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Let us celebrate the Feast of Christmas this year, with the fruits of our journey through Advent.

Christmas comes just after the shortest, darkest and sometimes bleakest days of the year.  It celebrates God’s salvation, which has come into our world.  The coronavirus at this time has a particularly powerful hold on us, and does represent an awareness of the greater kingdom of evil that Jesus came down from heaven to redeem and save us from.  It is always important to keep our attention on the amount of goodness and people of great goodwill who are always at work among us.

At the moment life is very challenging and difficult.  So a simple, “thank God”, for the vaccine with the hope that it brings light at the end of the tunnel.   I remain with my old faults of communication, and particular difficulty with visiting in place, so I ask for patience and understanding.

I am grateful for all the help that is provided to our parish, helping with our celebration of Mass, providing the essential service of our parish, and help with streaming, which remains a particular challenge.  Thanks be to God and to you all that financially and administratively our parish is functioning very well.  I am very grateful to you for your gifts, greetings and donations to me this Christmas.

So sincerely, thanks be to God for Christmas and for salvation, for the fruits of our journey through the Sundays’ Advent Prayers.  The First Sunday with its focus upon ‘hope’, the second ‘peace’, the third ‘joy’ and last Sunday ’love’.  Let them be the fruits of our Christmas and Bishop Richard has presented us with a vision and a challenge for the next few years, so let us give it our full attention when we return in the new year.

You are still able to donate non-perishable food and money to the foodbanks over the coming months.  There are opportunities to donate online, or our website to make this easier for people.  Immediate food needs will probably change week to week.  For more updates visit www.hailsham.foodbank.org.uk or www.eastbourne.foodbank.org.uk.  Thank you.

The readings for the fourth Sunday of Advent concentrate on events leading up to the first coming of Jesus. The Gospel, in particular, relates the key role of Mary. It is full of surprises as are the other readings.  

The first reading surprises us by telling of God’s promise to David that he would have a long line of royal descendants culminating in a final King, Jesus Christ. In the Responsorial Psalm the Psalmist recalls all of God’s promises and surprises us, describing God’s promise to David and his descendants in terms of a Covenant.

The second reading surprises us with Paul’s explanation of the unveiling of God’s plan for our salvation through Jesus. 

In the Gospel, the Angel Gabriel surprises Mary with seven announcements. 

1) Even as a virgin betrothed to Joseph, she will become a mother. 

2) She will become a mother through “the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the Power of the Most High will overshadow you.” 

3) The angel continues, “Therefore, the Child to be born will be called Holy, the Son of God.”

4) She is to “name the child Jesus,” which means Saviour. 

5) God will make Him a King and, as a descendant in the line of David, 

6) “He will rule over the House of Jacob forever, and of His Kingdom there will be no end.”

7) As a Divine sign, Elizabeth, Mary’s aged barren cousin is six months pregnant, “for,” says Gabriel, “nothing shall be impossible with God!

The Gospel also surprises us by reminding us that God’s promise is best fulfilled not in buildings, or even in great kings like Solomon, but rather in humble souls like Mary who trusted in God’s promise. We must learn and understand that we are not here to do things for God, but to reflect and build on what God is doing for, and through us. That is our task for this week!

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat, please put a penny in the old man’s hat.  If you have not a penny a halfpenny will do. If you have not a halfpenny, well God bless you. 

I just realised that in nearly seventy years I had not heard or said this rhyme coming up to Christmas.  When growing up as a child it was part of Christmas.  This Christmas is so different in many ways, but its reality is much more important.  For us to realise that salvation is coming into our world, and all the children’s plays at Christmas are about this most important message.  “A Saviour is born, this day in Bethlehem”.  The Gospel with its message is what should never be lost.  Reality the world over, from the reaction to the American Presidential Election, to the advice that is given on how to respond to the virus, the human response remains the same.  Jesus addressed this by “their fruits you shall know them”.

Family is a great blessing to life.  I have a nephew who is returning from Japan and a niece returning from France for Christmas.  Obviously they have taken into consideration the requirements to isolate and parents and family are happy with it.  The outcome will be the key factor when the final verdict is in place.  Certainly the challenge that the virus has presented, with the benefit of what hindsight will bring through the validation of decisions will give greater guidance for our future.  How to be more prepared, how to give appropriate value to human dignity.  How to care for those most vulnerable, the care for children, and the different needs of the young, people with mental issues and the importance of health and wellbeing are all very important factors in life.

What about us in the life of the church?  Please God, this has presented us with a learning curve.  The challenge for us is great, confronted with our age profile, many would say it is impossible.  With the age requirements that were needed to facilitate the use of our churches for prayer, masses and sacraments, we were very short of volunteers.  Exposing a  failure which is ours.  What can we do about it is our only hope.  What I see as a two fold failure of those in authority in the church.  First, the importance of baptism with its meaning for our lives, without it, it is like trying to build houses without foundations.  The second is ministry within the church.  What the ministry of the eucharist, readers, cantors and other ministries can bring.  How a body made of many parts working together, is the key to our future in the life of our church.

The number of people experiencing food insecurity has increased dramatically during the COVID-19 19 crisis, with families in our diocese under increasing pressure.  Join our free Justice & Peace Webinar to find out what parishes can do to help on Saturday 16^th January 2021:  10 am to 12.30 pm.  To book you free place and receive the Zoom link, contact Rosie Read, Social Action Secretary, at [email protected]

Last Tuesday was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and should have been a Holy Day of Obligation when all Catholics should attend Mass.  In the current situation this was impossible so I have included an attempt to lighten the situation which I found on the internet:

The Pharisees brought the woman, caught red-handed in adultery, before Jesus for judgment, and Jesus said, “Let the person who is without sin cast the first stone.” They fell silent, and then, all of a sudden, a stone came flying from the crowd. Jesus looked up, surprised and amused, and then said, “Hold it, mother? I was trying to make a point, here.

This Sunday is the third Sunday of Advent and is called “Gaudete Sunday” because the Mass for today (in its original Latin text), begins with: “Gaudete in Domino semper” – which translates as “Rejoice in the Lord always.” This is reminding us that we are getting ever nearer to the birth of Jesus which we celebrate at Christmas, so the rose candle in the Advent wreath is lit, and the priest and deacon may wear rose vestments. The common theme of the readings is one of joy and encouragement. They urge us to prepare ourselves in our hearts and lives as we await the rebirth of Jesus. Scripture reminds us that the coming of Jesus, past, present, and future, is the reason for our rejoicing. 

Malcolm Muggeridge wrote the following: Through her ministry in Jesus’ name, Mother Teresa brought untold blessings and joy to the poor who lay unattended and forgotten on our streets. When asked the source of her joy, Mother Teresa replied: “Joy is prayer — joy is strength — joy is love — joy is a net of love. . . A joyful heart is the normal result of a heart burning with love . . . loving as He loves, helping as He helps, giving as He gives, serving as He serves, rescuing as He rescues, being with Him twenty-four hours, touching Him in His distressing disguise.”

In Ireland there was a well known poet, who was greatly loved and appreciated.  He was blind and his name was “Raftery an File”.  For the winter he used to move down into the south of Ireland, the prosperous part where I lived, but he really thought we were a lot of mean old people, but he much preferred to live with his own people out in the west of Ireland.

So he used to really look forward to his return there.  He left us a great rich legacy.  A poem in Gaelic.  The words were “anois teacht an earraigh”.  Now with the coming of Spring I will raise up my sail and tar eis na feil Bride… and after the Feast of St Bridget – 1st February – he would take off for happier summer grounds.  I very much identify with his sentiments.  After this most difficult year, and we still have quite a time to go to survive, we can all look forward like Raftery an File, we can also be prepared to lift up our hearts and re-launch our lives once again.

For the moment “grace and peace”.   May this holy season bless, strengthen and restore us.  I am most grateful for all the help that I am getting in spite of or maybe on account of the difficulties that we have been going through.

Justice & Peace Webinar 2021:  How Should this Diocese Respond to the Food Poverty Crisis?

The number of people experiencing food insecurity has increased dramatically during the Covid 19 crisis, with families in our diocese under increasing pressure.  Join our free Justice & Peace Webinar to find out what parishes can do to help on Saturday 16^th January 2021:  10 am to 12.30 pm.  To book your free place and receive the Zoom link, contact Rosie Read, Social Action Secretary, at [email protected]

The second Sunday of Advent has readings based on the theme of “Homecoming”. They focus on how essential it is for us to prepare for Christ to come home into our hearts and lives through repentance, making good anything that has gone wrong in our lives, prayer and the determination and effort needed to renew our lives. God has a saving plan for every one of us through our attendance at Mass, through the Scriptures and through the community life of prayer and thanksgiving.

Isaiah tells us about the Babylonian exiles coming home to their native country, Judah, and their holy city, Jerusalem. He assures them that the Lord promises them that it will be a grand procession and he will take care of them as a shepherd cares for his sheep. This is then reflected in the Psalm with the promise of peace when the Lord comes.

The Gospel tells us that during our preparation for Christmas we need to allow Jesus to be reborn in our lives.  People around us should recognise this happening in our lives by the way we share our love around us, by unconditional forgiveness, with a compassionate and merciful heart and a spirit of humble and committed service. So let us all accept John’s challenge to turn this Advent season into a real spiritual “homecoming” by making the necessary preparations for the fresh arrival of Jesus into our hearts and lives at Christmas.