Saint Andrew Catholic Church and School

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Readings and Homilies for December 22-23 (Español only) and Christmas (English and Español)

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Last weekend was the Fourth Sunday of Advent, but due to technical difficulties we were only able to record Fr. Newton's Spanish homily from the 12:30 PM Mass. The links to the readings, an English reflection, and Father's homily in Spanish are below:

Fourth Sunday of Advent

On Monday and Tuesday, December 24-25, we celebrating Christmas, or the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord. At both the bilingual Christmas Eve Mass and the early Mass on Christmas morning, Fr. Newton's homilies centered on the reality of "God with us" from the moment of the Nativity, and what we can learn from the response of the innkeeper and the shepherds in the familiar story: Each one of us decides whether we have room for Jesus; each one of us is told the Good News and decides whether to respond with haste...or at all.

Fr. Mark's homily begins with the question of a second-grader: If it's Jesus' birthday, why don't we give Him gifts? Rather than giving the Lord the gift of ourselves, too often we question why He has not done more for us: Where are you now? Why don't your intervene? Father challenges us to remember that Jesus has given everything, done everything, and intervened for us in a definitive way. It is we who choose not to respond. (Stay tuned to the end for a beautiful tie to a past fishing story.)

In his homily, guest presider and hometown priest Fr. Matthew Crane calls us to examine why we are here, at Mass, on Christmas, and how our motivations (even the good ones) stack up against the true reason: That Jesus Christ was born into the world to live, suffer, die and rise in order to save us from our sins. He reminds us that God works in unassuming ways, so that whatever the reason we are in church on Christmas, we can assume and rejoice that the hand of God brought us together. The question, then, is what are we going to do with what God has done in our lives.

Check out the readings and homilies in English and Spanish at the links below: