December 30, 2020 The Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas

2020년 12월 30일 성탄 팔일 축제 내 제6일  

오늘의 복음 : http://info.catholic.or.kr/missa/default.asp 

제1독서
요한 1서. 2,12-17
12 자녀 여러분, 내가 여러분에게 이 글을 쓰는 까닭은
여러분이 그분의 이름 덕분에 죄를 용서받았기 때문입니다.
13 아버지 여러분, 내가 여러분에게 이 글을 쓰는 까닭은
처음부터 계신 그분을 여러분이 알고 있기 때문입니다.
젊은이 여러분, 내가 여러분에게 이 글을 쓰는 까닭은
여러분이 악한 자를 이겼기 때문입니다.
14 자녀 여러분, 내가 여러분에게 이 글을 쓴 까닭은
여러분이 아버지를 알고 있기 때문입니다.
아버지 여러분, 내가 여러분에게 이 글을 쓴 까닭은
처음부터 계신 그분을 여러분이 알고 있기 때문입니다.
젊은이 여러분, 내가 여러분에게 이 글을 쓴 까닭은
여러분이 강하고, 하느님의 말씀이 여러분 안에 머무르며
여러분이 악한 자를 이겼기 때문입니다.
15 여러분은 세상도 또 세상 안에 있는 것들도 사랑하지 마십시오.
누가 세상을 사랑하면, 그 사람 안에는 아버지 사랑이 없습니다.
16 세상에 있는 모든 것,
곧 육의 욕망과 눈의 욕망과 살림살이에 대한 자만은
아버지에게서 온 것이 아니라 세상에서 온 것입니다.
17 세상은 지나가고 세상의 욕망도 지나갑니다.
그러나 하느님의 뜻을 실천하는 사람은 영원히 남습니다. 

 

복음
 루카. 2,36-40
그때에 36 한나라는 예언자가 있었는데,
프누엘의 딸로서 아세르 지파 출신이었다.
나이가 매우 많은 이 여자는 혼인하여 남편과 일곱 해를 살고서는,
37 여든네 살이 되도록 과부로 지냈다.
그리고 성전을 떠나는 일 없이 단식하고 기도하며 밤낮으로 하느님을 섬겼다.
38 그런데 이 한나도 같은 때에 나아와 하느님께 감사드리며,
예루살렘의 속량을 기다리는 모든 이에게 그 아기에 대하여 이야기하였다.
39 주님의 법에 따라 모든 일을 마치고 나서,
예수님의 부모는 갈릴래아에 있는 고향 나자렛으로 돌아갔다.
40 아기는 자라면서 튼튼해지고 지혜가 충만해졌으며, 하느님의 총애를 받았다. 

December 30, 2020
The Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas 

Daily Readings — Audio

Daily Reflections — Video

http://www.usccb.org/bible/ 

Daily Mass : http://www.catholictv.com/shows/daily-mass 

Reading 1

1 Jn 2:12-17

I am writing to you, children,
because your sins have been forgiven for his name’s sake.

I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.

I am writing to you, young men,
because you have conquered the Evil One.

I write to you, children,
because you know the Father.

I write to you, fathers,
because you know him who is from the beginning.

I write to you, young men,
because you are strong and the word of God remains in you,
and you have conquered the Evil One.

Do not love the world or the things of the world. 
If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 
For all that is in the world,
sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life,
is not from the Father but is from the world. 
Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. 
But whoever does the will of God remains forever.

 

Responsorial Psalm

Ps 96:7-8a, 8b-9, 10

R. (11a) Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice!
Give to the LORD, you families of nations,
give to the LORD glory and praise;
give to the LORD the glory due his name!
R. Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice!
Bring gifts, and enter his courts;
worship the LORD in holy attire.
Tremble before him, all the earth.
R. Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice!
Say among the nations: The LORD is king.
He has made the world firm, not to be moved;
he governs the peoples with equity. 
R. Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice!

 

Gospel

Lk 2:36-40

There was a prophetess, Anna,
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. 
She was advanced in years,
having lived seven years with her husband after her marriage,
and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. 
She never left the temple,
but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. 
And coming forward at that very time,
she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child
to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.

When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions
of the law of the Lord,
they returned to Galilee,
to their own town of Nazareth. 
The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom;
and the favor of God was upon him.

http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html

 According to the laws of purification in the Book of Leviticus, a woman, after giving birth to a first-born son, withdrew for kind of a quarantine of purification from the loss of blood during the birth process. In today’s Gospel Joseph escorts his wife, Mary, to present her Son, Jesus, in the temple according also to the Law. After meeting Simeon, Anna, a prophetess of an advanced age, greets the little family. Anna  had years of a history of waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem from the Romans. She could look both backward and forward in faith and hope.

Joseph and Mary return, having fulfilled that section of the Law, and Jesus, in His growing up, fulfilled the Law also by honoring His parents by being obedient. His parents treasured their memories of the past as Jesus learned about His past and so too looked forward to the redemption of Israel. 

Tomorrow is the last day of the year 2020 and mainly we look backward with a bit of cloudiness. Twenty-twenty is the number given to perfect human vision. We all have suffered, this past year, with ocular cataracts leading to our not seeing so well. We bumped into many hard things and had difficulties perceiving what certain events were really all about.

Jesus spent more than ninety percent of His life uncovering, discovering Who He was and gaining a vision of what He was to do. As a totally human person, He had to fumble around the carpenter shop, His home, His neighborhood and with His own personal future. His mother would have mentioned the predictions she had heard in the temple and taught Him the prophecies in the Jewish Scriptures about the Messiah’s coming. These experiences would move Him to reflect, pray, and move slowly into His future, but not with perfect clarity of sight.

Having Twenty-twenty vision is not actually perfect. We cannot see around corners or actually far, far away people or things. Looking backward these last days of this year, we may still not be able to see what the virus gave us or took from us. As with Jesus, we have had to live a bit of the “Hidden-Life” ourselves and perhaps as with Jesus, we, “grew strong, filled with wisdom…”.

We grumbled and fumbled and experienced rather unpleasant aspects of our humanity and of others. As the people of Israel waited for centuries for the Messiah, as Jesus waited for His time, all with the vision of faith and hope, we await the vaccine and our return, or perhaps not return, but re-vision. Our looking backward to 2020 does contain for us the possibilities of seeing ourselves, others, and all God’s creation uncleared by the same wisdom into which Jesus advanced. This wisdom is founded in a grateful receptivity of our human poverties and God’s infinite embrace walking us into the new year of Twenty-twenty-one. “Lord, that I may see.”  

 http://www.presentationministries.com/obob/obob.asp

 

WILL YOU HAVE A REAL CHRISTMAS?

“Bring gifts, and enter His courts; worship the Lord.” —Psalm 96:8-9

We can have two kinds of Christmases — one real and the other fake. Anna the prophetess had a real Christmas. This eighty-four year old widow “was constantly in the temple, worshiping day and night in fasting and prayer” (Lk 2:37). “She gave thanks to God and talked about the Child” (Lk 2:38). Anna met and loved Christ. Her Christmas and life were Christ-centered.

The fake Christmas is described as “carnal allurements, enticements for the eye, the life of empty show” (1 Jn 2:16). This fake Christmas passes away. It leaves its victims self-centered, empty, and unprepared to deal with the demands of life and the new year. This fake Christmas prevents us from experiencing God the Father’s love (1 Jn 2:15). It leaves us spiritually bankrupt of love.

What if you’ve been deceived into celebrating the fake Christmas? What if you’ve still not decided which Christmas you’ll celebrate? You can repent now. The Lord has called you to read this for that very reason. You don’t have to let the devil rob you of Christmas. There are still thirteen more days remaining in the Christmas season in which you can meet and love Jesus. You can live for Him. You can have a real Christmas.

Prayer:  Father, may I “have no love for the world, nor the things that the world affords” (1 Jn 2:15).

Promise:  “The man who does God’s will endures forever.” —1 Jn 2:17

Praise:  The secularization of Christmas surprisingly drew Carlos back to the Church of his childhood.

 http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/readings/

 Where do you place your trust and hope for a life of peace, freedom and happiness? Scripture tells us that those who place their trust in God will not be disappointed (Isaiah 49:23, Psalm 62:8, Proverbs 3:5-6). In every age, God has placed in the hearts of his people, from the descendants of Adam, Noah, Abraham, the prophets, and King David, a longing and a hope for a Redeemer who will bring us God's kingdom of peace, joy, and righteousness. We see the great unfolding of God's plan of redemption in the birth of Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God before all ages, who became a man to redeem his people from sin and oppression.

