Category Archives: Weekly newsletter

A virgin shall conceive

With our carol services and Rorate Mass, we have already heard St Luke’s account of the Annunciation several times this Advent, and it’s our Gospel for Mass today (1:36-28), the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

In Isaiah chapter 7 we hear about how “a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel” (7:14). Then in the Gospel of the Annunciation we learn how the prophecy is to be fulfilled. After all, how can a virgin conceive a child, because then she would no longer be a virgin? The paradox is unlocked in the Gospel. The virgin of Nazareth conceives by the power of the Holy Spirit, and she doesn’t just conceive any child, but One Whose human nature is hypostatically united to His divine nature, so that He can truly be called “Emmanuel” – which means, “God with us”. That is God in the flesh, God in the midst of mankind. And His first dwelling is the spotless womb of the most pure Virgin Mary, immaculate from the moment of her conception in the womb of her mother, St Anne.

This is a powerful reminder to us of God’s activity, because without His action, this miraculous conception couldn’t have happened. In other words, He initiated it – He intervened in history to bring about our salvation. God desires our salvation and arranges the events of history to help bring it about, including taking on our human flesh and then suffering in it. This was the purpose of His coming. In the past, people had spoken of God in all kinds of different ways, and God has spoken to us in many different ways. But with the Incarnation something new has happened – He has actually appeared among us and is visible to us. God is no longer merely an idea. We no longer have to form a picture of Him in our minds on the basis of mere words, because He has now actually appeared in human form. As we read in the letter to the Hebrews, “In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days, He has spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world” (1:1)

May God bless you all, and on behalf of Fr David and myself, I wish you a very Merry Christmas (Mary, Christ, Mass) and a blessed New Year.

Fr Paul Gillham, IC

Click here to view/download the complete newsletter 

Click here to view/download the liturgy for the 4th Sunday of Advent

Related Images:

St Francis of Assisi and the Crib

Today, as well as being ‘Gaudete’ Sunday is also ‘Bambinelli’ Sunday when it has become traditional to bless the figure of the Baby JESUS for your cribs at home. This tradition was begun by Pope St John Paul II when the children and adults would bring their Baby JESUS figures to be blessed by the Pope in St Peter’s Square on the Third Sunday of Advent, and it continues to this day.

The origin of the Christmas Crib is attributed to St Francis of Assisi (1181-1226). He had recently been in the Holy Land where he had visited the traditional birthplace of Our Lord. So he was inspired to recreate the scene in the woods of Greccio near Assisi, on Christmas Eve. St Francis had a friend by the name of Giovanni Velitta to whom he said, “If you desire that we should celebrate this year’s Christmas together at Greccio, go quickly and prepare what I tell you; for I want to enact the memory of the Infant who was born at Bethlehem and how He was bedded in the manger on hay between a donkey and an ox. I want to see all of this with my own eyes.” Giovanni did exactly as Francis asked. Hay was brought in and even the ox and the donkey! Then all the villagers came with lighted candles and torches and sang hymns. Holy Mass was celebrated at which Francis, who was a Deacon, solemnly chanted the Gospel and preached, where he “spoke charming words concerning the birth of the poor King, and the little town of Bethlehem.” It is recorded that after Mass, Francis went to the crib and stretched out his arms as though the Baby JESUS was there, and that the Babe appeared and the empty manger was filled with the radiance of the new-born King.

St Francis, by creating the crib, wanted to show us what God had done for us and how poor He became for us. Our Lord was not a Divine Person hiding behind the facade of a human being. He truly became one of us and “emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “His poverty enriches those who embrace it and Christmas brings joy and peace to those who, like the shepherds in Bethlehem, accept the Angel’s words: “Let this be a sign to you: in a manger you will find an Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes” (Luke 2: 12). This is still the sign for us too, men and women of the third millennium. There is no other Christmas.” So may our cribs at home help us to come to a much deeper understanding of God’s great humility and what He has done for us.  And let us ask Our Lady to help us enter into the true spirit of Christmas, the coming of the God Man into our world and into our lives.

