www.therecord.com.au
12 January 2017
Edition #114
Dean of St Mary’s Cathedral Monsignor Michael Keating reads to young worshippers during the Children’s Mass on Christmas Day.
PHOTO: RON TAN
CHRISTMA S 2016
GOD OFFERS HIMSELF TO US THROUGH THE BIRTH OF JESUS, ARCHBISHOP COSTELLOE SAYS By Rachel Curry
THE CHOICE of our mighty creator to appear to us as a vulnerable baby reveals God’s loving nature, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe has told thousands of worshippers who recently attended Christmas Masses at St Mary’s Cathedral. Speaking during his homily at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, the Archbishop explained that the arrival of the Infant Jesus into the world was a birth like no other. “And this is true not just because of the extraordinary events which the Gospels record around the birth of this child - the songs of angels, the appearance of a star, the journeying of wise men from distant lands, and of course the unheard of accounts of a virginal conception, strange dreams, and other mysterious happenings,” he said.
St Mary’s Cathedral Assistant Priest Father Conor Steadman and Archbishop of Perth Timothy Costelloe cradle a doll representing the Infant PHOTO: RON TAN Jesus during Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.
“Beyond all this, strange and mysterious though it all is, the birth of the child in Bethlehem tells of something even stranger: the appearance of the mighty creator God, without whom nothing can exist, now coming among us as a fragile, helpless, vulnerable baby.” There are many ways to understand the significance of the birth of Jesus,
A r c h b i shop C o s t e l lo e continued. Jesus is known as the Messiah, our Saviour, and the Son of God; to some a great prophet and to others a social reformer. However, the Archbishop said that for him, Jesus is “the face of the one true God”. “And what does God show us in Jesus? One way
to answer that question, at least in part, is to spend time, either literally tonight in the cathedral or more generally within our own minds and hearts, gazing carefully and thoughtfully upon the scene in the stable at Bethlehem where God lies in a manger helple ss, v ulnerable, unprotected apart from his mother and Joseph, totally available to us,” he said. “This is the challenge of Christmas. Dare I believe that God, to whom I owe all that I am and all that I have, has chosen to become weak among the strong, helpless among the powerful, simple among the sophisticated, and needy among the selfsufficient, in order to help me understand where true greatness, genuine humanity, and the fullness of life are really to be found?” Full Text available at
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