1. Dear friends, my prayers for a most holy and blessed Christmas! May our good and gracious God bless and keep you, anointing you and your loved ones with his love, peace and joy this Christmas and in the days to come.

    The following are the final points made during the last session on the Advent recollection,
    Awaiting… the Child. These were shared on Friday, 21 December. They are now offered for your Christmas reflection.


    For today in the city of David a Saviour has been born to you: he is Christ the Lord (Luke 2: 11).

    The birth of Jesus manifests God’s plan of salvation of humankind within the realities of our finite space and time. We see this fulfilled in and through Mary's maternity—of first bearing Jesus within her and then bearing him forth into the world as God’s Good News.

    On this most holy of nights, let us reflect on God’s gift of spiritual maternity to humankind for we too are invited to let God bring forth Jesus into our lives so we can share Jesus. Indeed, maternity is the basis of the friendship Jesus himself wants to have with us. For as he says to his disciples: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

    Maternity, however, comes to be with labour pains—hopeful yearnings that they are—for a child that is unseen but is expectantly awaited for. Through maternity one grows up in faith and love to become mother. The moment of birth is when maternity is most fully realized: a child's birth is also the birth into motherhood for the one who bears. Christmas is therefore Mary’s anointed time to be Mother to Jesus, God-with-us. Don't our hopes for Jesus to be born into our lives at Christmas give expression to the spiritual maternity Jesus is inviting us to?

    The groans of Creation for the glory of God’s revelation to our broken world are also maternal. At Jesus’ birth, the fulfillment of his mother’s long wait echoes Creation’s longer wait for the Saviour to come to re-create out of a lost, wasted and barren garden the new Eden that will be lush, bountiful and holy again. Truly, Mary’s assent brings Jesus into Creation to perfect it.

    At the moment of the Saviour’s birth, then, all Creation finally finds its voice, silenced for so long by sin and strife. Now Creation can join the heavenly throng to joyously proclaim, “Glory to God in the highest and peace to all on earth.”

    Today’s world also awaits our assent to “give birth” to Jesus in our lives. It waits because it looks to us to help renew the face of the earth in companionship with Jesus.

    At this Christmas time, let us remember then that all of Creation can come alive again in friendship with the Emmanuel, God-with-us. And for this, Creation does indeed wait for us to say, “yes,” like Mary did, to God to bear Jesus into our lives for the good of the world.

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  2. The following is an abridged version of the points presented at the last session of the Advent Recollection, Awaiting... the Child. That evening we contemplated the birth of Christ (Luke 2: 1-16). This session was held on Friday, 21 December.

    What can our Saviour’s birth mean for us as Advent draws us closer to Christmas?

    First, it can speak to us of how all things come to be in the fullness of God’s time.

    Since the beginning of time, God deeply desired to have friendship with his people. Even though they repeatedly disappointed, beginning with Adam and Eve, he restored it at the anointed time freely, lovingly and tangibly: for God so loved the world he gave us his only begotten

    Perhaps, God’s restoration of friendship is the reason for Mary’s quiet, joyful realization as she embraced her new born babe and remembered Elizabeth’s words, “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled” (Luke 1:45). Isn’t Christmas that moment for us too when God fulfils our Advent pinning for Jesus by gifting us with his Son, a God who is real, enfleshed, one like us and with us, who is now before us gurgling, crying, perhaps, silently in slumber in the manger of our hearts?

    Second, Jesus’ birth can remind us that all things come to be only according to God’s design.

    Mary brings forth Jesus into the stark poverty of a world, not unlike ours today: there is no room for the lesser and the lowly. The only space is a stable that place at the margins of civilized society often shun for its stench and dung. Do we not find the poor and the disenfranchised of today’s society sidelined to similar spaces? Indeed, the long expectant Saviour comes in humility, vulnerability and helpless to inhabit no other space but the forlornness of a manger, the poverty of our world that the lesser of our brothers and sisters, and perhaps, even us, inhabit in daily life.

    And it is precisely in this displacement of majesty by meekness that the poor, the marginalized, the forgotten see first what the learned and the mighty find so difficult to perceive—that God has come, pitched his tent and dwells among us. The shepherds teach us that it is those with simplicity of heart, almost childlike, without taint of pride, honour or riches, who can hear and see, honour and celebrate the Good News in their midst.

    Luke’s description of “the time…for her to have her child” also invites us into a deeper reflection on the person of Jesus at this time in our lives.

    Jesus reminds Mary and the faithful Jews that he is God, the Father’s Love made man. What about us? Who is Jesus for you and me? Indeed, as we gaze upon the manger this year, it might profit us to answer the question, “what child is this in my life?”

    But how can we do this unless we first allow God to bring to birth this child into our lives, filled with as many dreams as they are by disappointments?

