us.
Matthew’s use of these words is far removed from what Isaiah originally intended. – Isaiah was thinking only of the immediate political situation and of his certainty that God would shortly intervene on the side of King Ahaz. But the message was true for the people of Isaiah’s time and the people of Matthew’s time. God is with us. Mathew’s community needed that assurance. It was under great pressure to return to their Jewish faith – they were a persecuted people. Matthew described the very condition of their lives when he wrote, ‘you will be handed over to the authorities, brought before judges,’ driven out by their own families. These good people needed to hear the uplifting news, “God is with us”. God is with us in Jesus, the Christ, Jesus descended from David according to the flesh.
The Christmas season is a very exciting, joyful time for many people. It really is a great time. But some people find it difficult to catch the spirit of the time. They are burdened with many troubles. People who have or had a death in the family at this time of the year find it hard to be merry and bright. The words “merry Christmas” stick in their throats. For families dealing with serious illness, unemployment, separation, this is not the best time of the year. For persons struggling with the darkness of depression, this is not the best time of the year. That’s why the words of Isaiah and Matthew are so important for such people to hear – God is with us. God is with us in our times of grief and sorrow, God is with us even when we have no idea of what to do or how to cope with the pressures of our lives. God is with us in our pain and hurt no matter what their source – God is with us even if we are more convinced of His absence than His presence. God is with us.
We can hope that in its wisdom the Church chose these readings just for such people.
As we continue to celebrate this Mass we can pray for ourselves and for all others who, because of the stressful circumstances of their lives, need to hear the consoling and truth filled words of today’s scripture: God is with us.
May the Christ who’s Birth and Life we celebrate, strengthen us all and bless us with the Peace and Joy of this Holy Season
Each year young people Grade 3 and up form a special choir. Children must be at the church by 6:00 PM on Christmas Eve. THERE IS ONLY ONE PRACTICE AND IT IS MANDATORY. PRACTICE IS ON SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23rd FROM 2:00 to 4:00 PM. For information call Marilyn Calderone at 905 889-6856.
DRESS REHEARSAL ON SUNDAY DECEMBER 23rd from 2:00 to 4:00 PM. S.K. to Grade 5 children are invited to participate in the pageant. Please call Anne Murphy at 416 512-0340. Children must be able to attend this DRESS REHEARSAL.
KYLE RODGERS
Total: $5,320
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Your prepared chicken (or turkey) rice casserole (frozen please) will be collected at the Masses next weekend for delivery to the Good Shepherd Centre. More volunteers are encouraged to get a copy of the casserole recipe and a pan and give it a try. For more information, please contact Irene Albrecht at 416-221-2791.
December 16th, 2007
I’d like all of us to reflect on the situation we find in today’s gospel. John the Baptist is in prison. He ended up behind bars because he was bold enough to tell King Herod he was living in a sinful marriage, married to his brother’s wife. John found himself at the mercy of a fickle king and a vengeful queen. John may have felt his life and his mission were falling apart; things weren’t going as he had hoped.
John was human like the rest of us. He liked having a following, crowds who listened to his every word. He was happy with all those people who repented and were baptized. He was proud of his band of disciples. John knew his mission was to prepare the way of the one who would come after him – he knew he was never meant to be the ‘main attraction’. But being human it wasn’t easy for him to let go of his popularity, his recognition as a prophet. Even though he sent his own disciples to Jesus, it probably pained him to see them go.
Scholars have different opinions as to whether John’s question “are you He Who is to come or should we look for another?” was to help his disciples to follow Jesus more closely or whether it was for his own personal assurance – have I been on the right track? John’s preaching was rather severe, pretty black and white. Jesus was more nuanced, gentler. Did John imagine Jesus was watering down the call for repentance, the call for greater fidelity to God? In those long days and frightful nights in prison, uncertain of his own future did John wonder ‘did I do the right thing? did I say the right words?’ Was John troubled by second guessing his life’s work?
Jesus’ answer to John disciples, an answer Jesus meant John to hear, points to the very works Jesus was doing. Works that point to the very intimate presence of God in the lives of the people, works Isaiah described to the beaten, discouraged people of his times to prove to them ‘ here is your God’. “the eyes of the blind shall be open, the ears of the deaf unstopped, the lame shall leap like the deer, the tongues of the speechless sing for joy.” Jesus message to John was, John you are not a failure, John you did the right thing.
I think there can be times in all our lives when we can relate to the feelings of doubt and bewilderment John endured in his prison cell. It’s often been called a mid-life crisis. When we look at how we’ve lived our lives, when we think of the decisions we’ve made or failed to make, when we think back on the unfulfilled dreams we’ve had for ourselves or for others, when we dreamed dreams that didn’t come true, we can often wonder and worry ‘have I wasted my life? Has it been worthwhile?’
How many of you who are grandparents worry about un-baptized grandchildren who are denied any contact with a faith that has been in the family for countless generations? How many of you are hurt because sons and daughters no longer live a faith life you tried so hard to pass on to them? Recently I was at a funeral in a Baptist church. The minister used the example of a relay race in which the baton of the faith is passed on from generation to generation and wondered, from his own pastoral experience, how often that baton is dropped by this generation and worried that it may never be picked up again.
These are John the Baptist times of our lives. I’ve mentioned before, we are all mistake making beings, no one bats 1000. We are all good people trying to do the best we can. In our times of doubt we should look to the good we’ve done, the love we’ve shown. We are being unfair to ourselves when we burden ourselves with the responsibility for the decisions other people have made in their lives.
Are you the one who is to come or should be look for another? Jesus’ reply was to point to the signs of God’s presence in the lives of the people, signs of love and healing and growth. When in our own way we ask the question, “Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another”? Did I do the right things, was I on the right track, did I make the right decision? I think He would have us be honest about the good we’ve done, the love we’ve shown, the healing we’ve brought about. I think He would encourage us to see the good and the generosity and the love in the lives of those who did not turn out as we would wished them to and appreciate the fact that they are on their own journey to God, a journey far different than our own, but a journey none the less.
As we continue to celebrate this Mass with the fearful, doubtful John the Baptist before us, we can pray for ourselves and for each other that in our own times of doubt and wonder we be blessed with the conviction, a confidence we did the best we could and leave the rest in hands of God – Who knows us better than we know ourselves and loves us better than we love ourselves.
Founded by St. Paul of the Cross, every Passionist takes a special vow to spend his or her energies in promoting remembrance of the sufferings of Jesus, the memory of the Cross, and reflection of the meaning of the Cross for the world.
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