Fr Paul Gillham, IC

Click here to view/download the complete newsletter

Click here to view/download the liturgy for the Third Sunday of Advent

Related Images:

Prepare the way of the Lord 

With Christmas falling on a Monday this year we only have three weeks of Advent, so we must make the most of this time. Our Gospel reading today is the beginning of Mark’s Gospel (1:1-8) where we have this extraordinary character of John the Baptist, dressed in camel-skin, feeding on locusts and wild honey, preaching in the desert, and calling everyone to repentance. We are told that this is to prepare a way for the Lord and to make His paths straight. This doesn’t refer to anything physical. We’re not suddenly going to get rid of all winding roads! Rather it’s a matter of preparing our hearts and souls for the coming of Our Lord at Christmas. That’s the point of this reading. 

So is there anything standing between you and God that needs to be got rid of? What are your crooked ways? If you were to stand before the judgement seat of God today, what would He hold against you? Whatever it is, that’s what you are called to try and eliminate. This is how we make the Lord’s paths straight and prepare for His coming.

Advent, therefore, is a very good time to make a good and humble confession of our sins in the Sacrament of Penance. We can easily dream up all kinds of excuses not to do so. For example, “Why do I have to confess my sins to a priest?” Well, Our Lord made the Apostles His first priests and commanded them to preach penance to the whole world. He gave to them and to their successors the power of forgiving sins in His name when He said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained” (John 20:22). He wills us to confess to His priests so that we may obtain forgiveness of our sins and be delivered from eternal punishment. Is it possible to be forgiven outside of Confession? Yes, but only in extraordinary circumstances when there is no priest available and we make an act of perfect contrition, which can be very hard to do – to have deep sorrow for our sins purely out of love of God and for having offended Him, and even in this case we must have the intention to confess to a priest at the first available opportunity. 

Another excuse is, “I used to go to Confession but it didn’t stop me sinning again.” We could also say there was a time when I washed but it didn’t prevent me from getting dirty again. I used to eat but now I’m hungry again! The soul is like the body and it has to be cared for. Our Lord said, “Only he who perseveres to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13). Just as you wash and eat for today, so you need to take care of your soul for today.

A further objection might be, “My sins are far too terrible for God to forgive.” On the contrary, there is no sin too great for God to forgive if we tell Him we’re sorry. This is a matter of faith. JESUS pardoned great sinners throughout the Gospel. Think of the woman caught in adultery (John 8:1-11), Zacchaeus the tax collector (Luke 19:1-10) and the thief on the cross (Luke 23: 39-43) to name a few. If your sins are great, throw yourself at the feet of JESUS like the prodigal son in the parable (Luke 15:11-32). Have no fear. Repent, receive pardon and be at peace.

People are sometimes so foolish as to think they will confess as they are about to die and not before. I say foolish because generally people die as they live, and so the way to die well is to live well. Don’t allow yourself to remain in mortal sin out of pride. And what if you die before a priest can get to you? What if you die suddenly in an accident? We hear all the time of people dying unexpectedly. To think you will confess only on your deathbed is taking a great risk with your eternal salvation.

God’s mercy is a great gift. So don’t hold back from letting Him restore you to a state of grace should you have lost it, and reconciling you to Himself. And the way God wants you to do that is through the ministry of His priests. “Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven; whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.”                                      

Fr Paul Gillham, IC

Click here to view/download the complete newsletter

Click here to view/download the liturgy for the 2nd Sunday of Advent

Related Images:

God’s answer  –  a child!

Everyone is rooting for an unborn child, then exploding in celebration when he is born. It’s that time of year again. The yearly December pro-life celebration that has everyone rooting for an unborn child, then exploding in celebration when he is born. Everyone gets involved: Our town and city streets are redecorated to celebrate the birth to come. Music in shops celebrate an impoverished mother and adoptive father who committed to carrying the child to term. And everywhere you look, corporations entice you with new ways to celebrate a refugee couple giving birth far from home. 

Christmas is the biggest pro-life celebration in the world. Advent reminds us why this joy ignited thousands of years of Christmas celebrations. Advent is the season of darkness. It takes place in the literal darkest days of the year, and it is filled with the words of prophets who are deeply unsettled about the state of the world, “Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!” Isaiah cries. He sees “a root from the stump of Jesse” and predicts “a child will be born to us.” 

