Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King by acknowledging our sinfulness, accepting death and bowing to God’s judging of us. Today’s gospel is the last judgement; let’s put our faith in God’s mercy, rather than in our ability to do good. Today’s feast marks the end of the Church’s year; next Sunday we begin Advent when we start to think of the coming of Christ into our lives. At Christmas we will celebrate the coming of Christ into our world as a real historical event. How do you envisage celebrating Christmas this year? Will coming to Mass be part of it? It looks as if it will be the case that we will not be in lockdown at Christmas, although we can’t be certain of this. Let’s hope we can celebrate Mass in church on Christmas day.

Because of limited numbers of people in church due to the coronavirus, the bishop has suggested we think in terms of the Octave of Christmas. The Church thinks of itself as celebrating Christmas day on each of the eight days beginning 25 December and ending on 1 January. The bishop is suggesting that if we think in terms of the Octave of Christmas it opens the possibility to a lot more people of coming to Mass on Christmas day than if we restrict Christmas day to the 25 December. It could be the case that many of you will simply not be coming to Mass this Christmas, and this is perfectly understandable. However, the task of working out a Christmas time-table of Masses this year is going to be difficult. Let me know what you are thinking.