Parish Newsletter – Sunday 7th December 2025

Welcome to this week’s St Ann’s Parish Newsletter for the 2nd Sunday of Advent.
This edition highlights our parish life, Advent preparations, upcoming events, liturgical calendar, and community activities. It also includes a full guide to our Christmas Lights Switching-On Celebration, reflections for the week, and announcements for children and families. NL Dec 07 St Ann

This Week’s Highlights

• Message from Fr James on the meaning of Advent and our call to unity and hope. NL Dec 07 St Ann
• Details of the Christmas Lights Switching-On Mass and felicitation of guests. NL Dec 07 St Ann
• Advent readings, hymns, and liturgy of the day. NL Dec 07 St Ann
• Kids’ announcements:
  – Crib Competition
  – Nativity Play (24th December, 5 pm)
  – Christmas invitations for families. NL Dec 07 St Ann

Christmas & New Year Schedule

• 20 December 2025, 5.15 pm – Advent Reconciliation (Candlelight Adoration)
• 24 December
  • 5.00 pm – Children’s Mass with Nativity Play
  • 7.30 pm – Christmas Vigil Mass (Carols at 7.00 pm)
• 25 December, 10.30 am – Christmas Day Mass & Blessing of Toys
• 31 December 2025, 5.00 pm – New Year Vigil Mass
  • (4.15 pm – Thanksgiving Candlelight Adoration)
• 1 January 2026, 10.00 am – New Year Mass

Stay Connected

For parish updates, weekly homilies, and upcoming events, visit: www.stannskingstonhill.org.uk

HOMILY FOR THE CHRISTMAS LIGHTS SWITCHING-ON CEREMONY
My dear friends,
My dear neighbours,
My brothers and sisters of different faiths, traditions, and communities…
We gather this evening around a simple but profound symbol – light.

And the Word of God gives us a vision through the prophet Isaiah – a vision that was born in a time of fear, conflict, and deep uncertainty. Isaiah looks at a broken world, a people wounded, and a nation confused. Yet he does not allow his eyes to be imprisoned by the darkness of his time. That is why he is a prophet/visionary.

A prophet is one who sees beyond.
A prophet refuses to be chained by the limitations of the moment.
A prophet looks through the night and perceives the dawn that others cannot yet see.
A prophet is not swayed by the immediate noise of history, but listens to the quiet whisper of God within the heart.

Isaiah sees a world where the wolf dwells with the lamb, where the lion eats straw like the ox, where the child leads the strong, and where peace is not a dream but a living reality.

This is the prophetic vision: to see what can be, not simply what is.

And, my dear friends, humanity carries this prophetic capacity.
Every one of us – whether from the Christian tradition, Hindu tradition, Muslim tradition, skich  tradition, or from any path of sincere goodwill – we have within us the power to transcend, to rise above the instincts of fear and division, to rise above ego, to rise above the limitations.

The ancient Upanishadic prayer captures this profoundly:

Asato ma sad gamaya – Lead us from the unreal to the real
Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya – Lead us from darkness to light
Mrityor ma amritam gamaya – Lead us from death to fullness of life
Om shanti, shanti, shanti – Peace, peace, peace.

The spiritual teachers of the world all agree that peace cannot be imposed from the outside; it must be born from within.
The light we switch on outside must become the light we switch on inside.

The darkness inside us –
the darkness of suspicion,
the darkness of prejudice,
the darkness of misunderstanding –
that darkness is dispelled only by the light of knowledge, the light of wisdom, the light of understanding

Today, as a parish, as a community, we stand together – civil leaders, local representatives, neighbours, families, people of different religions and cultures.
We are here not out of compulsion,
but out of love,
out of respect,
out of a shared desire for the flourishing of humanity.

We stand here because humanity has a greater potentiality:
to grow larger in generosity,
to grow deeper in compassion,
to grow gentler in spirit,
and to become a blessing to society and to creation itself.

Let the prophet’s vision become our vision –
a world where every person, regardless of religion or background,
becomes a catalyst for peace,
a bearer of harmony,
a light in a world that often cries out for hope.

As we switch on the lights today,
may God switch on something within us as well –
      a small flame that grows into a lamp,
      a lamp that grows into a beacon,
      a beacon that becomes a blessing. Amen.