Liturgical Colour : White
Numbers 6 : 22-27
Then YHVH spoke to Moses saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons and say to them : This is how you shall bless the people of Israel; you shall say : May YHVH bless you and keep you! May YHVH let His face shine on you, and be gracious to you! May YHVH look kindly on you, and give you His peace!”
“In that way they put My Name on the people of Israel and I will bless them.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, on this Sunday we celebrate together the feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Our Lord, with His blessed mother Mary and His foster-father St. Joseph. On this day we remember the special relationship that Our Lord and Saviour had with those who were closest to Him in His earthly existence, that is His mother who bore Him for nine months in her womb, and His foster-father who took care of Him as his own Son, despite not being his biological one.
First of all, we must understand that God Who is All-Powerful, Almighty and Infinite does not in fact need a family, for He exists before all ages and time, not created and has always been there, not bound by the natural laws and rules. To have a family is part of the natural law, and to have a parent and a child relationship, and for human beings, every family consists of the nucleus of a father and a mother, and having a child as a result of that blessed union of marriage.
Yet, God made Himself to be part of that Law, which He had given to us, being born into a family of man, the family consisting of Mary and St. Joseph, making Himself an integral part of the loving familial structure that we have just discussed earlier. That is because, He Who is God, the Son of God, did not just symbolically become Man, but taking up for Himself the full nature of Man, and thus conceived and being born in the flesh from His mother’s womb and having a family.
In the Holy Family, we see how God made Himself small and insignificant, in need of love as the Infant born and celebrated this Christmas season. He is the King of kings and Lord and Master of all the universe, and yet He chose to be a little and frail Infant in the manger, needing the protection and love from His mother Mary and from his foster-father St. Joseph. He therefore took up the full nature of man, our own nature, to show us what each and every one of us should become.
He grew up under the loving care and protection of His parents, and as the Scriptures mentioned, He listened to them and obeyed them. Through them He surely has learnt many important life skills and wisdom in life, and therefore, His humanity grew as we all had, and He became for us the model of the perfect Man, the New Adam through Whose obedience and love for God, His Father, became the source of our salvation.
Then with regards to the other members of the Holy Family, Mary shows us the role of a loving mother, who shows love, care and compassion for her Son, Who is of her own flesh and blood, having resided in her own womb for nine months. She was devoted to her Son, and took care of Him from His birth all the way throughout His life, and as we all know from the accounts of the Gospels, even to the final moments before His death on the cross.
Mary showed us the love of a mother, which she showed very generously to all especially her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. As a mother, she stood by her Son and caring for Him with love, and she also loved her husband, St. Joseph. And this same love, she has also shown to us all as well, by the virtue of us being the brothers and sisters in Christ, and in what the Lord had done, at the moment of His crucifixion, when He entrusted His mother Mary to St. John, His disciple, and vice versa.
Through that action, Mary became for us the motherly figure, our mother and loving woman who is always concerned about our own well-being. That is why, just recently she was recognised in her role as the Mother of the Church, and how she also appeared many times throughout history, in Guadalupe, in Lourdes, in Fatima and in other places, with the message and intention of calling us mankind, her children through Christ, to repent from our sins and to return to God’s grace.
Meanwhile, we must also not forget the important role that St. Joseph played in the Holy Family. As the father figure to the Lord Jesus, despite not being His biological father, but he took Him as his own legal Son, and treated Him as much as if He was his own Son. St. Joseph cared for the Lord Jesus and for Mary, as seen in his crucial presence when the time of census came, and both St. Joseph and Mary had to travel all the way from Nazareth to Bethlehem in Judea.
Mary could not have made the journey on her own, and St. Joseph was therefore important in the role he played, in protecting and caring for the need of Mary and the Baby in her womb along the long and difficult journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. And even when they reached Bethlehem, their problems did not cease, as all the inns and lodgings were full, and St. Joseph must have had a very difficult time in trying to secure a place for his wife Mary to give birth, as the time for her to give birth was imminent.
For his strong sense of righteousness and commitment to God, St. Joseph was therefore known also as the Protector of the Church, as the one who stands by the Church and protecting it, just as he watched over the Holy Family, protecting the young Lord Jesus and Mary, during the times of difficulty and persecution, especially when they had to flee to Egypt to get away from the hands of king Herod, who wanted to kill Jesus.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I am sure by now we have seen the great love that is present within the Holy Family, as each and every one of the members of the Holy Family truly have that love in them for one another. And this love is not the kind of love that we may be accustomed to, but pure, selfless and committed love that Jesus has for Mary His mother and St. Joseph, His foster-father, the love Mary had for her Son and for her husband, and the protective care and love St. Joseph had for Jesus and Mary.