In Advent, a dark world longs for a saviour, and the great Jewish prophet sees what God will do: He will send a baby. Into this darkness, God sent an angel to Mary in Nazareth. The angel who visits Mary gives her remarkable news: She will be pregnant with a child who will receive an eternal kingdom. The story has many layers of meaning, but one thing it spells out is that unborn children and infants are critically important. As if to emphasize that point, the angel tells Mary that her relative, Elizabeth, is also pregnant, in her sixth month. Mary goes “in haste” to her house in the “hill country of Judea,” a trip that, even if you hurried, would have taken at least a week or two. After that, Mary stayed at Elizabeth’s, presumably, for at least three months. We now know what this would mean in Jesus’ development. Around day 20, Jesus’ heart began to beat — the Sacred Heart’s first activity. A month later, all of his bodily systems would be present, including little fingers and toes. But on the day Mary first arrived — when Jesus was just 10 to 20 days old — none of that had happened. What was Jesus like then? At the earliest stage, a human embryo is already a boy or girl, with DNA setting life expectancy and other traits.  

Jesus the embryo, was already Jesus, but He didn’t look at all like Jesus yet.

And so it was that, before the Sacred Heart had begun to beat, before the hands of Christ that would break bread had formed, before the feet that would walk on water had toes, Mary arrived at Elizabeth’s house. And Luke’s Gospel tells us that “She entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb.” Mary brought the unborn Jesus to Elizabeth’s house, and as soon as she arrived, an unborn child reacted to the sound of her voice. A baby more than six months in utero witnessed to Jesus Christ, who was just a few days in utero. 

This astounding witness to the unborn Jesus was greatly amplified after Jesus was born.

Before his birth, an unborn prophet witnessed to him with a jump. After birth, a multitude of angels  proclaimed: “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Men came from the Far East with gifts and asked, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the East and have come to worship him.” 

The birth of Jesus is so important, it remains part of Christian spirituality to this day. Jesus tells Nicodemus, and us, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” St. Paul explains that this birth by baptism makes us adopted sons of God, like Christ, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. … When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” 

So, this Advent and Christmas, let’s pray for the unborn.

A great and powerful king was once in the same position as them, and He came to save us all!

Fr David Jones OLW

Click here to view/download the complete newsletter

Click here to view/download the liturgy for the 1st Sunday of Advent

Related Images:

The Reign of Christ the King

Today is the Feast of Christ the King and it is the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Next Sunday we begin the new year with the First Sunday of Advent. The Feast of Christ the King is not just some sentimental feast for Catholics and neither is Catholicism just one religion among many who happens to have this man “Christ” as its head. It is the one true Faith. Christ is King of the whole universe, the whole cosmos, both in the supernatural and in the natural order because He is God. And as such He is King and Lord of all, and therefore has rights over all.

Now it’s true that throughout recent centuries, in what was once Christendom, revolutionaries have removed Christ from His rightful Throne. Those determined to establish the New World Order have decided to build their kingdoms without Christ. Today, politics wants nothing to do with God. They refuse to enthrone Christ and so they reject His Bride which is the Catholic Church. They seek to tear Him out of society for good. They essentially reject Christ when they think it’s their place to determine the moral code and promote things like abortion, euthanasia, fornication, transgenderism, homosexual activities and so on. They define what is right and wrong and then try and impose it on us. Although some politicians may express religious belief in private, essentially we are atheistic. Courts today even try to prohibit public prayer and more recently even private prayer. To forbid public prayer to God is to violate His rights, because God has the right to receive public worship from every one of us. Furthermore, Christ’s sovereignty is denied when people refuse to allow God into public discussion out of fear of offending others.

But God is God and so civil society must acknowledge Him and obey Him, because it is God’s plan to bring the whole of humanity to Himself. This is why Christ came, so that we could be brought back to God through His Mystical Body, which is the Catholic Church. And societies must acknowledge this and Christ’s Kingship. By doing so, our supernatural end (Heaven) is acknowledged.

God also wills that Church and State, though they be distinct, are never to be divorced, but rather that they should collaborate to bring about Christ’s reign on earth. This would be where the Ten Commandments, the Gospel and the natural law become the foundational guide of society and for legislators who write the moral law.

So we have an obligation to work for the Kingdom of God and to do our part in converting the world to Christ. That is the mission Our Lord gave to His Church. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matt 28:18-20). This is certainly very daunting, but with God all things are possible. After all, Christians converted pagan Rome in the past, so why not now? At the Last Judgment, God’s Kingdom will be fully established, and all other religions and all secular governments will pass away. In the meantime, the reign of Christ the King must begin with each one of us. By trying to rebuild a truly Catholic culture in our homes and in our families, His reign will then flow out into society.

Fr Paul Gillham, IC

Click here to view/download the complete newsletter

Click here to view/download the liturgy for Christ the King

Related Images: