Reflections for Christmas

The four gospel writers introduce their accounts of God coming to be with us as a human being in four completely different ways. If you knew nothing of this story and picked up each of the gospels individually, you could easily think they were totally different stories – at least to start with.  The place […]

Just a week ago we were remembering and celebrating how Jesus was a part of a very ordinary human family, the smallest unit of human society. Only a week later we find ourselves having to recognize that Jesus was from the very beginning a player in the world of geopolitics and international relations (Matthew 2:1-12). 

Jesus was God, born as a human being. But that means more than just he was biologically a human, that he had human DNA. He was fully human – he was part of human society, part of a human family. For Matthew the key aspect of Jesus being human was that he had a place

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus – well, duh! The moment in human history when God decisively participates in our life, becomes “one of us”, when God becomes flesh, becomes incarnate. On such a major feast we are spoilt for choice of readings. You could go to four different masses on Christmas.

Today we finish our celebration of Christmas with the Feast of the Epiphany. We started with the comfort and closeness of Mary and Elizabeth, we have hopefully spent time with family and friends, focused on those nearest to us. But that is not where Christmas ends. The ending has us looking outwards, to the wide

The image we may have from the nativity stories of the Holy Family may feel comfortably familiar to us. An isolated couple with a single child in a strange place, with just a few friendly strangers around them. Countless Christmas card images underpin this view of what could be a very modern nuclear family, at

We’ve spent four weeks anticipating this day, maybe a little longer if you are younger, or less if you’ve been busy at work or otherwise. Maybe you’ve got the sleigh before the reindeer, so to speak, by putting up all the celebratory symbols in advance of the actual event, but I’m sure you’ve held off

I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that people who live in the Southern Hemisphere celebrate Christmas in the middle of summer. For me Christmas is so deeply linked with snow, fires, darkness outside, that I just find it impossible to get my head around Christmas with hot sunny days, and a barbecue on the