Inner Joy
It’s only 4 days till Christmas Eve. Yesterday, Saturday 18th December, was the last day of posting 2nd class if your Christmas cards are to reach their destination before Christmas. Are you ready to celebrate the Christmas Season? Are we, as parish, ready to celebrate Christmas? Many of you have booked your tickets for one of the six Masses and others of you are staying at home and joining us “live streaming”.
It is important that we have an open heart to welcome Christ. The watch word in Advent is Maranatha. This Aramaic word is found in 1 Corinthians 16:22. It can either be translated: “the Lord has come” or “Come Our Lord”. One way to prepare ourselves for to welcome our Lord into our heart is by celebrating the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession). This coming Wednesday there will be a Reconciliation Service at 7:30pm.
Besides Fr John and myself, there will be a visiting priest hearing confessions. Also on Wednesday between 10:30 and 11:30 both Fr John and myself will be available for the Sacrament of Penance.
Music is such an integral part of our liturgy. We can all enjoy and join in the singing but behind our masks still. The words to our music will be available on our website. We have found people to play the organ and provide music for all Masses except 8am on Christmas Day. We are also having a Carol service on Tuesday at 6pm.
In our Gospel for this weekend, Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth. The two pregnant mothers meet. And Elizabeth says; “From the moment your greeting reached my ears, the child in my womb leapt for joy”. John greeted Jesus with joy. Joy is an important part of this coming festival. Joy is more than a temporary feeling. It is a feeling of inner gladness, delight or rejoicing. Even though we are experiencing struggles at this time of world pandemic, God sees our hearts and knows our heartaches and fears but he call us to inner joy and even through our own unhappy circumstances, we can find joy in the midst of the storm with our faith in God.
“At night comes tears, but dawn brings joy.” Psalm 30
As followers of Christ, we rejoice, because in him, we have redemption.
“When I sing to you my lips shall shout for joy, and my soul which you have redeemed.”Psalm 71 :23
The reason we can have joy is because we have eternal hope in Christ.
