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Today in our Gospel reading we hear a lovely story from the hidden life of Jesus as a boy. It is about his visit to Jerusalem when he was twelve years old, how he got lost on the return journey and how his parents eventually found him discussing the scriptures with the doctors in the Temple.
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We are now in the final phase of the Advent season, the immediate preparation for the feast of Christmas. In the Gospel reading we are presented with the account of the visit of Mary to Elizabeth. Superficially there is no significant action; Mary simply visits her cousin and then goes home. What Luke gives us is the conversation between the two women and this is very revealing.
Today is commonly called Gaudete Sunday; that word Gaudete means rejoice and joy is the principal theme of the first two readings. We don’t hear much from the Prophet Zephaniah in the Lectionary but this passage is an interesting one; it speaks about the coming of the Messiah and it tells us that day will be a day of rejoicing not just for the whole people but for the Lord himself. He even pictures the Messiah dancing with joy on that great day.
Although we would expect the liturgy at this time of the year to be pointing towards the birth of Christ and so to the city of Bethlehem it actually points us not to Bethlehem but to Jerusalem.
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Father Alex McAllister SDSParish Priest of
St Thomas à Becket Wandsworth Archives
August 2019
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