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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"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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