Children's Mass (Christmas 2021)

 

We have a wonderful family in our parish who moved to Canada from Peru. They just gave me a lovely gift – a brightly painted Christmas ornament from South America.

 It’s made from a gourd, a hard-skinned fruit that’s been hollowed out and dried. Gourd carving has been associated with Peru and other countries in South America for hundreds of years.

You can see it’s quite pretty; there’s a cheerful little bird chirping at the bottom.

It would look nice enough on a Christmas tree, if I hung it as you see it now. But if you turn it around, you see that the ornament has a heart. Far from being hollow, like most of the decorations on my tree, it has tiny figures of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and animals. 

We have to decide every Christmas whether to look at one side or the other – to focus on the colourful decorations or to take a careful look at what Christmas is all about.

 Sometimes it’s easier just to see Christmas from the outside. Certainly, at least with my eyesight, it takes a bit more effort to look into the heart of this celebration.

But there’s so much to learn when we take the time to gaze at the miracle we are here to celebrate tonight.

 You can be sure that the shepherds couldn’t take their eyes off the angel. And when the angel left, they were changed, they were eager, and the result was that they received the priceless gift of seeing Mary and Joseph and a child lying in a manger.

We have a beautiful crib in our parish, and I hope that many of you will visit to say a prayer. But no matter how long you look at the statues, you will not find Mary and Joseph and their child. Because they are not statues!

But if you look into your heart, you will find Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. You will be able to speak with them. You can imagine how the shepherds felt, and you can feel that way too.

All you need to do is make up your mind and change the angle from which you view Christmas. Opposite the shiny and colourful side there is the real meaning of Christmas, which is the appearance of God our Saviour with goodness, loving kindness, and mercy.

We adults can lose our sense of wonder. We’ve had many Christmases and maybe we have begun to take the annual celebration for granted.

That’s why our parish wants to offer adults, young and old, a chance to look at Christmas with fresh eyes – an opportunity to get inside Christian faith. Alpha is an eleven-week video series that helps us understand why God became man and what that means for us. 

Please join us January 20, on line!