And it is important that each and every one of us take the Holy Family as our example and inspiration. Each and every one of us are either a child, a son, a daughter, and can also be a father or a mother, or even grandfather, grandmother or a grandchild to our family members. And unless we follow the example of the Holy Family in their love for one another, that is when cracks and troubles can appear within our respective families.
The devil knows this very well, and this is where he is intensifying his efforts in trying to destroy the fabric and the foundation of our families. We must realise that Christian families are the very important basic units of our faith and the important part of God’s Church. In fact, each Christian families are smaller subset of the larger Church, and it is through a functioning and loving Church, that the faith is preserved well among us, God’s faithful people.
That is why the devil is busy at work trying to undermine the institution of Christian families and marriage, by making use of many temptations, pressing on us to succumb to the temptations of worldly pleasures, fornication, adultery and unfaithfulness in the family. He tempts us to be disobedient and to create problems within our families, which eventually can lead to the breakup of its integrity and structure. And once we are vulnerable, the devil and his forces will strike.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today let us all appreciate what we have in our families, and reflect on our actions and deeds thus far as members of our respective families, be it as a father, or as a mother, as a child or grandparent or grandchild. Have we truly made our families to be like the Holy Family of Our Lord Jesus Christ, His mother Mary and His foster-father St. Joseph? If we have not done so, that is probably why there were often problems within our families.
Now, brothers and sisters in Christ, let us all imitate the examples of the Holy Family in our own families, by placing God first and foremost at the centre of our family lives, and spending time together in prayer, if possible every day. For a family that prays and works together, God will be in their midst and will become the anchor of the family. And that is also when, true love will bloom within the family, and when the true, selfless and unconditional love between the members of the family will flourish, and not the selfishness often found in our world today.
Let us pray, that our Christian families will remain strong and faithful amidst the challenges and difficulties we may encounter in life. May all of us continue to model ourselves on the Holy Family, and imitate the great love present in the Holy Family, in our own families. May God bless us all and our families, and keep us all in His loving grace. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
Luke 2 : 41-52
Every year the parents of Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover, as was customary. And when Jesus was twelve years old, He went up with them, according to the custom of this feast. After the festival was over, they returned, but the Boy Jesus remained in Jerusalem, and His parents did not know it.
They thought He was in the company, and after walking the whole day they looked for Him among their relatives and friends. As they did not find Him, they went back to Jerusalem searching for Him, and on the third day they found Him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking questions. And all the people were amazed at His understanding and His answers.
His parents were very surprised when they saw Him, and His mother said to Him, “Son, why have You done this to us? Your father and I were very worried while searching for You.” Then He said to them, “Why were you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in My Father’s house?” But they did not understand this answer.
Jesus went down with them, returning to Nazareth, and He continued to be subject to them. As for His mother, she kept all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and age, and in divine and human favour.
Liturgical Colour : White
1 John 3 : 1-2, 21-24
See what singular love the Father has for us : we are called children of God, and we really are. This is why the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, we are God’s children, and what we shall be has not, yet, been shown. Yet, when He appears in His glory, we know, that we shall be like Him, for, then, we shall see Him as He is.
When our conscience does not condemn us, dear friends, we may have complete confidence in God. Then, whatever we ask, we shall receive, since we keep His commands and do what pleases Him. His command is, that we believe in the Name of His Son Jesus Christ, and that, we love one another, as He has commanded us.
Whoever keeps His commands remains in God and God in him. It is by the Spirit God has given us, that we know He lives in us.
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 83 : 2-3, 5-6, 9-10
How lovely are Your rooms, o YHVH of hosts! My soul yearns; pines, for the courts of YHVH. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.
Happy are those who live in Your house, continually singing Your praise! Happy, the pilgrims whom You strengthen, to make the ascent to You.
O YHVH of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, o God of Jacob! Look upon our shield, o God; look upon the face of Your Anointed!
Liturgical Colour : White
1 Samuel 1 : 20-22, 24-28
And Hannah became pregnant. She gave birth to a son and called him Samuel because she said : “I have asked YHVH to give him to me.” Once more Elkanah went to the Temple with his family to offer his yearly sacrifice and to pay his vow to YHVH. Hannah would not go along but she said to her husband, “I will bring the child there as soon as he is weaned. He shall be presented to YHVH and stay there forever.”
When the child was weaned, Hannah took him with her along with a three year old bull, a measure of flour and a flask of wine, and she brought him to YHVH’s house of Shiloh. The child was still young.
After they had slain the bull, they brought the child to Eli. Hannah exclaimed : “Oh, my lord, look! I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to YHVH. I asked for this child and YHVH granted me the favour I begged of Him. I think YHVH is now asking for this child. As long as he lives, he belongs to YHVH.”
And they worshipped YHVH there.
