People's Prayers: Prayers of the People: Begin at the Beginning ~ 1st Sunday After Christmas Day '18 Yr C

For Sunday, December 30, 2018, 1st Sunday after Christmas Day, Year C, Readings: Isaiah 61:10-62:3, Ps 147, Galatians, 3:23-25, 4:4-7;

John 1:1-18

For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what it sown in it to spring up, so the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations…I will not keep silent…I will not rest…until the nations see Your vindication. [Isaiah 61:11, 62:1a, 2a]

Hallelujah! How good it is to sing praises to our God!...He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds…The Lord lifts the lowly, but casts the wicked to the ground. [Psalm 147:1a, 3, 6]

God sent his Son, born of a woman…so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts crying, "Abba, Father!" So you are no longer a slave but a child…then also an heir through God. [Galatians 4:4b-7]

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God...What has come into being was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it...And the Word became flesh and lived among us...From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. [John 1:1-2, 3b-5,14a, 16]

Still in the thrall of Christmas, we are on the cusp of the end of one year and beginning of another. The music, lights, and now unwrapped presents are all still claiming our senses though perhaps our attention is slightly on the wane. We’re not quite out of the holiday mood even if all the necessities of action in daily life are creeping in. Yet there is time enough to breathe deeply and inhale the air still electric with excitement for the sacred and Holy Infant's birth and the high expectations for the coming of a New Year. We fill our lungs and it disperses throughout our own life blood. We exhale the doubts and fears of uncertain faith, and inhale deeply again to set our course for a new start, a new birth in ourselves, an awakening, a fresh awareness of the presence Christ within us and all around us.

For some it is an important moment to breathe in the hope for those who are no longer in this life, and with whom our mutual love will live forever, that their journey is fulfilled as promised, living again in a joy-filled eternity.

John tells us in today’s Gospel that Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. As the Spirit of Jesus lives in our hearts by God's gift, let us radiate that light from within, be the change we want to find in others, live as though we believe in the grace upon grace received from the Incarnation of Jesus, our Christ, the Word made flesh who lived among us. Let the first Resolution be: Begin at the Beginning and follow the Light. As John says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus, let us begin again with You.

LET US, GOD’S PEOPLE, PRAY

Leader: ~ Abba! Lord! You have revealed all life through Christ who was born of a woman to redeem us as Your children, Your heirs. Grant us the faith and courage to live every day in wisdom and in strength, through the Spirit of Christ that You have sent into each of our hearts.

Jesus, God’s Holy Word

RESPONSE: Center our hearts and minds on You

~ Abba! Lord! Let us not rest or keep silent in seeking Your righteousness and peace among all nations and all leaders, everywhere. Cause the changes we seek in others to spring up in ourselves in our daily thoughts and actions. We pray especially for: add your own petitions

Jesus, God’s Holy Word