1. We have come to the final contemplation for our preparation for Christmas. Today, I'd like to invite you to contemplate on Jesus as our True Joy. Indeed, Jesus is the expectant Joy we all await this Christmas morn.


    Uploaded on authorSTREAM by adriansj


    Begin your prayer by enlarging the screen. You can do this by clicking on the rectangle in the bar below the painting above. When you are in full screen mode, use either the arrows in the bar at the bottom of the full screen or your mouse help you move along.

    Take your time to pray this final guided contemplation. Listen and follow God's Spirit that moves within you. May your time with the Lord remind you that God desires your happiness.

    These slides were originally designed for the local Jesuit website    .
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  2. This week, let us contemplate on Jesus as the face of God's love. This is the third of our 4-part series of Advent contemplations on the person of Jesus.


    uploaded on authorSTREAM by adriansj

    We invite you to begin praying by enlarging the screen. You can do this by clicking on the rectangle in the bar below the painting above. When you are in full screen mode, use either the arrows in the bar at the bottom of the full screen or your mouse help you move along.

    Take your time to pray. Follow God's Spirit that moves within you. May your time with the Lord remind you that you are God's beloved.

    These slides were originally designed for the local Jesuit website.
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  3. If there is one more thing,
    I’d ask of the Lord,
    it would be peace,
    peace on earth.

    These words of a Filipino song I used to sing in Manila speak of a deep longing all humankind over the ages has for true peace.

    Many of us desire this peace. Sadly, it is elusive in today’s world. Senseless suffering and pain and unnecessary deaths scar daily life. Droughts and earthquakes, wars and terrorist attacks, economic woes and job losses mean an uncertain future for so many. All these dim the brightness we long for. At home and at work, disagreements and misunderstandings, petty jealousies and a fearful rejection of our love and care further diminish this light.

    Within ourselves, anxiety and disquiet reign as we struggle to reconcile the tensions in life. At these times, we feel we are being tossed about in life’s turbulent waters. There is no peace. It seems impossible to have.

    Yet the Advent readings and hymns assure us, as they invite us to remember, the One who can give us true peace, Jesus.

    Jesus is God’s gift of peace. Indeed, this grown up babe will say to us, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” And what is this rest but the peace that our wearied, searching hearts will find in the Lord, as St Augustine reminds us.

    On Christmas morn, we will find ourselves drawn to the manger. Many reasons move us to it. Perhaps, one is our yearning to look upon the serene face of Jesus, Prince of Peace, and in this moment, experience and know true peace.

    And if we smile at Jesus then, we smile because we have a sense that all the contraries of human life find their reconciliation in him. They become one, and, in so doing, they express the fullness of humanity: the finite and infinite, the human and the divine, the lowly and the almighty.

    I’d like to believe the shepherds smiled at Jesus too because they saw the invisible made visible. For there, in the manger, the almighty God laid, born one like us, fragile, small and innocent. What is this scene but the poverty of human existence transfigured for us to celebrate the richness of human life Jesus shows us it can be as God’s children.

    Isaiah spoke of a people in darkness long pinning for God. They saw it in the radiance of the Christ Child. There was no longer fear and uncertainty; they found joy and assurance. Indeed, the impossible became possible that Christmas morn – for God was not apart but God is with us, now and always. Simeon celebrated this truth at the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. His was a joyful confession of one human heart to which Peace came and wherein it rested always.

    Let us pray to have the eyes of Simeon this Christmas: may we recognize the Christ Child who is in our midst and who brings peace, peace on earth for you and me, and all people of goodwill.

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  4. Let us contemplate this week on Jesus as true peace in our lives and the relationships we share with all at home and at work. This is the second of our 4-part series of Advent contemplations on the person of Jesus.

    Uploaded on authorSTREAM by adriansj

    Begin your prayer by enlarging the screen. You can do this by clicking on the rectangle in the bar below the painting above. When you are in full screen mode, use either the arrows in the bar at the bottom of the full screen or your mouse help you move along.

    Take your time to pray. Move as you feel God's Spirit prompting you. May our time with the Lord will be spiritually nourishing.

    These slides were originally designed for the local Jesuit website.



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  5. None of us will contest this truth: friends make a difference in our lives. They shed light when we are confused. They enrich us whenever we are poorer in spirit and want. They uplift us from our suffering and pain. Sometimes, they challenge us to walk the straight and narrow. They do all this and more because they love and care. In all these actions, our friends bear us hope.


    Limited as it is, their hope points us to the real hope Advent directs our gazes to: God’s gift of himself. Our Advent readings and liturgies invite us to remember and celebrate this hope made real in the friendships Jesus had with friend and foe centuries ago, and, more so, with us today.

    At the heart of hope a friend gives another is life. God saw his people in darkness because of sin. Filled with compassion, he gave them Jesus, his only Son, to redeem and bring them life, life to the full. The hope humankind sought again and again in an invisible God became real and alive in the face of Jesus.

    We experience this truth each Christmas morn: when we see the gurgling, smiling Baby Jesus in the manger in church, we see the laughing, joyful God whose deepest desire is our salvation and happiness. God smiles at us at Christmas. How can we not smile back?

    Indeed, this coming Christmas, we will join the shepherds and kings to smile at Jesus too. We will smile because in this babe we will find again the assurance that our hope in God is not unfounded. It is true: God is with us.

    In the midst of our present economic pain and anxiety, and a continuing fear of terrorists who maim and kill, we can lift up our gazes this Christmas Day and find real hope in Jesus, the face of God. We can do this because God reaches out to us in friendship again, we who repeatedly live less than Christian lives. Because of love, he bears us hope anew. And this friendship is alive in the daily Christmases of everyday living when the hope Jesus is comes to birth in us, repeatedly through our friends, and the events and circumstances we meet in, laugh at, quarrel over and reconcile because of.

    This Advent, then, let us savour God’s friendship by relishing more wholeheartedly Jesus, our true hope.


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  6. This Advent, I wish to invite you to a weekly time of prayerful contemplation on the reason for the season of Christmas, Jesus, God-with-us.

    Uploaded on authorSTREAM by adriansj


    Once, a week, beginning this day, I will offer a guided contemplation on the person of Jesus who meets us with his birth. We will use art, photography and Scripture in this time.
    You can begin your prayer by enlarging the screen and using the arrows in the bar below the painting above to move you along. To enlarge the screen, click on the rectangle in the bar. Take your time to go through the slides. Move as you feel the Spirit of God moving you. I pray your time with the Lord will be spiritually fruitful.
    These slides were orginally designed for the local Jesuit website.

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  7. Do Catholics have a sense of saving souls nowadays? Do you have this sense of saving souls?
    A friend posed me these questions recently. She had been reading the writings of Mother Teresa in Come Be My Light, and was struck by her keen sense to save souls. Her questions invited me to pen the following response.


    I believe Catholics still do have a sense of saving souls, and we do reach out to do so. We may not, however, express this act in the language Mother Teresa used in her book.

    If you and I, and so many Catholics, are indeed saving souls, how do we do so? I'd like to think that “saving souls” can take many forms. There are those called to literally preach repentance. Others go out and through their acts of mercy touch the hearts of those suffering and in need.

    Perhaps, we can also find an answer to these questions in that everyday act we do, telling another the story of God in our daily living, the Good News alive. To tell God's story can help another experience the comfort of a God she seeks in pain. This act can also lead others in confusion to realize God's certain existence and goodness. And our storytelling can point another who seeks God in his disbelief or disappointment with religion to find the answer in the extraordinary truth that God has always been present and caring for him, never absent and callous as he had thought.

    Indeed, aren’t all these acts of “saving” another from ignorance of God? Don’t they illuminate another’s darkness with the wondrous story of God's love? And don't you and I, and everyone else, who tells stories of God do what Jesus calls Christians to do—go forth, proclaim the Good News and invite all peoples to repent for the Reign of God is near?

    There is one miraculous gift in these acts: hope. We offer b    oundless, life-giving hope of friendship with God when we help our sisters and brothers turn away from despair, that most dreadful sin in which humankind falls into the abyss of meaningless life without God. And when we gift them this kind of hope, they can move from darkness and sin to light and life. To do this is to seek out the lost sheep like Jesus does. And isn’t this nothing less than “saving souls”?

    Indeed, to whom should you tell a story of God's love today, and so save her soul?



    artwork: lost and found by olsen
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  8. The following reflection arises from a discussion about confidentiality that I had with some friends who work in ministries of therapy, healing and spiritual accompaniment. I offer these thoughts too to all who are in friendship and express it in a sharing of their deepest selves.


    “Sssh! Let me tell you a secret… .”

    Some of us share secrets with our closest family members and friends. Others disclose these to counsellors or spiritual directors, even as they share their toughest psycho-spiritual struggles and deepest holy desires.

    At other times, we may be the ones whom others confide their secrets in.

    Whether we speak or listen, secrets cry out to be heard. We need to utter them because humankind was not created for loneliness. A secret, pregnant with good, demands to be celebrated. A secret, dark and deep, yearns for a consoling ear. A secret concealed, however, only entombs one in a deafening silence that finally severs his bonds with that cacophony called life.

    We need to share because we are human. We confess to another a secret or two, especially those that burden us with guilt, suffering or anxiety, because we need to preserve our sanity, if not our humanity. We do so in the hope that she will understand and accept, guide and accompany. To bring to light a secret that gnaws away at the core of what I am, destroying all semblance of who I really am, is nothing less than an act of courage. At the same time, this is the much needed first step for restoration, and with it, the promised peace and happiness every one of us is entitled to on earth.

    Whatever we share, however, we do so confident that the one we trust will keep the secret shared safe.

    Yet, don’t we sometimes blab out another’s secret, accidentally or otherwise? When the curious and preying nudge us, don’t we find ourselves saying just a little bit more than we should? And who among us hasn’t traded in gossip, now and again?

    In these actions, who gets hurt?

    There is another dimension to sharing secrets. It is one that challenges. Aren’t we each invited with every secret confided in us to embrace more wholeheartedly that remarkable gift of true friendship? Indeed, we cannot celebrate it unless we are humbled enough to recognize my friend as he honestly is when he voices a secret from his once guarded, silent lips—all of him that I know, and more so, now, the dark and hidden that looms before me.

    If sharing secrets is a gifting of oneself to another, then, I who listen am called to keep the faith the other has in me. Keeping another’s secret is never easy; it is a heavy responsibility. But it is a sacred calling: to keep this faith is to promise another new life. Amidst the tempestuous waters of life that rage around my friend, I am called to provide a sheltered harbour where he can moor the bark of his whole being and find succour behind the safe embrace of the breakwater friendship is.

    To do this for a friend—indeed, for anyone who comes asking for help, burdened by secrets—is to bless him with a profound experience of the love of God. To be Christian is to be one like Christ. In Christ, we see a model of one whom others trusted and confided in. They came to Jesus weighed down by secrets, often shameful and hurting, because in him they knew they could bare themselves naked and still be accepted as friend.

    Jesus did not listen to them with reproach or dismay, or bewilderment at the beginning. He only listened with a heart filled with great compassion. Then, he spoke. He would admonish and reprimand the sinful act but he always loved the person. And then, by touching and embracing them, he made visible the love of an invisible God.

    It is this love that reminds us of the infinite compassion of a God we all can turn to with our deepest darkest secret and still find favour as his beloved. We need only think of the sinful woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointed him with ointment, to recall how we, who are so encumbered with secrets that disfigure, can find solace in the love of God that transfigures. Like this woman, we can come to Jesus and let him remove the darkness in our lives so as to clothe us in his wonderful light.

    What can we glean from Jesus as friend for you and I who will have family and friends coming again and again to confide their secrets in? Keeping someone else’s secret, no matter how heavy it may weigh on our shoulders, is in fact grace. God invites us when we listen to another speaking in trust her deepest hurts or her wildest dreams to participate in the compassionate ministry of Jesus—being there for another and loving him.

    Now, isn’t this a secret worth sharing?




    photo: sitting on the bench by boxman
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  9. Can you remember the first words you learnt?

    “Mama” and “Papa” were the first words my parents gifted me with.

    In kindergarten, my teachers taught me “A is for apple”, “B is for boy” and “C is for cat.” From my primary school teachers, I learnt to read, write and do arithmetic. My secondary school teachers introduced me to History and Geography that opened a world beyond my home. I also learnt Literature that gave me a window into human nature and Science that provided answers to my questions about rainbows and gravity. My teachers provided me words and knowledge to live in the world.

    But I learnt much more. My parents at home and my teachers and the Lasalle brothers in school taught me what is right and what is wrong. They taught me to act justly and to live for others. I also learnt about our Catholic Christian faith from the Catechism they taught and the lives they led.

    Teachers -– they touch our hearts and wonderfully change our lives. We are better for them. Each Teachers’ Day we remember and celebrate their presence in our lives.

    These past weeks my office has been busily preparing for the Archdiocesan Teachers’ Day celebrations. It has also been a time for me to reflect on a question I have often been asked as a teacher, “Why teach?”

    Here is my answer: I teach because I am a teacher at heart. Indeed, I am most authentically "me" when I teach, be it philosophy in the classroom to explore the question of God, or Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" to a group of Literature majors in CJC, or a talk on repentance at the Life in the Spirit Seminar.

    In all of these, I’ve increasingly come to realise that my reason for teaching has more and more to do with the Word within me.

    Before concepts and ideas, before philosophy and theology, yes, even before language and discourse, the Word that I learnt for life has has everything to do with the goodness of God. God’s goodness is what I've experienced and what am really enthused about. It is God's goodness that I want to share through the knowledge and values I impart, be it in school or parish.

    Indeed, I teach because I have heard the Word of all words call out to me to teach. Like Jeremiah, I have heard God calling. Like him, I am humbled that God anoints and transforms my limited, youthful vocabulary into wise, life-giving words for his people. Seeing this, I can only marvel at how God transforms the seeming scarcity of my limitations into a rich giftedness that allows me to teach and minister. Through these acts, I find my calling to teach is nothing more than to do what Jesus does -– to welcome, embrace and bless every child and person I encounter so that they can feel the love of God.

    I’d like to think of a teacher as a child, who having experienced something good and happy wants to share it. It is a bit like finding a secret, magical corner in the garden and wanting to share it with one’s best friends. There is great glee and joy in doing this. Teaching is something like this. Indeed, when we play in the garden of knowledge and values, of insights and discoveries, teachers help children discover the secret of who they really are in the magical garden of life.

    Perhaps, this is why teaching is a prophetic ministry. Through teaching, every student is invited, challenged and led to aspire to a fuller, brighter life. Often times, we find it difficult to hope for this as our reality is painfully soiled and stained every now and then. When teachers help children and people to hope for the good life, we do what Archbishop Yong used to proclaim as kingdom building. Truly, teaching that leads us to the good and happy life and a more honest understanding of who we are gives all of us a foretaste of the goodness that is God’s kingdom in the here and now.

    And it is in our present that Jesus calls us to be light for the world. As a teacher, I manifest this when I act as that necessary shinning beacon in the most germane but necessary search every one of us embarks on with birth -- to understand the greatest mystery of life this question expresses so well, “who I am and who is God”?

    Indeed, my wisest of teachers, of whom my parents are the first, have taught me that the answer to this question lies in knowing that God-is-with-us. This truth allows us to accept and celebrate the persons we really are because you and I are always already in God's good company. These speak of nothing less than the ever-faithful friendship God has with all of us. It is a friendship I've come to know through the gift of Jesus, God’s Word Incarnate in my life. It is Jesus who teaches and educates me, who forms and nurtures me, as person and believer.

    This truth is what I celebrate this Teachers’ Day, especially as a man of the cloth who must teach the faith. In the past, I would celebrate the day for various reasons: my students, a good career, a meaningful vocation, friends in school, even for having survived another year (phew!). Today, I celebrate this friendship because I see how Jesus always converts the colourless, tasteless water I have prepared to dispense as teaching into something more meaningful and truthful, something very good and beautiful. What Jesus does, again and again, is to transform my limited teaching into the rich, luxuriant, even intoxicating wine that he wishes to pour out as balm that warms, soothes and excites all I teach and accompany, all I minister to, to know God.

    My favourite rendition of Psalm 23 is “Because the Lord is my Shepherd” by Christopher Walker. Walker expresses this friendship thus: “Lord, you are my shepherd, you are my friend, I want to follow you always.” This line expresses both my thanksgiving and my petition this Teachers’ Day.

    Happy Teachers’ Day!





    artwork: alphabets for IF II //ABC by irisz
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  10. One evening I chanced upon an elderly couple holding hands as they crossed Victoria Street. It was a heart-warming sight: her soft, white right hand, enveloped in his gnarled left hand, one probably sculptured by years of manual work. His face was etched with concern for his wife: she seemed slightly lost and anxious. Their almost insignificant clasping of hands spoke so much about security and tenderness, care and affection.

    Reflecting on their clasped hands, I realized how touch is not often our usual manner of communicating with one another. In everyday life, we are far more comfortable with words than touch. Indeed, it is safer to express our innermost feelings and thoughts with words. A touch, on the other hand, can be dangerous: it says so much more. Indeed, it does not lie; often, it speaks the truth of our deepest selves.

    Looking back on my childhood, I see how true this is in my mother’s embrace and my father’s kisses: these expressed their immeasurable love for my siblings and me. My nephew Glenn reminds me of this truth. These days when I visit him, he says “hello” and “I love you” with a hug that articulates what he cannot yet utter at eighteen months. Indeed, touch is our first language of knowing and showing love.

    Touch is what we yearn for from another whom we love, be it family or friend, because it makes their love and concern, their friendship truly felt in our lives. Their touch assures, as it enlivens. Yet, this that we seek is sadly what we are often unable to give to another freely and comfortably in everyday life. How often do we give a family member a hug at the end of the day? Are we honestly comfortable with patting a friend heartily on the back to encourage and affirm? Isn’t it much easier to say “sorry” than to stretch out our hand to our enemy in reconciliation ?

    To our struggles of expressing ourselves truthfully through touch, Jesus’ response is to show us otherwise. For Jesus, touch is fundamentally a human, if not spiritual way, of being with and for another. Touch was so much part of Jesus’ way of being friend and companion, teacher and master. And through his touch—those acts of healing, comforting, accompanying others he did—Jesus made real God’s great love for many.

    We can make ourselves more human, and the truth of God’s love more real in our lives and those we love and work with, by learning from Jesus. In welcoming, embracing and blessing children, Jesus shows us a meaningful way of being human by ministering to another’s deepest longing to be loved. To touch another is to make God’s love real through deeds rather than words. Francis of Assisi, Mother Teresa, our fathers and mothers did this well when they reached out and touched another. Like them, we do this every now and then too. In these moments, God’s love is far more manifest than any homily, pronoucement or song can convey.

    Perhaps, what humankind truly desires most then in a touch is not satisfaction of a physical want or gratification of an emotional longing. No, what each person seeks deep within himself is an experience of God’s love through another’s touch. And we yearn for this for no other reason than that we were made to be in touch with God.

    This week, we might want to reflect on this question, “Can I begin to be more the person I am called to be by reaching out and touching someone who thirsts for God's love?”


    photo: three girls holding hands by ray moller
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"Bukas Palad"
"Bukas Palad"
is Filipino for open palms
Greetings!
Greetings!
Peace and welcome, dear friend.
I hope you will find in these posts something that speaks to you of the God who loves us all and who always holds us in the palm of his hand. Blessings!
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Fall in Love, Stay in Love
Fall in Love, Stay in Love

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute way final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

Pedro Arrupe, sj, Superior General, 1965 - 1983

About Me
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is a 50something Catholic who resides in Singapore and works for the Church. He is a priest of the Roman Catholic Church.
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©adrian.danker.sj, 2006-2018

The views I express in these pages are personal. They do not speak for the Society of Jesus or the Catholic Church.
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