From Fr Kevin Reynolds, Pretoria
Father Bonaventure Hinwood’s letter on the Annunciation being central to Christmas (December 25) certainly brings home how the Church’s carefully designed liturgical year richly facilitates Catholics’ celebration of the central mystery of our faith: Jesus Christ.
Sunday by Sunday, day by day, whenever we celebrate Mass and the Divine Office, our attention is keenly focused on a particular aspect of who Christ is and what he should mean in our lives.
I always feel sad when I hear former Catholics say that they have joined other churches because they never found Jesus in the Catholic Church. Surely, if our liturgy is meaningfully and correctly celebrated, it should enable one to deepen one’s personal relationship with Christ.
As a former student of Fr Bonaventure at St John Vianney Seminary in the 1960s, may I dare mention another mystery of which the Christmas/Epiphany season reminds us? It is that of creation.
Whenever I enjoy the privilege of baptising a young child I can never but stand in awe of its being a unique expression of the pinnacle of God’s creation. On such an occasion, it is only natural to ask the same question that was posed regarding St John the Baptist: “What will this child turn out to be?” (Lk 1:66).
Of course, when gazing at the babe of Bethlehem we are privileged to know already what he turned out to be: our Lord and Saviour whom we can meet and get to know more fully as we move through the liturgical calendar year by year.
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