Advent 4, 22nd December 2019: Isaiah 7, 10-16; Matthew 1, 18-end

Revd. Canon Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

‘Then gentle Mary meekly bowed her head, ‘To me be as it pleaseth God’ she said.  ‘My soul shall laud and magnify his holy name’; most highly favoured lady. Gloria”

These are the words of one of the verses of the lovely Advent hymn we have just sung, ‘The angel Gabriel from heaven came’.

It takes us back to earlier in the year, to March 25^th, the date on which the church throughout the world celebrates the Annunciation of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary’.

We will stick with Mary’s ‘yes’, as this is the word that perhaps is a wiser word for us on the 4^th Sunday of Advent, when we are challenged yet again to allow Christ to be born again within us. Will we say a definite no, or an indifferent no; and indifferent yes or a definite yes? The choice is ours – just as Blessed Mary had a choice. God does not compel us to do anything – he works with our free will, with our consent. Our consent for blessing is as vital as Mary’s consent to the message of the Archangel. ‘To me be as it pleaseth God, she said’.

This same exercise of choice is offered to Joseph, as we heard in our gospel reading this morning. I wonder how many of us have significant and life-changing dreams that come as ‘night messages’ from God. Have you noticed how often in the bible, it is in a dream that God communicates with an individual? Joseph seems to be very prone to such significant dreams. It is through his dream that he is reassured about taking Blessed Mary as his wife. Imagine that – in fact, let’s imagine that!

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Advent 3, 15 December 2019: Isaiah 35, 1-10; James 5, 7-10; Matthew 11, 2-11.

Rev. Canon Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

No woman on earth has ever given birth to anyone as great as John the Baptist. I am a big fan of John the Baptist. However it is not I who grant to John this great accolade of birth, but Christ himself.

The holy scriptures reveal to us glimpses into the life of John, known as the Πρόδρομος , the Forerunner. And yet we are left thirsting for more knowledge of this man. In some ways it is a pity that we refer to him as John the Baptist, as John the Baptizer captures more accurately the dynamism of this character.

It reminds me of the rather pathetic joke: What do John the Baptist and Winnie the Pooh have in common? Only their middle name! (Think about that one).

The gospels build up a picture, though little more than a squint, of John. We know that he has familial connections with Jesus. We use the word cousin. On account of the journey made by Blessed Mary to her ‘kinswoman’ Elizabeth, to tell her that she is to carry the child of the Holy Spirit, we are reliably informed that Elizabeth was already 6 months into her pregnancy. Thus we know that John is half a year older that Jesus.

John’s father and mother are both known to us, and we know that the father, Zechariah, was on duty at the temple when he has his vision that he will have a child with Elizabeth who is to be called, not son of Zechariah, but John. Both John’s parents were very elderly when he was conceived. Given Zechariah’s duty at the temple we know that he was one of the temple officials, so John would have been brought up familiar with the temple – a factor that will be very significant in his future life.

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Advent Sunday 2019 , Isaiah 2, 1-5; Romans 13, 11-end; Matthew 24, 36-44)

Canon Leonard Doolan 

Even the most casual observer of events on the world stage must realize that, in rather biblical language, ‘the nations are in uproar’. For months now we have seen the deep discontent of the people of Hong Kong spilling out on to the streets of the city. In South America a number of political leaders have fallen from favour recently. In the city of Nazaria in Iraq there are many deaths of civilians as the Iraqi people react to corruption in high places and the lack of jobs, opportunities, and a future. Europe is not without its problems either. President Macron has declared NATO as brain dead. France had it yellow vest protests for weeks – and Spain and Italy have social problems; the cohesion of the European Union is shaky as we enter a period of change in its senior bureaucrats; and then of course there is BREXIT and the parliamentary paralysis this has created in the ‘mother of parliaments’.

I think we can say that we are not living in contented times. What might be the cause of this malaise? What underlies the fracturing of societies and alliances? Why are trade deals, closer monetary union, political integration, bureaucratic standardisation  from Brussels why are these not managing to bring cohesion? What is it that is missing?

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