The long expected newborn Messiah is presented in the Temple at Jerusalem
Luke the Evangelist records the coming of the Christ child (God's Anointed Messiah) to the Temple in Jerusalem forty days after his birth in Bethlehem (Luke 2:22-24). Joseph and Mary brought the child Jesus with them to the temple to fulfill the Jewish ceremony, recorded in the law of Moses, for the "redemption of the firstborn child" (Exodus 3:2) and the ritual purification of the mother after childbirth (Leviticus 12:2-8). As Joseph and Mary presented their offering and dedicated the child Jesus in the temple, Anna, a godly woman of great age (84 years) who was filled with the Holy Spirit immediately recognized that this child was the promised Messiah and heir to the throne of David. She publicly "gave thanks to God and spoke of him [who is the Christ - the Anointed Messiah] to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38).

Anna's persevering hope and reward of seeing Christ face to face
What is the significance of Anna's witness and prophetic proclamation of the Messiah's coming to his temple? Luke calls Anna a prophetess because she had dedicated her life to the service of God's word through prayer and fasting. Like Simeon (Luke 2:25-35) and all the prophets of the Old Testament, she was attentive to God's word and she spoke prophetically - under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit - to others of God's plan of salvation for his people. She spent her days in the house of the Lord (the Temple) where she offered up daily prayers and intercession for her people.

Anna did not grow weary of placing her trust in God and his promises. Here hope and trust in God did not waver but grew with age.What enabled Anna to persevere for so many years and through difficult times, such as the loss of her husband, and through the trials of advancing old age? She never ceased to give thanks to God each and every day. She worshiped God in daily prayer, and with fasting and intercession on behalf of her people. And she never ceased to cling to God's word and to speak of his word to others to bring them encouragement and hope. She believed with hopeful expectation that she would one day see her Lord and Redeemer face to face. Anna is a model of persevering faith and hope to all who hunger for God and for his saving word.

The Holy Spirit renews our hope in the promise of God
Where do you place your hope? We can easily grow discouraged when trials and setbacks come our way, and we can grow cynical or give in to despair when failing health and advancing age rob us of our natural strength. Life's shortcomings and disappointments can either weigh us down or press us closer to God. The choice is ours - to rely on ourselves and our own strength or to put our trust wholly in God alone and in the grace and strength which he provides. Scripture reminds us that God gives us a (supernatural) hope beyond hope, a (divine) love stronger than death, and a (spiritual and unceasing) joy that no earthly sorrow or suffering can take away.

Is your hope in this present life only? The hope which God places in our heart is the desire and longing for a home and a kingdom of unceasing joy and happiness with God our Creator and Father. The Lord Jesus has won for us an enduring kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). The Holy Spirit who dwells in us renews and strengthens our hope day by day as we listen to God's word and believe in his promises. God never fails because his promises are true and he is faithful. The hope which God places within us through the gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to persevere with confident trust in God even in the face of daily trails, setbacks, and challenges that come our way.

The reward of seeking God's kingdom first
Is there anything holding you back from giving God your unqualified yes to his will and plan for your life? Allow the Lord Jesus to flood your heart with his peace, joy, and love. And offer to God everything you have and desire - your life, family, friends, health, and provision for the future. If you seek his kingdom first (Matthew 6:33), he will give you everything you need to know, love, and serve him now and to enjoy him forever in his everlasting kingdom of joy and peace.

Lord Jesus, you alone are my hope and life. May I never cease to place all my trust in your unfailing love and mercy. Fill me with the joy and strength of the Holy Spirit that I may boldly point others to your saving presence and word of eternal life.

Psalm 96:7-10

7 Ascribe to the LORD, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength.
8 Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts.
9 Worship the LORD in holy splendor; tremble before him, all the earth.
10 Say among the nations, "The LORD is king! The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity."

Daily Quote from the Early Church Fathers: Jesus, though rich, became poor for us, by Ambrose of Milan, 339-397 A.D.

"Anna, who, by reason of her years of widowhood and her virtues, is set before us as wholly worthy of belief, announces that the Redeemer of all people has come... Not without purpose, however, does he make mention of the eighty-four years of her widowhood, because both the seven twelves and the two forties seemed to imply a number that is sacred."(excerpt from EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPEL OF LUKE 2.62)

 

 

  

More Homilies

December 30, 2019 The Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas