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| Summary: The Christmas pageant is as familiar to most of us as any memory we can bring to mind. And yet, have we really considered what makes this pageant such an insistent part of our lives? Have we given second thought to the characters, the scenes, and the audience? |
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| Summary: It still seems all but impossible to believe that, in the midst of the pomp and glory of Caesar and his commands, amongst angels surrounded by the armies of heaven confronting horrified shepherds ― we find God exactly where the Christmas story tells us we shall find God: in the flesh of a baby, wrapped in bands of cloth, using a feed-box for a crib. |
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| Summary: God did not enter history on Olympian heights. That means the Christmas story is our story. God’s story is our story. |
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| Summary: The individual stories surrounding the Nativity include our own accounts of our meeting the Christ of Bethlehem. And as we tell the story of our Christ encounter to those we love, we breath new life into Luke’s narrative. |
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| Summary: We easily speak about good news of great joy at Christmastime — but it’s not that for everyone. Many find Christmas a very hard time of the year. How can we help communicate the good news and make it real? |
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| Summary: The question is not whether angels are real, but whether we embrace what they represent: the reality and goodness of the inner life where we meet God day after day. |
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| Summary: Jesus’ birth announces to the world that salvation has come for those desperate for God. Jesus is not born in a center of world power or among the elites of his day. His birth occurs in a manger and his first witnesses are lowly shepherds. Jesus came to build a community of the desperate and he sends forth those whom he has touched to announce this good news to the world. |
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| Summary: Adjusting our lives to accommodate the needs of others is a Christmas thing to do. |
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| Summary: The familiar Christmas story of Joseph and Mary going to register in Bethlehem presents the affirmation that God chooses the powerless to bring a blessing to the world. God not only cares about the down-and-out, but works through them to give the Messiah to the world. |
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| Summary: The birth of Jesus did not change the outward circumstances of the people in Luke’s narrative or of our lives. Nevertheless, the birth of the Messiah brought joy, presence and hope to everyone.
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| Summary: Every snowflake is different, but they all start out the same. It’s only in the buffeting by the wind as they tumble to earth that they achieve their individual beauty. In many ways, we are the same. When it comes to our DNA, we are alike at the level of 99.9 %.1 Yet the buffeting of life makes us very different individuals. Every character in the Christmas story was also shaped by life’s varied circumstances. And each of us — like them — is individually beautiful beyond belief.
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| Summary: Nick E. Silverio is a member of the Order of St. Lazarus, and also the founder of “A Safe Haven for Newborns,” a non-profit based out of Miami, Florida. His organization is devoted to saving abandoned babies. Long ago, the life of a particular baby was threatened. After all, the parents could not find a place for the child to be delivered. But when the fate of the world hung in the balance, the child was not abandoned. Who was this baby?
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| Summary: The story of the shepherds is the story of amazing grace. |
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| Summary: God gave Mary a unique responsibility. She was to nurture the Savior of the world in preparation for his mission. Like Mary, we have all inherited blessings through Jesus, but we have also inherited a measure of that same responsibility. We have been given responsibility towards others. We must keep Jesus alive in our hearts so that others may know him. |
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| Summary: Jesus’ birth is celebrated by shepherds. These unnamed shepherds are transformed from persons living on the margins to Jesus’ first witnesses in the world. Their actions model an authentic response to the good news of Jesus’ coming. |
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| Summary: The first family of our faith gives pause for us to consider what exactly we are doing when we present a child to God or claim to have been presented to God ourselves. They also offer a measure of the family values of which we like to speak. The fact is that the values of the gospel do not always coincide with the values of the village in which our children are raised.
Which set of values we instill by our example is the only real measure as to whether we have presented anything at all.
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| Summary: Most of us have learned something from the wisdom of those older than ourselves. Today we are introduced to two seniors who have something to teach us about our relationship with God. |
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| Summary: The Sunday after Christmas doesn’t mean that Christmas is past; it means that the wonder and power of Christmas have just begun. |
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| Summary: The prophet Anna shows us that regardless of where we are on the journey of life, or what losses we’ve had, God still has purpose for us. |
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| Summary: The presentation of the Lord shows multiple examples of faithfulness, service and doing God’s will. We all have opportunities to do the same.
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| Summary: A first-person sermon for the threshold of a new year, in which the story of Simeon reminds us to be open to all God brings us that’s new.
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| Summary: Members of the Holy Family include Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and we rightly look at them as a model for Christian family life. But Luke tells us that there were additional people in the family, including Simeon and Anna. |
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| Summary: Throughout the events of Christmas, God used many ordinary people to bring the Good News to the world. In the process, their lives were changed as well. Today we look at Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna. Their lives were quietly changed because of their faithfulness to God and to Jesus. |
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| Summary: The wonder and power of Christmas begins the entire period of life after the birth of Christ. |
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| Summary: This passage is a witness to the importance of religion in the life of faith and in human life in general. Simeon and Anna are devoutly religious people who are also deeply spiritual. They show us that religious devotion and religious commitment can be a path to the kind of spirituality that recognizes the work of God in the most mundane human events. |
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| Summary: Faith gives pause for us to consider what exactly we are doing when we present a child to God or claim to have been presented to God ourselves. They also offer a measure of the family values of which we like to speak. The fact is that the values of the gospel do not always coincide with the values of the village in which our children are raised.
Which set of values we instill by our example is the only real measure as to whether we have presented anything at all. |
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| Summary: We don’t find these words, “I’ve had enough”, in today’s gospel lesson; but the composer Bach puts them into the mouth of Simeon, the pious old man who comes to the temple in Jerusalem because God told him that he would see the messiah there.
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| Summary: The boy Jesus in the temple talking with elders reminds us that knowledge, thought and faith need to be linked. Reason should support our faith just as faith helps us use knowledge in godly ways. |
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| Summary: With this scripture passage, we celebrate God’s gift of a family given to us as an example. The example may surprise us, but with God’s help, we may cease to ignore problems within our families and share our feelings in order to transform each other’s hearts and minds. |
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| Summary: Holidays, celebrations and traditions set our expectations for who we are and what we will experience. If we can pause and ask ourselves what we need, perhaps we can see ourselves and the season in new ways. |
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| Summary: Jesus demonstrates the rare gift of being truly present to God, a gift we can cultivate in ourselves. |
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| Summary: When Mary and Joseph lost 12-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem for three days, they looked for him in all the wrong places. But for us today, there are no wrong places to look for Jesus. And when we find him, Jesus will call us to be a healing presence to everyone, everywhere, all the time as he also reminds us that he’s with us always.
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| Summary: Becoming an adult in our faith journeys means taking responsibility for the way of life Jesus modeled for us. |
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| Summary: Families, whatever their structure, are the places where we are called to make holiness happen by becoming what God has made us to be. The tasks in bringing this about are not always easy, and in the process, we can be lost from each other. How we learn from these moments together can make our families what they are meant to be, holy families. |
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