Censings

Christmas Eve December 24, 2019, 7:00 PM Saint Cecilia Catholic Community Rev. David Justin Lynch Isaiah 9:1-6 | Titus 2:11-14 | Luke 2:1-14             +In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN. Tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus. No human person has yet been born without a mother, Jesus included.   As we all know, the Mother of Jesus was Mary. Traditional Christians often hold up the Blessed Virgin Mary as the ideal of what a woman should be, that is, meek, mild and submissive, or in colloquial terms, barefoot and pregnant.    This view of Mary is both historically inaccurate and harmful, no doubt driven by the needs of insecure men who fear a loss of control over their lives and their world. The subjugation of Mary, the maligning of her as meek, mild, and mindless, has harmed millions of women over many centuries. Hiding within all the wonder and hurly-burly of Christmas is thousands of...

Fourth Sunday in Advent, Year A December 22, 2019 – 10:30 AM Saint Cecilia Catholic Community Isaiah 7:10-14 | Psalm 24:1-6 Romans 1:1-7 | Matthew 1:18-24 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN. At our Christmas Eve Sung Mass at 7:00 PM, I will have plenty to say about Mary, the mother of Jesus. Today, however, the spotlight is on her husband, Joseph. Today’s Gospel narrates the birth of Jesus from his viewpoint, whereas the story of the birth of Jesus in Luke’s Gospel, which will be sung on Christmas Eve, tells it from Mary’s perspective. Imagine two new reports about the same election, with one presented by Sean Hannity, and the other by Rachel Maddow.  Those presentations will be very different, I assure you. Not too much is known about Joseph.  He is not mentioned in the earliest Gospel, that of Mark, and he appears nowhere in the Pauline epistles, which chronologically predate the four canonical Gospels by several deca...

Advent 1A - December 01 2019 Saint Cecilia Catholic Community Rev. David Justin Lynch Isaiah 2:1-5 | Psalm 122:1-9 Romans 3:11-14 | Matthew 24:37-44       + In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.        Happy New Year! No, I am not bestowing on you an early wish for a happy two thousand twenty. I’m wishing you a happy Church New Year. Today is the First Sunday in Advent. The word “Advent” comes from the Latin verb  “advenire,” which means "to come toward, to draw near, to approach." During Advent, we remember and celebrate God's drawing near to us in Jesus Christ. The beginning of another Church year commences with our anticipation of the coming of Jesus as we prepare to celebrate His incarnation.  Beginning the Church year with the First Sunday in Advent is countercultural. It is out of sync with every other time structure in our lives: the academic semester, the fis­cal year, t...

SAINT FRANCIS DAY CELEBRATION Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time October 06, 2019 – 10:30 AM Saint Cecilia Catholic Community, Palm Springs, CA Rev. David Justin Lynch Habakkuk 1:2-3;2:2-4 | Psalm 95:1-2;6-9 2 Timothy 1:6-8;13-14 | Luke 17-5-10 + In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. We live in an absolutely crazy world. People are fighting wars in Yemen, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Others are engaging in street violence, like that happening in Hong Kong. Here in the United States, we witness vandalism to places of worship, mass shootings, urban social unrest, corruption in government, severe inequality of wealth and income, abuse of power, invidious discrimination based on immutable characteristics, and one person assaulting another driven by hatred of their ethnicity and/or religion. All of that not only tries our patience but tries our faith in both God and our fellow humans. Based on fear of harm, the response of many is...

Twenty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C September 08 2019 – 10:30 AM Saint Cecilia Catholic Community Rev. David Justin Lynch Wisdom 9:13:18B | Psalm 90:3-6;12-14;17 Philemon 9-10;12-17 | Luke 14:25-33              +In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN. This week, I was asked to make time at today’s Sunday Mass for the commissioning of a Protestant layperson to officiate at weddings and funerals for personal financial gain.   Aside from the fact that we are a Catholic Community whose theological understandings of weddings, funerals, and ministry itself differ from Protestants in many respects, this proposal raises an important question: should ministry be a profit-seeking endeavor? Today’s readings answer precisely why I issued a resounding NO to that request. In the course of my work as a priest, families come to me for baptisms, weddings, quinceañeras, and funerals. The first question...

    LABOR DAY CELEBRATION Saint Cecilia Catholic Community Palm Springs, California September 01, 2019 – 10:30 AM Rev. David Justin Lynch Genesis 23:1-6 | Song of Wisdom 1 Corinthians 3:10-13 | Matthew 25:31-46 + In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.        When we think of Labor Day, we commonly think of unionized workers celebrating victories over oppressive employers. Those workers are certainly to be commended for their courage, their vision, and their sacrifices that brought us the forty-hour work week, minimum wage, and other labor protections.   We must never lose sight of our mission as Christians to be ministers of justice, to fight against oppression and degradation of all kinds involving all workers, no matter what they do or where they are.        In the ensuing years since the beginning of the labor movement, the relationship between employers and e...