Year C

2ND SUNDAY
OF CHRISTMAS

► Text of Sunday Reflection

“Be loyal to your family”
by Sr Máire O’Bryne FMA

Over the past few weeks many have been complaining of all the work and fuss involved in preparing for Christmas that only lasts one day. This may be true of the commercial side of the celebration, but the real Christmas is for keeps. This is the message that the readings of today bring home. The Gospel tells us that “The Word became flesh and He dwelt among us”, that is God became one of us, taking on both the beauty and the weakness of our humanity, and he intends to stay, to dwell, with us. The first reading says the same about “Wisdom”, which is a feminine title for the Spirit of God in the Jewish Scriptures. We read that Wisdom was invited to establish her tent among the chosen people. As a result, Paul tells us in the second reading, we are now God’s adopted children.

What does this mean in practice? It means that God was so in love with humanity that God wanted to be one of us, and forever. Jesus became human, and he still is one of us. If we take this as seriously as Jesus does, it means that everything in our world is sacred, nothing or no-one is a stranger to God. Since God stole into our world as a baby like any other everything has become part of God’s life. But we need to “stop and stare”. We need our eyes to be enlightened by the light that Jesus brought. Then we understand that: “Each tiny act is an extraordinary event in which heaven is given to us, in which we can give heaven to others. Whatever it is – the telephone that rings, the bus that is late, the headache or toothache, the conversations that spring up, the knock on the door – they are all the outer shell (the sacrament) of an amazing inner reality, the soul’s encounter with God’s beautiful grace”. (Madeleine Debriel, We ordinary people of the Streets).

In the light of today’s readings we can say, as Daniel O’Leary puts it, “Since Christmas, there is nothing too big or too small in our blessed and broken humanity to be revealed every Sunday as Real Presence” (Unmasking God, p. 125).

In this new year of 2016, may everyday be Christmas for us.

► Readings, Reflections & Prayers

Scripture readings: Association for Catholic Priests
– www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie
Reflections and Prayers by Fr Jack Finnegan SDB

1st Reading – Sirach 24:1-2, 8-12

Wisdom praises herself and tells of her glory in the midst of her people.
In the assembly of the Most High she opens her mouth,
and in the presence of his hosts she tells of her glory:
“Then the Creator of all things gave me a command,
and my Creator chose the place for my tent.
He said, “Make your dwelling in Jacob,
and in Israel receive your inheritance.”

Before the ages, in the beginning, he created me,
and for all the ages I shall not cease to be.
In the holy tent I ministered before him,
and so I was established in Zion.
Thus in the beloved city he gave me a resting place,
and in Jerusalem was my domain.
I took root in an honored people,
in the portion of the Lord, his heritage.

2nd Reading: Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-18

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.

He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.

I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints.

Gospel Reading: John 1:1-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John . He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John testified to him and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.”) From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.