Liturgical Colour : White
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, after the long wait and expectation during the Advent season, today finally we come to the great celebration and joy that is Christmas, celebrating together as the whole Church, the occasion of the birth or the nativity, of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world and all of us. Today marks the day when more than two millennia ago, our Saviour was born in a stable just outside the small town of Bethlehem, as prophesied throughout the Scriptures.
On this day, we remember and rejoice at the moment when the world that has been enslaved for a long time by the power of sin and death, in darkness and separated from God’s grace and love finally saw the Light of its salvation, as Our Lord and King, in Whom lies our salvation, has come at last, fulfilling His promises and the Covenant He had made with us, from the beginning of time, all because of His love for each and every one of us.
It is the essence of true joy and love that is in Christmas, that the Scripture passages today have described His coming into the world, the Saviour Who is the Lord, His Word, the Son, Who is equal, consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, has taken up the flesh and appearance of Man, of us all, and uniting it to His divinity, that after nine months in His mother’s womb, just as all other men spend nine months in their mother’s womb, He was born and revealed into the world.
That is why, Jesus Christ Our Lord, born and celebrated on this Christmas day, more than two millennia ago, is both God and Man, united in His person, one person with two distinct and yet inseparable natures, Man and Divine. The One Who was born and celebrated in Christmas is not just a Man, for then His birth would have been an ordinary one among other births, and neither is He just a Divine, for how can God be born from man? Yet, this is the mystery of the Incarnation, that God willingly took up the fullness of man’s essence and appearance.
God chose to be born into this world, so that through His incarnation, He unites us all in our humanity, to His own humanity, and by sharing in the humanity of Christ, we share also in His obedience to the will of His Father, through which, He completed the mission which was given to Him, the salvation of mankind by His suffering and death on the cross. On the cross, the earthly mission of Christ that began with Christ, is completed.
Today, on Christmas day, we all ought to reflect on the great love which God has for each and every one of us. All of us are God’s most beloved, the pinnacle of all the things that He had created. He created us in nothing less than His own image, and gave us His Spirit and Wisdom. We have been intended to live in eternal bliss and joy with our God, but instead, we were overcome by pride and greed, tempted by Satan and fell into sin.
We should have suffered annihilation and destruction because of our sins, but this is where God’s love for us is so significant and powerful. He still loves us despite of our rebelliousness and refusal to appreciate His love and mercy. Sins of mankind do not change the fact that He loves us, for that is why He created us in the first place. If His love for us is not there, then there is no reason for us to be created in the first place.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, Christmas celebrates this love of God made Man, coming down upon us as the tangible and perfect show of His love for each and every one of us. In all of history we have seen how men are trying to be great, powerful and mighty, to become like God. That is how Satan made us fall, by drawing us to the pride, ego and greed that are within our hearts and minds.
But in this only occasion, of Christmas, we see for ourselves how God, the Lord and Almighty Master of all the universe, willingly humbled Himself and emptied Himself from all glory and majesty, that He, the Creator, out of love for us, assume the form of one of His own creation, in order to save us from our sins. He came into our midst, that we may share in His life, His suffering and death. He gathered our sins to Himself, and by offering, as the Eternal High Priest for all of us, His own Body and Blood, He brought for us eternal life and salvation.
That is why, just as we celebrate Christmas, we cannot forget that Christmas itself is linked very closely to another great feast of the Church, that is Easter. Without Easter there is no meaning to Christmas, and without Christmas, the celebration of Easter is not complete. And in that, we have received the revelation about the truth of God’s salvation, that He offered Himself on the altar of the cross, to be the source of atonement for our sins.
Unfortunately, as we see all around us, Christmas is getting more and more disconnected from its true purpose and reason. It is very sad to take note that while Christmas is the most popular celebration that is associated with our Christian faith, yet, at the same time, it is also the one that is most secularised in most of the celebrations we see around us. In many occasions, God is entirely absent and ignored in the Christmas celebrations and revelries, and the joy has become associated with materialism and human greed instead.
This is truly a sad state of affairs for us, brothers and sisters in Christ, as even many of us Christians are also celebrating Christmas in this manner. Many of us have been swayed by the temptations of the secular and worldly joys of Christmas, in all the merchandises, merrymaking and all the things that have become excessive, and unfortunately, also affecting us in how we celebrate our Christmas joy.
The truth is that, at Christmas, God is coming into our midst, and if we reflect on what has happened two millennia ago, we will be truly ashamed by many of our attitudes, our ambivalence and lack of interest in celebrating the true Christmas in our own communities and families. When Christ was about to be born in Bethlehem, have we noticed how so many of the inns and places where He could have come and stayed in, and be born in, were full or refused to accept Him? In the end, He had to be born in a dirty stable not even fit for human beings to be present in.
That, brothers and sisters in Christ, is a reflection of many of our hearts and minds, that have become so full of pride, greed and all other things that prevented us from being able to accept Him in our hearts, in our minds and into our beings. While God’s love for us is so great and vast, that He was willing to do everything, even to the point of humbling and emptying Himself to be born in such a state, and later on to suffer and die for us, but many of us have not loved Him in the same manner.
Instead, we love the temptations of power, of glory, of pleasure, of greed and of other things that are present in this world. We love all the merrymaking and all the excesses of the celebrations, we worry more about how we are going to show off our vanity and wealth to each other, boast about the gifts we are to receive and even what we are giving to others, instead of remembering why is it that we celebrate Christmas in the first place.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, today, we are called to return to the true roots of our Christmas joy and celebration, that is by putting Christ once again in the centre of all of our merrymaking, celebrations and joy. We are called to remember the love by which we have been generously given by God, our loving Father and Creator. Then, we are also called to show the same love in our actions and interactions with those who are around us.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, the true joy of our Christmas should be shared with those who have little or no opportunity to be joyful in this blessed time of Christmas. We should be sensitive to their plight, and be moved to help them just as the Lord had shown the same love and compassion towards us. And that is how we appreciate and live the true joy of Christmas, not the excesses and selfish desire to satisfy our own ego and pride and greed, but in the sharing of our joys and blessings.
Today, let us open our hearts and minds, with a renewed faith and love, day after day, from now on, that we will no longer close ourselves from God Who is willing to enter into our lives. Let us all turn towards Him filled with a newfound love for Him, and devote ourselves wholeheartedly to the Lord. May the Lord, Who was born into our midst more than two thousand years ago, in the town of Bethlehem, because of His great love for us, continue to love us all, and that we may also love Him in the same manner, from now on. May God bless us all, now and forevermore. Amen.
Liturgical Colour : White
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 were made through Him, and without Him nothing came to be. Whatever has come to be, found life in Him; life, which for human beings, was also light, light that shines in darkness, light that darkness could not overcome.
A man came, sent by God; his name was John. He came to bear witness, as a witness to introduce the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but a witness to introduce the Light; for the Light was coming into the world, the true Light that enlightens everyone. He was in the world, and through Him the world was made, the very world that did not know Him.
He came to His own, yet His own people did not receive Him; but to all who received Him, He empowers to become children of God, for they believe in His Name. These are born, but not by seed, or carnal desire, nor by the will of man : they are born of God.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; and we have seen His glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father : fullness of truth and loving-kindness. John bore witness to Him openly, saying, “This is the One Who comes after me, but He is already ahead of me, for He was before me.”
From His fullness we have all received, favour upon favour. For God had given us the Law through Moses, but Truth and Loving-kindness came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God-the-only-Son made Him known : the One, Who is in and with the Father.
Alternative reading (shorter version)
John 1 : 1-5, 9-14
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 were made through Him, and without Him nothing came to be. Whatever has come to be, found life in Him; life, which for human beings, was also light, light that shines in darkness, light that darkness could not overcome.
For the Light was coming into the world, the true Light that enlightens everyone. He was in the world, and through Him the world was made, the very world that did not know Him.
He came to His own, yet His own people did not receive Him; but to all who received Him, He empowers to become children of God, for they believe in His Name. These are born, but not by seed, or carnal desire, nor by the will of man : they are born of God.
And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us; and we have seen His glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father : fullness of truth and loving-kindness.
Liturgical Colour : White
Hebrews 1 : 1-6
God has spoken in the past to our ancestors through the prophets, in many different ways, although never completely; but in our times He has spoken definitively to us through His Son. He is the one God appointed Heir of all things, since through Him He unfolded the stages of the world.
He is the Radiance of God’s Glory and bears the stamp of God’s hidden being, so that His powerful Word upholds the universe. And after taking away sin, He took His place at the right hand of the Divine Majesty in heaven. So He is now far superior to Angels just as the Name He received sets Him apart from them.
To what Angel did God say : You are My Son, I have begotten You today? And to what Angel did He promise : I shall be a Father to Him and He will be a Son to Me? On sending His Firstborn to the world, God says : “Let all the Angels adore Him.”
Liturgical Colour : White
Psalm 97 : 1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6
Sing to the Lord a new song, for He has done wonders; His right hand, His holy arm, has won victory for Him.
The Lord has shown His salvation, revealing His justice to the nations. He has not forgotten His love nor His faithfulness to Israel.
The farthest ends of the earth all have seen God’s saving power. All you lands, make a joyful noise to the Lord, break into song and sing praise.
With melody of the lyre and with music of the harp. With trumpet blast and sound of the horn, rejoice before the King, the Lord!
petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang 