Sermon preached at St Paul’s Athens on Christmas Day 2021: Isaiah 9, 2-7; Luke 2, 1-14

Fr Leonard Doolan

‘He is named Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace’. (Is 9, 2-6).  ‘To you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, who is the messiah, the Lord’. (Luke 2, 11)

Both the prophet Isiah and St. Luke the Evangelist present to us what we might expect. The language, the vision, the expectation fits with the sort of power and authority that religious people want to see in and from God.

Then unexpectedly, ‘You will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.’ (Luke 2, 11). The contrast is stark and should take us by complete surprise were it not all so familiar in the annual Christmas story.

The paradox at the heart of our faith is that God becomes flesh and face in a baby – Jesus, born in Bethlehem. ‘Holy God, holy and strong, holy and immortal, have mercy upon us’ we say in the prayer called the Trisagion.

It is one enormous risk that God takes – perhaps even greater than the risk of creating man and woman. God’s glory has the setting of straw and smell; God’s eternity has time and place and person; God’s mightiness cries in the night and needs the love and care of a mum and dad. God’s immortality is moving immediately, relentlessly towards the mystery of the cross.

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Sermon for the fourth Sunday in Advent – 19th December 2021:Micah 5, 2-5; Heb 10, 5-10; Luke 1, 39-45.

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

Christmas Eve 18.00 – only on Zoom (see login details on website)

Christmas Morning: 10.00 in St. Paul’s Church

Last Sunday I quoted from Rowan Williams new book Looking East in Winter, (Bloomsbury 2021 p145) He says, paraphrasing someone else,  ‘the prophetic vision is… specifically the vision of all human flesh and every human face with the amazed attention that arises from the fact of God having become flesh and face.’ God in Christ, our Christmas narrative, is about God becoming flesh and face.

These previous two weeks in the Advent season we have had the luxury to dwell on the person of John the Baptizer. We have seen in the scriptures for these two Sundays the challenge and the dis-comfort of the voice that cries in the wilderness – the message of the one who prepares the way for the Lord’s coming. It is not easy reading, and it is a challenge to the preacher to bring into high relief, especially when we are all thinking about Christmas celebrations, the message of repentance and indeed of judgement.

John is the person, the voice, and the face of prophecy, being rooted in the tradition of the old promise, but who invites us to greet the arrival of the new promise in Jesus. John’s is the hard face of the Advent season.

If John is the hard face of this season, it is Mary’s that is the soft face of Advent, and we look to the expressions of her face on this Sunday nearest to Christmas.

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Audio Sermon for the fourth Sunday of Advent – 19th December 2021

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

Advent 4 2021 – Sermon

Sermon Preached at St Paul’s Church on the Third Sunday of Advent – 12th December 2021:ZEPHANIAH: 3:14-20, LUKE 3:7-18, PHILIPPIANS 4:4-7

Deacon Christine Saccali

PASS THE PARCEL 

I speak in the name of the triune God Father, Son and Holy Spirit AMEN

I remember well a childhood game usually played at birthday parties called Pass the Parcel, do you know it? If you don’t, then it goes like this: the children sit round in a circle, on the floor, and music is played. A large wrapped parcel is passed round until the music stops whereupon that child opens one layer of paper only to reveal yet more layers often of different coloured paper. There is much anticipation and squealing. In a later version sweets would drop out and be grabbed in a free for all.

A bit like the updated versions of luxury advent calendars which have upstaged the simple picture windows of my youth. The new ones seem to me to be missing the point of Advent. So many people glide over it or through it unlike Lent. But Advent is a gift to us to pause and reflect before the great feast of Christmas. We do not have to open all its layers at once there is a time of watching and waiting and savouring what is to come while enjoying the four weeks of Advent.

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Sermon preached for the congregation at Thessaloniki on the Third Sunday of Advent – 12 December 2021: Zephaniah 3, 14-end; Luke 3, 7-18

Fr Leonard Doolan

I begin by recognizing that today is the feast day of St. Spiridon, who is the patron saint of the island of Corfu. When we had our Archdeaconry Synod in Corfu in October I had the privilege of attending a Holy Liturgy in St. Spiridon Church in Corfu Town, where his remains are laid, and the presiding Orthodox priest was my friend Archimandrite Ignatios Soteriadis. This church has a palpable sense of holiness, but yet of easy accessibility, and the local people and shop keepers just wander in and out of the holy temple, as if Spiridon were among them as a friend and neighbour. Those who have gathered in Thessaoloniki this morning have are looking at an icon of St. Spiridon on the holy table.

We make our way through Advent with all the rich themes and images of this holy season – and we are forced to sort things out in our hearts, minds and lives by the scriptures appropriate to this season, and to the challenge of these images and themes – and we get a second chance to encounter John the Baptizer – who stands for no nonsense. Now there is a theme in itself!

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Audio Sermon for the 2nd Sunday in Advent – 5th December 2021

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

Sermon for the 2nd Sunday in Advent – 5th December 2021: Malachi 3, 1-4; Luke 3, 1-6.

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

The homily this morning is shorter than usual because the Christmas Bazaar is being held today, and it opens at 11.00, so many members of the regular congregation are already there setting up their stalls.

Jesus says (Luke 7, 28) ‘Among those born of women no one is greater’. He is speaking of the one we know as John the Baptist, or as some prefer, John the Baptizer because baptizing people for repentance was perhaps his most note-worthy dynamic action.

What a remarkable character this John the Baptizer must have been. His appearance was described for us – wild and woolly we might say. His courage is described for us – he challenges Herod for his immorality, and pays the price for challenging him, for Herod has him beheaded. His attraction is described for us – for he gathers around him his own disciples, his own followers. We are told much more besides, but yet never enough. He is a tantalizing persona in the gospel narratives, and we are left wanting to know more about him.

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Sermon for Advent Sunday – 28th November 2021: Jer 33, 14-16; 1 Thess 3, 9-end; Luke 21, 25-36).

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

This ancient hymn is based on the Advent Antiphons – or introductions – to the Song of Mary, the Magnificat – that begin on the Feast Day called in the Book of Common Prayer calendar, O Sapientia, translated from Latin as ‘O Wisdom’.

Each daily antiphon is an invocation, so begins with ‘O’, as the verse goes on to address some epithet of Jesus Christ.

So we have ‘O Sapientia’; O Wisdom associating Christ with his very presence in Creation, and the first biblical man – Adam.

‘O Adonai’; a Hebrew name associating Christ with God who reveals himself in majesty to Moses, granting to humanity the ancient law – the Ten Commandments.

‘O Root of Jesse’ – Radix Jesse – Jesse is father of King David whose historic hometown is Bethlehem and of the tribe of Judah.

‘O Clavis David’ – O Key of David – the first King of Israel, introducing royalty into the life of the Hebrews. The royal doors open to announce the coming of another king in the line of David, and Jesus too is born in Bethlehem, the city of Joseph.

‘O Oriens’ – O Rising Star – Christ is the light coming into the world, and is called Sun of Righteousness.

King of the Nations – Rex Gentium – the kingly reign begins in Christ’s birth, and the reversal of our Fall from Grace, and our expulsion from Paradise.

Lastly – O Emmanuel – ‘God with us’ in Hebrew. St. Matthew’s gospel uses this name in the message of the angel of the Lord to Joseph.

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Audio Sermon for Advent Sunday – 28th November 2021

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens

Audio Sermon for the Feast of Christ the King – 21 November 2021

Fr Leonard Doolan – St Paul’s Athens