PROCESSION SERMON
Sermon given at the Procession in Honour of Our Lady in newbridge on Thursday 4th December.
MARIAN PROCESSION SERMON – DECEMBER 2025.
We gather in this beautiful church in Newbridge, dedicated to our Lady of peace, to pray in this advent season, for peace. Perhaps this evening we can be guided by the Holy Father, Pope Leo. As you may know the Pope has just finished his pastoral journey to Turkey and Lebanon and very appropriately The Popes Video prayer and intention for December has just been released as well. It is dedicated specifically to the Christian minorities who live in the midst of war. In fact, in this his last prayer intention of the year, the Holy Father asks that we pray
“that Christians living in areas of war or conflict, especially in the Middle East, might be seeds of peace, reconciliation and hope.” reciting a prayer to the “God of peace,” Pope Leo inspiring them and us to be seeds of peace in our world
As you may know the Holy Father has been in Lebanon and in Turkey to mark the anniversary of the Council of Nicae in 325, its 1700 anniversary, when the main tenets of the Christian faith were established, that of the incarnation and the trinity- it is largely the same creed we still say today.
This month’s Popes prayer intention, as well as his first apostolic journey, focuses on one of the most unstable areas in the world . According to Aid to the Church in Need’s Religious freedom report 2025, the number of conflicts in the Middle East and the conditions there expose religious minorities, and Christians in particular, to a condition of extreme vulnerability. After two years of war, the population in Palestine is beyond exhaustion; homeless families have taken refuge in many churches. The severe economic crisis in Lebanon has driven thousands of people to emigrate, emptying parishes and schools. In Syria and Iraq, reconstruction struggles to make progress due to political instability, insecurity, and the lack of prospects for the young. And yet, in the midst of these difficulties, many small Christian communities continue to safeguard the faith, serve the poor, and build bridges of co-existence with their neighbours who practice other religions, they are seeds of peace; they are off course wonderful examples to us.
The images that accompany the prayer, in the video that accompanies the Popes prayer tell us specifically about this. They show us examples of an unshakable faith even in the midst of the rubble. We see celebrations in Iraqi villages come back to life after the war, the extraordinary strength of the parish community of Gaza, the Church of the Holy Family, even as they are being bombed, the indispensable work of Caritas in Lebanon among the poor and refugees in neighboring countries, the spiritual oasis offered by Syrian monks. All of these are signs of the presence of that Holy Spirit who, as the prayer Pope reads says, is “the source of hope in the darkest times.”
Pope Leo is very much following in the footsteps of course ofPope Francis, in his concern for those suffering christians in areas of conflict. On many occasions over the years, Pope Francis entrusted the suffering and the witness of Christians who live in difficult situations to the prayers of the Church. For example, he asked for prayers for persecuted Christians (March 2017), for dialogue and reconciliation in the Middle East (November 2019), for an end to religious discrimination and persecution (January 2022), and for the Christian martyrs of our day, witnesses to Christ (March 2024).
Pope Leo has picked up this legacy of Pope Francisright at the moment of his first apostolic journey to Türkiye and Lebanon. His invitation to prayer is an act of closeness and hope, a way to say to the Christians of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and so many other countries, that they are not forgotten, that the universal Church walks with them. It also serves to remind all of us that the faith grows even in the midst of trial, and that from the wounded persecuted community come seeds of reconciliation and peace can be born. A reminder to us that the church is truly built on the blood of the martyrs and suffering Christians, where the church suffers it grows; in persecution and suffering the seeds of peace can grow,
It is indeed a lovely prayer of Pope Leo in his message for December, one which we perhaps could make our own in these advent days, so once again his prayer is “that Christians living in areas of war or conflict, especially in the Middle East, might be seeds of peace, reconciliation and hope.”
The Pope praying not just that Christian communities be protected, that there sufferings may ease, but that they are in fact one of the solutions to the issue of war and conflict and strife. That their courageous witness, their steadfastness, their faith, their good example, may help to build peace; that they will be seeds of peace.
As of course we can, we can be seeds of peace in our families, parishes and communities, we can build peace as well, we can all be peacemakers and peace builders, we can by showing christian love, repair and rebuild broken and damaged relationships, we can choose to forgive, to tolerate, to emphasise with others, to be compassionate to others. In other words to be signs of hope and not of despair, to be positive and optimistic, to be hopeful, to be seeds of peace. The journey to peace has to begin in each persons heart, that is the foundation for true peace. With the spirit given gift of peace in our hearts, we can be seeds of peace to those and to the world around us.
We are now approaching the end of this Jubilee year, with its theme of Pilgrims of Hope, with the call to be people who are motivated by the hope our faith gives us, even in the midst of the difficulties and horrors of this world – we seek inspiration from all those suffering Christian communities, who remain hopeful even in the face of their many hardships – to be a people of hope to the world around us, to be seeds of peace
Hope off course is very much a theme of Advent, advent is a season of hope, when we call to mind the wonderful hope our faith gives us, in our lord and saviour Jesus Christ, whose birth we are about to remember and celebrate and whose 2nd coming, his return, we await for in hope. Trusting in him to build that kingdom of peace and justice.
The Gospel reading read at holy mass today is perhaps appropriate, from Matthew 7,
“Jesus said to his disciples: ‘It is not those who say to me, “Lord, Lord,” who will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the person who does the will of my Father in heaven. Therefore, everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a sensible man who built his house on rock. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and hurled themselves against that house, and it did not fall: it was founded on rock. But everyone who listens to these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a stupid man who built his house on sand. Rain came down, floods rose, gales blew and struck that house, and it fell; and what a fall it had!’”
Rather an appropriate Gospel given all the rain we have had in recent days and weeks.
What is that rock on which we build our lives, faith off course, faith in Christ, and in the hope our faith gives us. If this God given hope is absent from our lives, then we will be like that house built on sand or bad foundations and we will collapse, our hope in Christ, in his promises, is our sure and strong foundation. And if in turn we have a strong and abiding hope in Christ, the King of peace, then we can be Pope Leo challenges to be, those seeds of peace in the world.
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