Second Sunday of Advent
7 December 2025
For centuries, millennia, the whole world was in a state of advent. It was waiting. Until the Lord revealed himself to Abraham, our ancestors did not know for what or for whom they were waiting, but every thinking being knew (and still does) that our present state is not right. Injustice, violence, misery; this is not how it is meant to be, and all our instincts cry out against it.
For us, Advent is the time when the Church asks us to look seriously at how real the incarnation is to us. How does Christ’s coming affect the way we live? It is a praying time to think about the reality of Jesus.
Sr Wendy Beckett
The Art of Christmas
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The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
8 December 2025
Mary is great because of Jesus. He is the mediator, he is the sole way to the Father, he is our life and our truth. Mary’s enormous privilege, her uniqueness (William Wordsworth called her ‘our tainted nature’s solitary boast’), was to give birth to Jesus. It was her ‘yes’, her ‘amen’ that made the incarnation possible. It was Mary who made it possible for Jesus ‘to grow in wisdom and grace’ and in the course of time to enter into his apostolate and his redemptive death. Mary would have seen herself as simply a conduit, the means through which Jesus could become our everything.
Sr Wendy Beckett
The Art of Christmas
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Third Sunday of Advent (Gaudete Sunday)
14 December 2025
Advent calls us to stop and think. But for nearly everyone the season of Advent is also the busiest time of the year. There is so much to be done to prepare for Christmas; cards, presents, the planning of meals, hospitality in general. Leaving aside whether we actually need to do all this and whether it could not all be simplified, the actuality of most lives during Advent is emphatically not one of contemplation. We can benefit from moments each day, that we set aside just to keep ourselves grounded in faith. It is Jesus and his birth that we celebrate, not just togetherness. Can we still enter into the spirit of Advent, this holy season?
Sr Wendy Beckett
The Art of Christmas
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Fourth Sunday of Advent
21 December 2025
Joseph and Mary had a rocky start to their marriage. He, quite naturally suspected her of betraying him, both a great sorrow and a scandal. She, on the other hand, must have been wounded that he did not trust her. Then there was the difficult journey to Bethlehem and the astounding events there. It must have been a time of real growth in marital love for both of them. Each had to trust the other. Only as true partners could they nourish and protect their son.
All relationships go through difficult periods, but God can help us make those very difficulties a source of deeper understanding and love.
Sr Wendy Beckett
The Art of Christmas
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The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ
25 December 2025
Idyllic pictures of the stable, with Mary and Joseph and the child, perfectly reflect the ideal Christmas, this happy and glorious expression of our joy in and gratitude for Christ’s coming. In practice though the Christmas experience is all too often a tiring and testing time. We may well be exhausted from our preparations, irritated by family foibles, perhaps anxious about expense, nervously eager to make the day memorable. The shining light of Christmas may reveal an unseemly darkness. If we are to enter into the wonder of Christmas we must actively embrace the love that Jesus makes visible. If we do, we banish that dark side of all of us.
Sr Wendy Beckett
The Art of Christmas
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The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
28 December 2025
‘Your children are the greatest gift God will give to you, and their souls the heaviest responsibility He will place in your hands. Take time with them, teach them to have faith in God. Be a person in whom they can have faith. When you are old, nothing else you’ve done will have mattered as much.’
Lisa Wingate
‘Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.’
Mother Teresa
‘Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.’
George Burns
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Second Sunday after Christmas
4 January 2026
Our God moves in the quiet, everyday moments. He pierces our heart, inviting us to him, and quietly waits for our response.
This New Year’s, let us rest at the manger of the Divine Infant. Bring your feelings of weariness and despair to him. Be with the Lord and let him love you only like he can love you. Your heart may still be restless, but the Lord is with you and is drawing you ever closer to his heart.
In drawing nearer to him, may we surrender our expectations for this new year and trust in his plan.
Catholicwomeninbusiness.com
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The Epiphany of the Lord
6 January 2026
Ask the beauty of the earth, the beauty of the sky. Question the order of the stars, the sun whose brightness lights the day, the moon whose splendour softens the gloom of night. Ask of the living creatures that move in the waves, that roam the earth, that fly in the heavens. Question all these and they will answer, ‘Yes, we are beautiful’. Their very loveliness is their confession of God: for who made these lovely mutable things, but he who is himself unchangeable beauty? Too late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient, ever new, too late have I loved you.
St Augustine
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The Baptism of the Lord
11 January 2026
Beginning here we glimpse the Three-in-one; The river runs, the clouds are torn apart, The Father speaks, the Spirit and the Son Reveal to us the single loving heart That beats behind the being of all things And calls and keeps and kindles us to light. The dove descends, the spirit soars and sings ‘You are belovèd, you are my delight!’ In that swift light and life, as water spills And streams around the Man like quickening rain, The voice that made the universe reveals The God in Man who makes it new again. He calls us too, to step into that river, To die and rise and live and love forever.
Malcom Guite
stpauls.co.uk
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Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
18 January 2026
Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and Catholic Schools Week begin today
John ‘Saw Jesus Coming Toward Him.’ – Jesus is always coming toward us, too. Why? Because he loves us. He never imposes himself. He doesn’t burst through the door and force us to accept him or even acknowledge him. But he does remain close, hoping we will catch a glimpse of his love and, in that instant, recognize that he is everything our hearts long for. What will happen if we open the door of our life, of our heart, to Christ? He will call us to abandon the tight confines of our egotism, greed, lust, envy, and selfishness. He will open undreamed-of horizons and give a rich, new dimension to our poor, fleeting days on this earth.
ePriest.com
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Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
25 January 2026 • Sunday of the Word of God
‘Repent’, in other words, ‘Change your life’. Today Jesus speaks those same words to you: ‘Take heart, I am here with you, allow me to enter and your life will change’. Jesus knocks at the door. That is why the Lord gives you his word, so that you can receive it like a love letter he has written to you, to help you realise that he is at your side. His word consoles and encourages us. At the same time it challenges us, frees us from the bondage of our selfishness and summons us to conversion. Because his word has the power to change our lives and to lead us out of darkness into the light.
Pope Francis, Sunday of the Word of God 2020