    Mary shows us how. Her openness allows her to sense God’s love. Her humility allows her to accept God’s love. Her faithful trust allows her to share in God’s love. And her generosity to God allows her to bear God’s love to the world.

    We too are invited to allow God to bring Jesus to birth in our lives, like Mary. Even at this late stage of Advent, this is timely and fitting for so many of us who really desire peace, joy and justice at year's end. Like Mary, we can do this with trust because we are already embraced by a loving God who deeply desires to give us his love. All he passionately yearns for from us is to receive his love, Jesus.

    When we allow God to bear Jesus into our lives, we enter into friendship with him. Then, like Mary of the Visitation, we can then bring Jesus to this world that is often pained, suffering and groping in darkness. What does Jesus bring that we are asked to share? God’s reign of peace and goodwill to all humankind. Life as we know it can then be transformed: where there is injury, there now can be forgiveness; where there is hatred, there now can be love; where there is doubt and fear, there now can be faith and peace; and where there is despair, there now can be hope abounding.

    Indeed, it this timely in these last days of Advent to ponder on the gift of Jesus in our lives and the life of the world this coming Christmas time, and to ask ourselves, what child is this in my life?




    artwork: stain glass of the nativity by william morris

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  3. The following is an abridged version of the points I shared at our second session of the Advent Recollection, Awaiting… the Child. That evening we contemplated the Visitation (Luke 1: 39-56). This session was held on Thursday, 13 December.

    At this point of our Advent preparations, do we find ourselves preoccupied to some extent with gift-hunting, anxious about finding the right colour, the right shape, the rightness of the gift for the right person?

    This is an opportune situation to consider the meaning of gift-giving at Christmas time. This evening’s contemplation on the Visitation can help us do this.

    “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” As Mary enters into her cousin’s home, these words of welcome by Elizabeth remind her that she is gifted with God’s presence within her, even at this time of uncertainty. In fact, Elizabeth's words give voice to the silent, joyful leap of John the Baptist who, in her womb, recognizes the arrival of the long awaited Saviour. Her words then proclaim the truth that God has indeed come into their midst to dwell among his people, they who are barren and suffering, they who are lowly and in darkness.
    Do we not see this truth too in God’s continuing goodness in our lives, his faithful presence with us, his constant labour for our wellbeing, even when we sin?

    If we live, move and have our being in this knowledge of God, it is because we, like Mary, have already been gifted with something that lives and moves and has its being deep within us, loving us immensely.

    Isn’t this something God’s Love that we experience and believe in, and that propels us to share it through the gifts we give at Christmas? Indeed, genuine gift-giving is sharing freely what we had first received and now possess, Love.

    Elizabeth’s words affirm Mary as the mother of her Lord. They are God’s loving and reassuring vocabulary of blessing that allow Mary to rest secure in her mission to bear Jesus to the world as God’s gift of Love manifest. This should remind us that we, who also walk in a topsy-turvy world, are indeed visited, accepted and accompanied by people God places in our lives to remind us that He-is-with-us in good and bad times. When we are visited by another, we are invited to do what Elizabeth does so well in the Visitation: to graciously welcome the gift of God coming through this person, and in doing this, we honour the God who is with her.

    God nurtures Mary’s identity and mission through Elizabeth’s companionship. God nurtures us through the companionship of family and friends, even strangers and enemies, to reclaim our identity as his children and our mission to be his Son’s companions in sharing the Good News. When we allow God to nurture us, and when we also permit ourselves to nurture others in their joys and pains, we become Marys and Elizabeths, whose calling it is to help each other to see that the gift of God, O Emmanuel, is in our earthy midst.

    The Visitation then invites us to appreciate gift-giving. Gift-giving is not the exchange of material goods; it is a sharing of God's love. Gift-giving finds its fullest expression when the gift given directs the gazes of both the giver and the recipient to the loving fidelity of the True Giver of all gifts in our lives, God.

    Mary’s Magnificat closes this scene of the Visitation by celebrating God as the faithful and loving giver of all gifts that does great things not only in her life but throughout Jewish history. Her canticle invites us to do likewise. When we can see moments of radiance and splendour, God’s love, amidst the shadows and darkness of our lives today, we too can sing with gratitude a canticle to God that is uniquely our own.

    If this is so, dear friend, then, isn’t there no better gift to give on Christmas morn than the Love of God that is already dwelling in your heart?





    artwork: stained glass of the visitation at taize

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  4. I first shared the following thoughts at the Advent Recollection, Awaiting... the Child. With Celina and Jarrod, we are offering this at the Center for Ignatian Spirituality and Counselling. At this first session on Thursday, 6 December 2007, we contemplated on the Annunciation (Luke 1: 26-38). The next sessions are on 13 and 21 December.

    It all begins with a “yes,” doesn’t it?

    If we look at our lives, the stories of our dreams and the promises they bear and the narratives of who and what we want to become—these begin with a “yes.” Our “yes-es” are a response to invitations that present themselves, sometimes in surprising and unexpected ways.

