Feast of the Holy Family (2019)

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish

OUR VISION

To be a vibrant Catholic Community 

unified in its commitment 

to growing disciples for Christ 

Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney 
Mob: 0417 279 437 
mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence:  Fr Phil McCormack  
Mob: 0437 521 257
pmccormack43@bigpond.com
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310 
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160 
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair:  Felicity Sly
Mob: 0418 301 573
fsly@internode.on.net

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au

Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au

Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com 

Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.

Parish Office re-opens Tuesday 28^th January, 2020

         

PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER

Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia 
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another 
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other 
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future, 
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.   
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.

Parish Prayer

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for gathering us together 
and calling us to serve as your disciples.

You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission

  of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.

Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will

 for the spiritual renewal of our parish.

Give us strength, courage, and clear vision 
as we use our gifts to serve you.

We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,

and ask for her intercession and guidance 
as we strive to bear witness

 to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.

Amen.

Our Parish Sacramental Life

Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.

Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.

Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.

Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program

Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests

Reconciliation:  Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am), Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)

Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus - in recess until 7th February
Benediction with Adoration Devonport:  First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass - in recess until 7th February

Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone

Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – In Recess until Mon 13th January. For information: Michael Gaffney 0447 018 068

Weekday Masses 30th December, 2019 - 3rd January 2020

Monday:         12noon Devonport
Tuesday:         9:30am Penguin 
Wednesday:   9:30am Latrobe
                      12noon Devonport 

Thursday        12noon Devonport

Friday:           9:30am Ulverstone
                      12noon Devonport

                                                                                                                       

Next Weekend 4th -5th January 2020  

Saturday:          9:30am Ulverstone
Saturday Vigil:  6:00pm Devonport - LWwC

                        6:00pm Penguin

Sunday Mass:    8:30am Port Sorell

                        9:00am Ulverstone - LWwC

                      10:30am Devonport

                      11:00am Sheffield - LWwC
                       5:00pm Latrobe

                            

Readings This Week: The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary & Joseph – Year A

 First Reading: Sirach 3: 2-6, 12-14

Second Reading:  Colossians 3: 12-21

Gospel: Matthew 2: 13-15, 19-23

PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAYS GOSPEL

It may be that the hectic days around Christmas are now over, or perhaps the past few days have been quiet and reflective. 

However I feel, I take a few moments to put aside all that prevents me from being close to the Lord. 

I trust he is with me, always ready to speak to me in this time of prayer. 

I read the familiar text, trying to imagine the scene ... the different characters speaking to each other, sharing information. 

I see the different ways God is speaking to them: through a star; through prophets; in a dream. 

I ponder. 

When have I been aware of God speaking to me? 

Maybe it was through a person sharing an important piece of news? 

Perhaps I can see now how much this changed my outlook on life, even if I did not realise it at the time? 

I tell the Lord about all this in my own words, and give thanks. 

The wise men, the chief priests and the scribes freely shared what they knew, unaware of the trap Herod was setting for them. 

If it helps, I imagine myself telling the story for the first time as if to a small child. 

I notice the anxiety in their eyes: what will happen to these people? 

Will Herod manage to find Jesus and harm him? 

Then I see the relief on their face as they learn God has spoken to the wise men in a dream, and told them not to tell the evil king what they know. 

Once again, I look at my own life, and perhaps remember times when I have kept quiet about something that I felt might harm someone else. 

What happened? 

How did I sense it was better not to share what I knew? 

In what way did God speak to me then? 

When the time comes to conclude my prayer, I thank the Lord for being with me and for guiding my steps in a ‘different way’.

Readings Next Week: The Epiphany of the Lord

First Reading: Isaiah 60:1-6

Second Reading:  Ephesians 3:2-3,5-6

Gospel: Matthew 2:1-12

                            

Your prayers are asked for the sick: 

Chris Fielding, Margaret Becker, Erin Kyriazis, Carmel Leonard, Philip Smith, Frank McDonald & …

Let us pray for those who have died recently:

Geoff Ranson, Kevin Barker, Austin Fagan, Peter Williams, David Cole

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 26th December – 1st January, 2020

Eileen Burrows, Jean Matthews, James Coad, Kathleen Sheehan, Brian Salter, Grant Dell, Mavis Wise, Claud Coad, Thelma Batt, Melville Williams, Barbara George, Rob Belanger, Pearl Sheridan, Williams Cousins, Bill Kruk, Ian Stubbs, Tori Enniss.       

May the souls of the faithful departed, 

through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

                            

Weekly Ramblings

This is my final ramblings for 2019 and I have to admit that it has been a challenging year – but I believe that that might just about be the same for everyone. There have also been some really great moments and some wonderful experiences of the joy of living so I am more than happy to say that I have been richly blessed.

We farewelled Kanishka Perera (aka ‘Smithy’) on Thursday after his all too brief pastoral placement. He heads off with the Tasmanian Contingent to the Immaculata Summer School early next week and then has a few weeks holiday in Hobart before returning to the Seminary to begin Year 4 of his studies. We wish him every blessing and our prayers for this next stage of his journey.

As part of the Diocesan Youth Ministry Team Fr Paschal will also be heading off to the Immaculata Summer School and will be away for about two weeks so that will mean that there will be Lay Led Liturgies over the next two weekends (4th/5th & 11th/12th) – the particular times and centres are included in the Mass Timetable in the newsletter.

Fr Paschal asked that a photo taken at the final Youth Gathering for the year might be included in the newsletter but with the reduced Summer format the photo and Thanks from the youth for the support of the Parish can be found on the Church Notice Boards.

Take care on the roads and in your homes, 

                            

   

The Mersey Leven Parish Youth Group express their best wishes and thanks to all members of our Parish after a great 2019 and our prayers for an even better 2020.

                                        

Letter From Rome

Pope Francis steps up his campaign for immigrants

Large outdoor Mass is latest effort to turn world's attention to migrants and refugees by Robert Mickens, Rome. December 26, 2019. 

This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete access is via paid subscription 

"Xenophobia and aporophobia today are part of a populist mentality that leaves no sovereignty to the people. Xenophobia destroys the unity of a people, even that of the people of God.

"No one who has been following the activities of Pope Francis these past six or so years will be surprised by this condemnation of distain for foreigners and the poor.

The 82-year-old pope made the remarks during a long conversation with fellow Jesuits during a pastoral visit to the East African country of Mozambique in early September.

He noted that xenophobic people "are tempted by a form of sterilized sociology, where you consider a country as if it were an operating theater, where everything is sterilized: my race, my family, my culture… as if there were the fear of dirtying it, staining it and infecting it."

'Mixed-race society brings growth and new life'

Francis spoke out strongly against those who are trying "to stop this very important process of mingling cultures." And he argued that, instead, racial mixing actually brings growth, new life and originality.

"The mixing of identities is what we have experienced, for example, in Latin America," he said.

"There we have everything: Spanish and Indian, the missionary and the conqueror, the Spanish lineage, people's mixed heritage," continued the pope, himself a native Argentine born of Italian immigrants.

In his conversation with the Jesuit community in Mozambique he also took the opportunity to repeat, once more, a leitmotif he inherited from John Paul II – the call to build bridges of inclusion instead of walls of exclusion.

"Building walls means condemning yourself to death," Francis said. "We can't live asphyxiated by a culture as clean and pure as an operating theater, aseptic and not microbial."

Although the pope did not say so specifically, one can assume that he was referring – at least in part – to what he sees as a disturbing and sinful attitude towards migrants and refugees.

The right pope for this moment of mass migration

While previous popes have also raised their voices on behalf of these displaced and migratory peoples, none has done so with the force and passion of Francis.

There is a good reason for this. Not only is he a child of immigrants, he also finds himself at the helm of a global Church at a time of increasing migration patterns.

It is estimated that more than 200 million people – mostly from Latin America, South Asia and Africa – are migrants both within and across continents. And the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is projecting the number to more than double to 405 million by 2050.

A number of national leaders around the world – led by President Donald Trump of the United States – have begun to loudly and forcefully implement closed-door policies that drastically limit the acceptance of migrants, including those seeking asylum or refuge for whatever reason.

Mr. Trump campaigned for the presidency with a promise to build a wall on the US-Mexican border. And he has intentionally whipped up xenophobic, racist and exaggerated nationalistic sentiments among his most loyal supporters. And he is not the only world leader to do so.

But there is no one on the global stage that has stood up against the closed-borders, "build the wall" rhetoric more than Pope Francis.

He did so from the very start of his pontificate when, on what should have been the start of his summer holidays, he traveled to the island of Lampedusa to express his solidarity with refugees and migrants making their way from North Africa to Europe.

The July 8, 2013 visit threw a spotlight on the plight of these "boat people" and the thousands of others who, over the past several years, have perished at sea while making the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean.

Migrants and refugees: a growing concern for the papacy

From the moment of the Lampedusa trip it became clear that Francis was determined to make the issue of migrants and refugees, with all its different contours, a top priority in his pontificate.

But he did not invent this as a pastoral concern. In fact, the Vatican has been trying to speak to the world's conscience about these people on the move since at least the early part of the 20th century.

Back in 1914, Pope Benedict XV initiated an annual "World Migration Day" to stimulate financial and spiritual aid for Italian emigrants during the First World War.

The Vatican gave World Migration Day a broader and more international connotation in 1952 in the aftermath of World War II. It urged particular Churches around the world to choose a date to celebrate the day during the liturgical year. In Rome it was initially marked on the First Sunday of Advent.

Each year the Vatican's Secretary of State would issue a message in the pope's name to mark the occasion. But in 1985 that changed significantly when John Paul II began penning the annual message himself to express his "solicitude and concern" for what he called "one of the most complex and dramatic events in history: migration."

John Paul II raises the profile

The Polish pope had already written Laborem exercens (Through work), the first of his three social encyclicals. And he devoted an entire section of that 1981 document to the rights and dignity of those who emigrate permanently or seasonally for employment opportunities

The Pontifical Commission for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, which became a pontifical council in 1988, went to great efforts to promote the pope's annual message for World Migration Day. Each year John Paul would focus on a different aspect or category of migrants.

Then in 2003 he issued the first message for what would, from then on, be called the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.

It was a summons to eradicate racism, xenophobia and exaggerated nationalism. And it is extraordinary in reading it some 16 years later how much it presages the words and attitudes of the current pope.

Francis takes a further step

The popes had never celebrated a special Mass to mark the occasion, but limited themselves to reminding people of the World Day during the Sunday Angelus. Since 2005 that was always in mid-January on the Second Sunday after Epiphany.

But at the request of various bishops' conferences, Pope Francis decided to move the celebration of the World Day of Migrants and Refugees to the last Sunday of September.

And to mark the occasion he decided to preside at a multi-lingual Mass outdoors in St. Peter's Square. It is only the second time that there's been a papal liturgy on the World Day. The first was in January 2018.

There are striking features to this year's celebration, including the opening hymn in Spanish, the Gloria in Lingala (Congolese) and an offertory hymn in Sinhalese. Prayers will also be featured in Chinese, Swahili and Arabic, among others.

"It's not just about migrants." That's the title of Francis' written message for this year's commemoration. The pope says the issue of migration is also about "our fears… charity… (and) our humanity." It is "a question of seeing that no one is excluded," "it is about putting the last in first place" and a matter of seeing "the whole person, about all people."

Francis writes: "Our response to the challenges posed by contemporary migration can be summed up in four verbs: welcome, protect, promote and integrate. Yet these verbs do not apply only to migrants and refugees.

"They describe the Church's mission to all those living in the existential peripheries, who need to be welcomed, protected, promoted and integrated…

"In a word, it is not only the cause of migrants that is at stake; it is not just about them, but about all of us, and about the present and future of the human family."

Perhaps it has taken a pope from the New World, the first one ever, to see clearly the great opportunities – beyond the negative aspects – that are inherent in this vast movement of peoples across countries and continents.

He is certainly doing all in his power to share that view with others. And it is because of this that Pope Francis is loved by some and loathed by others.

                                      

Seeing Christ Everywhere

This article is taken from the Daily Email sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM from the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the email by clicking here 

We need to look at Jesus until we can see the world with his eyes. In Jesus Christ, God’s own broad, deep, and all-inclusive worldview is made available to us.

Too often, we have substituted the messenger for the message. As a result, we spent a great deal of time worshiping the messenger and trying to get other people to do the same. Too often this obsession became a pious substitute for actually following what Jesus taught—he did ask us numerous times to follow him (for example, Matthew 4:19; Mark 10:21; John 1:43), and never once to worship him.

If you pay attention to the text, you’ll see that the Apostle John offers a very evolutionary notion of the Christ message. Note the active verb that is used here: “The true light that enlightens every person was coming (erxomenon) into the world” (John 1:9). In other words, we’re talking not about a one-time Big Bang in nature or a one-time Incarnation in Jesus, but an ongoing, progressive movement continuing in the ever-unfolding creation. Incarnation did not just happen two thousand years ago. It has been working throughout the entire arc of time and will continue. This is expressed in the common phrase the “Second Coming of Christ.” Unfortunately, this was often heard as a threat (“Wait till your Dad gets home!”). It could more accurately be spoken of as the “Forever Coming of Christ,” the ongoing promise of eternal resurrection and the evolution of consciousness into the mind of Christ.

Christ is the light that allows people to see things in their fullness. The precise and intended effect of such a light is to see Christ everywhere else. In fact, that is my only definition of a true Christian. A mature Christian sees Christ in everything and everyone else. That is a definition that will never fail you, always demand more of you, and give you no reasons to fight, exclude, or reject anyone.

The point of the Christian life is not to distinguish oneself from the ungodly, but to stand in radical solidarity with everyone and everything else. This is the intended effect of the Incarnation—symbolized by the cross, God’s great act of solidarity instead of judgment. Without a doubt, Jesus perfectly exemplified this seeing and thus passed it on to the rest of history. This is how we are to imitate Jesus, the good Jewish man who saw and called forth the divine in Gentiles like the Syro-Phoenician woman and the Roman centurions; in Jewish tax collectors who collaborated with the Empire; in zealots who opposed it; in sinners of all stripes; in eunuchs, astrologers, and all those “outside the law.” Jesus had no trouble whatsoever with otherness. In fact, these “lost sheep” found out they were not lost to him at all and tended to become his best followers.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (Convergent Books: 2019), 32-33.

                           

Awakening The Christ-Child

This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here 

Christmas cannot be taken for granted.

Swiss theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, once wrote:

“After a mother has smiled for a long time at her child, the child will begin to smile back; she has awakened love in its heart, and in awakening love in its heart, she awakes recognition as well. … In the same way, God explains himself before us as love. Love radiates from God and instills the light of love in our hearts.”

That could be the caption inside a Christmas card. It expresses a spirituality of Christmas.

In the incarnation, at Christmas, God doesn’t enter the world as some superhero who arrives in great power and blows away all that’s bad, so that all we have to do is watch, enjoy the show, and feel smug as evil gets its due. The drama of the incarnation is not a movie to be watched but a real-life event within which we are meant to be players. Christmas doesn’t happen automatically, it needs our participation. Why?

Because God doesn’t enter the world like a Hollywood hero who rescues innocence and goodness at the last minute by a show of physical force. Indeed, at Christmas, God doesn’t even enter the world as an adult, but as a baby, helpless, needing to be nurtured to come to adulthood. The God who is born into our world at Christmas is not the God of power, but the God of helplessness and vulnerability.

But that has to be understood. There’s power by worldly standards and power by divine standards and a great paradox and irony is that divine power exhibits itself as vulnerability and helplessness, the power of the baby rather than that of the strong man. Ultimately though that power, helplessness and vulnerability, is the greatest power of all because it, and it alone, can transform hearts. You don’t soften hearts by overpowering them. You transform hearts through another kind of persuasion.

Christ doesn’t eradicate evil by overpowering it. Happy endings inside the kingdom of God work themselves out quite differently than in the movies, as we can see from Jesus’ refusal to come down off the cross to demonstrate his power. What Christmas brings into the world is the power of a baby which works not so much even through the power of innocence (beautiful as that is) but through the power of what scripture calls (in Greek) EXOUSIA. There isn’t an exact English equivalent for that word. It has connotations of a number of things all mixed together: transparency, vulnerability, defencelessness.

Julie Polter, one of the editors at Sojourners, describes it this way:

“The power of the universe became a babe in arms, not to teach us about the sweetness of love (although that is real too), but to teach us about its vulnerability and tangible expression and practical demands; and to teach us that on such as this, kingdoms are built. In a child, any child, the wealth and righteousness of a society, a nation, a world can be read. This isn’t fuzzy sentimentality; this is the law of the universe and the word of the prophets. … What are we waiting for? For the one who has come and comes again, the child who will lead us.”

We will be led into the messianic time, the prophets assure us, by a child. The Christ-child is that child. But, the power of Christmas is not automatic. It can’t be taken for granted. It has to be given birth, nursed, coaxed, and lovingly cajoled into effectiveness. The baby Jesus doesn’t save the world, the adult Christ does and our task is to turn the baby Jesus into the adult Christ. We need to do that in our own bodies and with our own lives. As Annie Dillard once put it, the Christ we find in our lives is always found as he was found at the first Christmas, a helpless infant, lying in the straw, someone who needs to be picked up and coaxed into adulthood. To make Christ effective, we need, ourselves, to become “the body of Christ”.

To put it metaphorically, the Christ-child has to be awakened by us. We need to go to the manger and awaken the child. How? It’s here that Von Baltasar’s comment is so insightful:

We awaken the child by inducing it to smile. How’s that done? Where is the Christ-child? In terms of an icon, the Christ-child is in the crib, but, in terms of spirituality, the Christ-child appears in our lives in a different way.

If Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit – defined as charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long suffering, fidelity, gentleness, and chastity – then obviously the child she gestated will radiate those qualities. We awaken the Christ-child when we smile at charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness, long suffering, fidelity, gentleness, and chastity until they begin to smile back. What comes back is the power of Christmas, a baby’s power to transform a heart, divine power hidden in human weakness.

We have to help make Christmas happen.

                          

Christmas Eve At The Cow Palace - Why?

This article is taken from the Blog posted by Fr Michael White, Pastor of the Church of the Nativity, Timoneum, Baltimore. You can find the original blog by clicking here

This year marks our 15th celebration of Christmas Eve at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.  Each year has looked a little different but, over time, a true tradition has emerged from what was once an audacious experiment.  A tradition that many of our parishioners have grown to cherish.

There are many dedicated devotees out there who have celebrated with us every one of those years.  But, for many of our guests, this will mark the first time they will experience Mass in the aptly named “Cow Palace.”  As they cross the threshold of our adopted warehouse, the question might arise: “Why?”  Why hold Christmas Eve Mass in an empty warehouse?  Why invest thousands of volunteer hours, staff time, and money in one evening of the year?  Why not just offer more Masses at church?

The tradition of going off-campus for Christmas Eve could be seemingly attributed to two very practical factors: a lack of parking and a lack of seats at optimal times.  However, each of those practical factors reveals something deeper about the culture we were trying to build. 

So, what do seats and parking on Christmas Eve have to say about your culture?

Seats

Insiders know how to work the system to get what they want.  They know how early to show up to get good seats, where to take their kids, and the fastest way out.  Outsiders, on the other hand, tend to get played by the system.  They arrive late (because they were busy frantically trying to find parking) and end up having to stand in the back of church, if they get in at all.  This leaves them not only uncomfortable but also embarrassed, trying to corral kids who don’t want to stand in one place.  They are definitely treated like second class citizens.  Moving off-campus put everyone on a level playing field.

Getting outsiders into better seats can even change your preaching.  Craft a homily that is distinctly not for insiders.  Carefully remove all insider language and insider references.  Consider even forgoing announcements, which usually include references to programs that are not recognizable to outsiders.

Parking

My friend Rick Warren says that the availability of parking – not seats – is the true determinant of the maximum amount of people you can fit in your church.  If your church is anything like ours used to be, you probably have more seats than you do parking spaces.  Most days of the year, you don’t notice.  Until Christmas comes.

And it’s not just available spaces.  How is your inflow and outflow?  If people can’t get into and out of your lot without hassle, they probably won’t come back (or they will just turn around). 

If you don’t have access to more parking or a larger facility, there are still things you can do to make Christmas Eve more accessible to outsiders.  Set up a parking team for your busiest Masses who can facilitate traffic flow and make sure every space is used.  Ask your regular attenders to park off-campus.  Even better, enable your parking team to set aside the best spots for newcomers.

Why Christmas Eve at the Cow Palace? Because at Church of the Nativity, Christmas Eve is not all about us, it’s all about our guests and visitors.

                               

What Was The First Christmas Like?

Can we ever really know what happened in Bethlehem at the first Christmas?  Nicholas King SJ suggests that while they may not provide a historical account of the birth of Christ, the gospel narratives still ultimately convey the meaning of the event that we celebrate on 25th December. What are Matthew and Luke telling us about God in the Nativity stories with which we are so familiar? 

Nicholas King SJ is a tutor in Biblical Studies at Campion Hall, University of Oxford.

This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here

At this time of year, it is not surprising, and not at all a bad thing, that Christians long to imagine what the first Christmas was like. Indeed, in the Spiritual Exercises, St Ignatius Loyola suggests a very charming contemplation of the Nativity, inviting the retreatant to imagine themselves as ‘a poor and unworthy little servant’, who will see to all the Holy Family’s needs. St Francis of Assisi likewise encouraged the faithful to contemplate the crib at Christmas; and it was he, apparently, who added to the Nativity scene the ‘ox and ass’ that he had discovered in Isaiah 1:3, where the prophet is unfavourably comparing Israel’s relationship to God with that of dumb animals to their owners (the animals recognise that God is Lord, Israel doesn’t). Or if you find yourself visualising camels looking down their supercilious noses at the Christ-child, that is because generations of Christians have meditated on Isaiah 61:6 by way of filling out the details of Matthew’s story of the Magi.

So there is nothing at all wrong with imagining the scene of Jesus’s birth, and paying prayerful attention to what it might have been like. Indeed, I should warmly encourage you to do so, to encounter the mystery towards which our Advent is journeying; and if you find yourself using the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, to set the mood, then you will be doing just what Christians, including the evangelists, have done before you at this time of year. But just don’t think that means you know precisely what happened at midnight on December 25th in the year 0.

But what, you clamour restively, can we actually know about the circumstances of Jesus’s birth? Not a great deal, I have to admit. Luke and Matthew are each pursuing their own theological agenda, telling the gospel story to their contemporaries as they know best; and it is almost impossible to reconcile their two narratives.

For Matthew, Jesus is the culmination and high point of God’s dealing with Israel, which starts with the promise to Abraham, reaches an apparent fulfilment in the rule of David and his son Solomon, then plunges into the total disaster of the Exile in Babylon; and finally, Matthew suggests, the relationship between the People of God and the One who brought them out of Egypt reaches the point at which it has been aiming in the birth of Jesus, ‘the one called “Messiah”’. Now Matthew’s readers will not have needed to decode the text, they will instantly have picked it up. We on the other hand cannot read the runes, and foolishly regard the genealogy with which Matthew commences his gospel as ‘the most boring bit of the entire New Testament’. The result is that when this text is appointed to be read on December 17th each year, there are priests who blench in horror and pretend that the day is December 16th or 18th, so as to avoid having to give a homily on the unrelenting list of ‘begats’. But from ‘Abraham begat Isaac’, right down to ‘Jacob begat Joseph, the husband of Mary, from whom was born Jesus, called the Messiah’, Matthew is outlining the unstoppable plan of God. And there is more, for into the list he has introduced four women. They are Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba. To find out more about them, I suggest that you read their stories in, respectively: Genesis 38:6-30; Joshua 2:1-24 and 6:22-25; the whole of the Book of Ruth (it is only four chapters); and, of course, the robust story of King David’s misbehaviour in 2 Samuel 11-12. What is Matthew saying when he mentions these ladies? All of them had some kind of domestic irregularity: Tamar pretended to be a prostitute; Rahab actually was a member of that ancient profession; Ruth is a very impressive lady, but chapter 4 of the book named after her has some mysterious hanky-panky going on late at night with Boaz which eventually leads to her becoming the great-grandmother of King David; and the wife of Uriah the Hittite behaved in a less than admirable way with David, while her husband was away on campaign (which resulted in Uriah’s murder). So it may be that Matthew is telling us that God can ‘write straight with crooked lines’, as the cliché goes. Or it could be the fact that they, like the Magi, are, or may have been, foreigners: Tamar was a Canaanite, Rahab an inhabitant of Jericho, Ruth a Moabitess, and Bathsheba was married to a Hittite. In that case, Matthew’s interest may have been simply that they were all non-Jews, and at the end of Matthew’s gospel, the eleven disciples are instructed to ‘go and make disciples of all nations’. So Matthew is doing some theology when he writes this genealogy, and our task is to listen out for his message.

That is the case also when the evangelist introduces us to the figure of Joseph, one who dreams, just like that other Joseph, in the book of Genesis, who dreamed and also ended up in Egypt. This Joseph obeys God’s messenger, with the result that Jesus the Messiah is accepted as Joseph’s son (so the genealogy is quite properly his after all); and, because of Joseph’s obedience, Jesus is saved from those in his own nation who sought to kill him.

And then there are Matthew’s Magi. What are they about? They are non-Jews, who get Jesus right from the very beginning, just as the establishment (Herod and his religious experts) gets Jesus wrong from the very beginning, at least in the sense that they regard him as so serious a threat to their status quo that he must be eliminated at all costs. The Magi, by contrast, emerge mysteriously ‘from the East’ to worship ‘the one born King of the Jews’, and load him with gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh, while Herod’s expressed desire to ‘worship the dear little child’ is really cover for his intention to assassinate it. The upshot of all this is that the child and his obedient father have to flee to, of all places, Egypt – a place that Israel was more accustomed to fleeing from!

But, you ask, did it all happen like this? We cannot know, I am afraid. We can see why Matthew included the story, and what he was saying when he did so. That does not mean that it did not happen; but nor, I am afraid, does it mean that it all took place precisely as described, so that all we have to do is get the right combination of planets or constellations to explain the star, and we can date it all to within a few minutes. It is not like that, nor ought it to be. Our task is to read the story as Matthew intends us to read it, and marvel at this triumph of God’s dealings with his people.

What about Luke? Luke’s tone is quite different from Matthew’s. Luke is a great artist, and it is no accident that his stories and parables have given rise to more paintings than those of any other author in the Old or New Testament. Luke offers, as a colleague of mine is fond of pointing out, a picture-gallery, at which we are invited to gaze, just like Mary, who ‘observed all these things, comparing them in her heart’. That is our task, contemplating prayerfully the pictures of Zechariah and Elizabeth, a charming Old Testament couple; of Simeon and Anna, just another such; or we might find ourselves invited to gaze at that much-loved picture of the least important girl in the most insignificant town in the most out-of-the-way region in the entire Roman Empire – ‘and the virgin’s name was Mary’. Luke shows us all the most important people in the contemporary world: Herod the King (1:5); Caesar Augustus and Quirinius (2:1-2); and, most striking of all, Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate, along with their client-kings the tetrarchs (Herod’s unattractive offspring), and their political allies and subjects, the High Priests Annas and Caiaphas (3:1-2). But none of these great men who so effortlessly wander across the world stage captures Luke’s attention for more than a second. The people whom Luke regards as important, those at whom we are invited to direct our prayerful gaze, are, instead, the poor and marginalised, those who serve the God of Israel: Mr and Mrs Zechariah, Anna and Simeon, John the Baptist, and, above all, of course, the one whom Elizabeth startlingly describes as ‘my Lord’, the first time we meet him (1:43). This one, the subject of the entire gospel, does absolutely nothing in these first two chapters, but lets it all happen to him, because God is in control – and Jesus is God’s son.

And did it, you demand once more to know, all happen as Luke recounts? We cannot tell. Our task is to recognise what Luke is telling us about the God who is at work in the world, about God’s Holy Spirit, and about Jesus, whom God has sent.

What then can we know about that first Christmas? What, if anything, is agreed by Matthew and Luke? They both affirm that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and that he was in Nazareth: for Matthew, that was because of who was in charge in Judaea when Joseph and Mary and Jesus returned from Egypt; while for Luke, Nazareth was where Joseph and Mary lived. Both of them agree that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived and born, and they seem to have independent traditions about it. They are both of the view that God is utterly in charge, and that, in Jesus, Israel’s history was reaching its climax. They insist that Jesus was born (and we must never forget that it was and remains absolutely essential that Jesus was genuinely a human being). They also both agree, but in quite different ways, that to do full justice to the truth about Jesus it was necessary to use of him language that had hitherto been reserved for God. That is a very daring thing for them both to claim; and we must take it with immense seriousness.

Is that enough, do you think, for you to pray your way through the coming festival? I hope that it will be one of immense happiness for all of you who read these words.