08/04/2024

Homily - The Annunciation

Transferred from Holy Week 2024 to Monday 8th April 2024. 

(At Mass while supplying  in the Whitton Parish of St Edmund of Canterbury.)

This feast reminds me of my baptism.

Jesus was conceived in Mary – and developed within her womb until able to be born.

At baptism, Jesus was conceived in my heart – for me to enable him to grow and evolve throughout my life - still on that aged 84 – until I am able to be born into divine eternity: Paradise.

Every time we prepare ourselves to listen to the reading of the Gospel, we make those three crosses: on our forehead, lips and heart. We bless ourselves so that we may think more like Christ, communicate more like Christ and love more like Christ: universally, comprehensively.

Gradually, as we move on through time – which is irreversible – we can acquire the values and virtues of Jesus Christ.

In the three Bs of life – the Belonging, Believing and Behaving, it’s the third that is most important. Belonging to The Church, believing the Creed is fine, but it is how we act – “By their fruits you shall know them” that is vital for our birth into eternity. As Jesus never bored his congregations, I try to be like him – and keep my homilies short.