    As much as these “yes-es” trumpet a future that lifts our gazes upward to the hopeful horizon of a new dawn, they also whisper of a past that is preparation. If we honestly look back, we would see that long before we could utter “yes, let it be,” we were in someway nurtured for this moment by the blessings and the struggles in our lives. As believers, we acknowledge a God who prepares us for those "yes" moments we assent to on our journeys of life and faith.

    The story of the Annunciation we reflect on each Advent bears a similar refrain.

    Mary’s “yes” was itself the culmination of many small “yes-es” she would have said in her friendship with God from the time she was conceived without sin. This, together with the upbringing she received from Anna and Joachim, her parents, and the many times she pondered on God in life and in faith, was God’s way of preparing her for the moment of the Annunciation.

    Mary’s “yes” also gave voice to her free response, one enabled by her resolute trust and faith in a God who assured her that nothing is impossible with him. Greatly troubled as she was initially by the Angel Gabriel’s message that she was to conceive and bear the Son of God and call him Jesus, Gabriel’s announcement that God had gifted her elderly sterile cousin Elizabeth with child assured her that she could let go and let God lead.

    Mary’s consent speaks of the true disciple, one who listens to God’s Word and acts on it. This act allows her to bear Jesus not only within her being but also to her community, lovingly depicted when she visited Elizabeth. Truly, she became the vessel through whom God’s love comes to dwell in our midst.

    Mary’s pregnancy is therefore not only preparation for birth. It was a waiting that transforms: her “yes” allowed God to transfigure her from girl to disciple to prophet, who in bearing of the Word of God directs all she encountered—Joseph, Elizabeth, the embryonic John the Baptist—to the God who keeps his promise that he is truly God-with-us. And when Mary’s “yes” came to its fullness in the birth of Baby Jesus, her identity and mission were truly realized: she is Mother of God.

    The story of Mary in the Annunciation, then, can remind us how beautiful and right it is for us too to respond to God with a simple yes. In doing so, we can claim God’s deepest desire of who and what we are, his children who are his Son’s companions.

    I’d like to believe the Church also desires us to embrace in our Advent preparation what Mary heard long ago: God wishes to beget in your human life, my Son, and through you, to bring forth my Beloved Son to lovingly reclaim my people from sin and darkness.

    If this is what we are being invited to ponder on as we move towards Christmas, are we not being challenged to consider our response if the Angel Gabriel said to each one of us, “do not be afraid for you too are God’s favoured child and God’s deepest desire is for his gift of Love to come to birth in your life this Christmas?”

    Indeed, how would you respond, my friend?




    artwork: stained glass of the annunciation by edward burne-jones

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  5. Today is the first day of Advent, and Christians all over the world begin to spend time and energy preparing for Christmas. But what can it mean to prepare?

    Our preparations will include the frantic buying of presents for loved ones, the trimming of the tree with baubles and fairy lights, the annual spring cleaning of the home and the endless rounds of festive binging and good cheer before December 25 to get into the festive mood. But, more than these, many of us are aware that Advent offers time to spiritually re-examine the friendship we share with God through the person of Jesus, and so await Christmas Day by contemplating the presence of Jesus within us.

    If the latter makes for better Christmas preparation, then the next four weeks are an invitation to prayerfully reflect on the call we intuitively sense, one more palpably at this time. In the silence of our hearts, you and I must honestly admit that this is nothing less than to allow God to bring forth Christ in our lives.

    We have no better model to do this at Advent than Mary: she heard this call and responded to it generously. Her poverty of spirit, her humility of faith and her joy of lovingly trust allowed her to wait for Jesus to be born, as the promised Saviour, she bore within. In Mary, we learn how to nurture the quiet and hopeful expectation so many of us bear within and yearn to realize—to experience the joy of the first Christmas, made resplendent because God had come into earthly existence to be one with us and all his creation.

    Mary’s ways of nurturing the call with hopeful eagerness also speak of this possibility at a time of uncertainty. Like Mary and all of Israel, our human existence today is fraught and fractured by failed promises, broken dreams and unrealized expectations. Yet, Mary shows us that we can believe with hope in the enduring goodness of a God who promises to pitch his tent on the mountaintop, dwell among us and begin an everlasting reign of peace (Isaiah 2: 2-5).

    If we, who are frail and weak can continue to believe most especially in the gift of Jesus, God-with-us, in our often weary lives, would it not be right to embark on our Christmas preparations by asking ourselves, what is it within me that allows me to hopefully await the coming of Jesus, again, this Christmas?

    And if we can identify this, should we not ponder for some time, like Mary always does, on the
    ways we can nurture this gift within better these Advent days?

    Dear friend, would these steps make for a good beginning to your Advent season this year?






    artwork: mother and child reading the word by michael o’brien
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