1.  

    Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 29 Dec
    Reflection based on Matthew 11.28-30 


    “For all that has been, Thank you. For all that is to come, Yes!”

    Dag Hammarskjöld said these words. He was the second Secretary-General of the United Nations in the 1950s. They are appropriate to help us reflect on this year.

    At this time, many would make the effort to pause and take stock of how we’ve lived our life and faith these past twelve months.  We will count our blessings; then, we will say ‘thank you’ to God, and hopefully, to family and friends, colleagues or classmates. Quite naturally, we would also look ahead to the coming year and the new beginnings it will bring. As people of faith, we believe these possibilities are God’s blessings to come. For many, they promise change and conversion, new opportunities be better and happier in our lives, particularly, in our relationships with God and one another.  Those who are brave and bold, and truly hope-filled, will cry out, ‘yes, Lord! Bring them on!’

    Tonight’s gospel passage offers us a helpful spiritual lens to review this year and welcome next year. It is the lens of God’s goodness. Jesus speaks about it in terms of ‘rest’ and ‘yoke.’   

    Matthew records Jesus offering us rest. His kind of rest, in the same way He offers peace – the peace He alone can give.  This is a blessing He has given us in 2023. If that is not enough, Jesus also offers us His yoke; it makes our burdens lighter because He shares them with us. He has also done this in 2023. 

    For this year, then, when were those moments Jesus invited you and me to turn to Him to receive God’s rest? Were these when we were tired from household chores, overwhelmed at work, lost on our faith journeys, or despairing in our pain? How did Jesus enter our everyday life and said, “come to me, all you who labour and overburdened and I will give you rest?” What did this rest look like? Some breathing space? A problem solved? Healing? Peace of mind? Forgiveness received or given? Faith restored in God again?

    Also, when did we take up Jesus’ yoke to lighten our burden? When we did, do relief and safety, comfort and consolation describe our experiences of Jesus caring, even saving, us?

    Tonight’s gospel passage invites us to have faith that God’s goodness is also for our future good and happiness. In Jesus God promised to be with us till the end of time. We can be confident He will continue to give us his blessings and offer his yoke to lighten our burdens in 2024.

    As you look ahead to the newness of the coming year, what kind of rest would you and I like to ask Jesus? To help you consider this as a petition to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I invite you to examine your present struggles and challenges for these are possibly your burdens now. But they need not be in the new year when you let Jesus’ yoke Himself to you. Listen again to His assurance: “my yoke is easy and my burden light.” If we let Jesus carry our burdens with us, yes, we won’t be weighed down alone. The questions we must honestly asked ourselves  then are: will we let Jesus carry our burdens with us in 2024? How much will we let Him do this?

    Tonight Jesus calls us to have the grace of gratitude to end this year and the gift of hope to begin the new year. His bigheartedness wants us to have these, and much more. He never says ‘no’ to our needs. This is why we are here tonight.  Let us pray to be humble enough to keep turning to Jesus; all He wants is to be with us all the days of our lives.




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  2.  
    Year B / Christmas / Solemnity of The Nativity of the Lord (Mass at Midnight for Christmas)
    Readings: Isaiah 9.2-7 / Responsorial Psalm 95.1-2a, 2b-3, 11-12, 13  (R/v Lk 2-11) / Titus 2.11-14 / Luke 2.1-14


    “From this time onwards and for ever, the jealous love of the Lord of Hosts will do this” (Isaiah 9.7b)


    On this holy night, our first reading ends with this proclamation. Here is Isaiah declaring the irrefutable truth we are now celebrating: that something wondrous happened once long ago that first Christmas night. 

    For just as our faith teaches us, God came to be one like us, to dwell amongst us; to be God with us and for us. And just as our scripture tells us, He comes as the infant child Mary gave birth to. In art and film, poetry and song, we picture Him wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger, with shepherds and wise men adoring him and angels singing “Glory to God in the highest heaven, on earth peace to all who enjoy his favour.”

    Our readings tonight remind us so. Even more, they proclaim how God’s coming changes everything. Listen again.

    Isaiah proclaims that because a great light shines for a people in darkness, their gladness is greater and their joy increases. And for all weighed down, the yoke of their burden is broken; they are freed.

    Paul declares to Titus that through Jesus purification and salvation have come to all who suffer sickness and sin. In Him, God claims them and everyone as His beloved.

    Luke tells of sleeping shepherds woken up by the angel of the Lord one dark, silent night. He announces, ‘Today, a saviour has been born to us, Christ the Lord.’  Though tired, the shepherds hear and go to find the Christ. And  something happens when they see him. Perhaps this story explains. 

    Upon reaching the manger, the shepherds see Him lying in that dirty, smelly place. Each brings a gift. Some hay. Some milk. Some wool. A lamb for food. A lamp for light. One of them however has no gift. He comes empty handed. 

    Mary, busy receiving the gifts, arranging them, cannot hold the baby. She sees the empty-handed shepherd. She entrusts Jesus into his hands. He’s scared; he’s never carried a baby. He’s trying his best to keep the infant safe and warm. He’s hoping the baby won’t cry. "Heaven forbid, he pees," the shepherd prays. 

    Suddenly he realises everyone is silent; they are all looking at him. The shepherds are astounded; he is cradling the child. Joseph leans in and whispers, ‘Here is Jesus, the Son of God.” Mary smiles; she ponders God’s gift this shepherd now has: holding Jesus.

    Imagine that: holding Jesus. Yes, holding Jesus in your hands. A story? No, the utter truth of Christmas. Tonight you are holding Jesus too. He has come to birth in you. In the manger of your heart. Here is where you are holding him. He is Emmanuel God-with-us. And truly, God with you.

    Tonight something is indeed happening to you too. God is born that you might be born again. Born in all of us so that everything changes, everything will for the better. Just consider.

    If you thought your Advent was wasted, here you are with Jesus at Christmas.

    If  you feared being never good enough for God, here is God in Jesus dwelling in you.

    If you are sinning, feeling unworthy before God, here is God in Jesus come to forgive and save you.

    If you are lost in faith and adrift in life, here is Jesus drawing you to himself to lead you home to God.

    If you have been seeking God, here is Jesus saying, welcome, search no more, I am with you always.

    If you are longing for God, here is Jesus reminding you he holds you close and fast to himself.

    And if you feel your life amounts to nothing and you are a nobody, here is Jesus insisting you are so precious to God that you alone are  far more important than anything, anyone else.

    This is what we celebrate tonight. That we matter to God; we really matter. And because we do, God comes down. 

    So, yes, rejoice for Love that once came down to Bethlehem will now and always come down to all of us. Come down to wherever our Bethlehems are, those places where we live and work, pray and play. Indeed, from this time onwards and for ever, the jealous love of God will do this. God is jealous for the love of us; He wants all of us for Himself.

    Even more, rejoice for God comes down to show us what love is. Love gives life. Love desires the good of another. Love heals and forgives. Love cares and shares. Love uplifts and gives hope. Love encourages and assures. Love enters into the messiness of a family member’s sinfulness and stays besides a friend in pain or loss. Truly love, God's love, changes everything. 

    This happens because “the Son of God has come to earth and wishes to come into our hearts: to make us share in his nature and to help us become altogether heavenly people.”* Truthfully in Jesus God’s love changes who we are and how we are to live and love.

    Yes, from this time onwards and for ever, with Jesus dwelling our hearts, “when we love, simply love, even as we are loved, our weary world can be transformed into the kingdom of God.”** Tonight, God tells us that we can love like this and love for this. 

    But first we need to come to Jesus, born again in us. Not just to hold Him in our hearts. Rather, to let Him hold us forever in His heart. No better words can we now say to Jesus than these:

    What can I give you 
    as poor as I am? 
    If I were a shepherd,
    I would bring a lamb,
    if I were a wise man
     I would do my part, 
    yet what I can I give you
     – give my heart.***
     
    Shall we?




    *St John Baptist de La Salle, Meditations 85.3
    **Christopher Anthony Silvestri, ‘When we love’
    ***Christina Rosetti, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’


    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    photo: theyoungcatholicwoman.com

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  3.  
    Year B / Advent / Week 4 / Sunday
    Readings: 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16 / Responsorial Psalm 89:2-3, 4-5, 27, 29. (R/v 2a) / Romans 16:25-27 / Luke 1:26-38

    “Rejoice, so highly favour. The Lord is with you.”

    This is how Angel Gabriel greeted Mary at the Annunciation. His words touch us and move us. They comfort us because we believe they are God’s greeting. 

    Mary’s words have also inspired painters and poets to capture this moment. Whether in art, word or song, each has rightly expressed every person’s longing for God and God’s love in return.

    Today’s readings remind us that God hears everyone in our need. And He responds by reaching out to us across the expanse between heaven and earth. Don’t they echo the Advent message that in gurgling infant Jesus all our wants and needs will be fulfilled? Do we hear it? Do you and I really believe it because Jesus is God-with-us?

    As uplifting as Gabriel’s words are, they disturbed Mary: “She was greatly troubled at what was said.” I wonder if his greeting would disturb us as much if God does the same to you and me, calling us by name, saying, “Rejoice, so highly favoured.”   How should we respond?

    With gratitude and hope, I will suggest.

    With gratitude first, after the surprise has settled. God comes to disturb us in our busyness. To stop us in our tracks. To remind us of His presence. To demand we pay attention to Him. All this so that we can know He is God-is-with-us. 

    Here we are on the threshold of Christmas. Now is not the time for busyness. Now is the time to wait expectantly. Indeed, now is the time to let God come. And God will. No matter our busy efforts this Advent to prepare for Christmas, or the lack of it, or how we have not remembered God’s coming, God will.

    Indeed, when God comes, He will disturb us. When He does, let us be wise and consider the manner and reason for God’s intervention. Mary did; she pondered what sort of greeting this might be.

    “The Lord is with you.” This is Gabriel’s answer to Mary's hesitance and fear when she heard God's invitation to be the mother of Jesus It consoles. Isn’t this the answer we need whenever God seems far away or absent, when we sin, suffer or are sidelined? Isn’t this the assuring consolation we yearn to know again this Christmas?

    Unlike Mary, born without sin, we might feel our sinful lives have nothing for God to find favour with. Yet, hasn’t God repeatedly shown us otherwise? When family mercifully forgives us for mistakes. When friends compassionately care for us in illness and disappointments. When colleagues and classmates value our deficiencies as gifts and together we uplift others. When even strangers or acquaintances become friends, cherished and treasured. These are the many times God intervenes into our lives to bless us. Indeed, He disturbs us to tell us we are worthy of His love, His life. Like today, through the readings and in the Eucharist we received. Truly, we must “Rejoice, so highly favoured” as God’s beloved.

    With gratitude, comes hope. Hope because God reveals the mystery of Jesus’ birth to us. Kept secret for all ages, proclaimed by the ancient prophets, Jesus reveals God’s coming. This is the good news of Jesus Christ, St Paul reminds us in the Second Reading. God comes to give everyone the strength to live according to the way of Jesus. 

    Once long ago, God chose Mary to do this and bring alive the saving mystery of this good news. She accepted to bear Jesus to birth and at the right time, she bored Him to the world. Indeed, let heaven and earth rejoice (Psalm 96.11). And yes, let us too.

    We must, for today God chooses us to do the same. He is asking us to open ourselves to Jesus, to let him dwell in us, and at the right time, to go forth and bear him to all peoples. Does this demand disturb you? 

    God doesn’t just want to be with us. Like Mary, God wants to come and dwell in us, and through us, to stay in the world. The Greek translation of John 1.14 expresses this best: “the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us.” 

    Are we ready to let our lives be Jesus’ tent, his dwelling place in today’s world? Or, truth be told, do we have some cleaning up and clearing out to do for Jesus to come to birth in the manger of our hearts? 

    God has faith in our worthiness. God demands that we be his tent on earth.

    These are radical messages to hear. The word ‘radical’ has its origins in Latin for ‘root.’ This should give us confident hope. For through today’s Advent readings, God is affirming once again what He did at Creation, and has been inviting humankind to claim ever since. First, the truth that we were created good and worthy for God. Second, the desire God always has to be with us. In the Annunciation story, we hear God speak his hope. Mary heard it once. She responded with a “yes.” 

    What about us? What response will you and I make to God?




    Preached at Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash
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  4. Year B / Advent / Week 3 / Sunday
    Readings: Isaiah 61:1-2a, 10-11 / Responsorial Psalm - Luke 1:46-48, 49-50, 53-54. (R/v Is 61:10b) / 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24 / John 1:6-8, 19-28


    “My soul rejoices in my God”

    This is the response to today’s psalm. But it must mean more; it is our joy for God and His goodness for us. 

    It reminds me of Aunty Mary, an elderly cleaner at St Joseph’s Institution when I was the Principal. She echoed this joy enthusiastically while admiring our 10-foot Christmas tree, adorned with lights and ornaments. “It smells like Christmas,” she said, “I’ve never touched a real Christmas tree.”

    Sharing Jesus is God’s plan to fill our world with joy. However, it cannot be our true joy unless we let it be the kind of joy God wishes. Joy in Jesus. Joy that originates in God’s love for us. A joy that is alive, spontaneous, excessive, infectious. A joy that moves us to share it generously with all, especially the unhappy, the lost, the despairing.
     
    In Jesus, this joy is never self-seeking but truly self-giving. This is the joy God has and shares. And God wishes that it be ours too. Then, we  can live fully in love with God and truly in selflessness for one another.
     
    Any other kind of joy is selfish. When we decide what joy should be, when we insist it is our entitlement, and when we choose who deserves it, what we have is fake joy. It is superficial, wanting and short-lived.
     
    In contrast, true joy surprises, transforms and gives life. True joy is ours when someone bestows it on us when we least expect it. True joy comes alive in us when another draws it out of us and we can share so freely what we thought we never had to give.

    True joy is life-giving because its origin and goal lies in another’s unreserved love for us. This kind of love prioritises the good of the other. ‘Impossible,’ cry the naysayers. ‘Stupidity,’ declare sceptics. ‘Laughable,’ insist the self-serving. But such is the love of God; His singular joy is to be with us, to exist for us. 
     
    In today’s gospel reading, John the Baptist points us to the source of this kind of joy: Jesus, the light.
     
    What kind of light is Jesus? Perhaps this story helps us understand.
    Once, at dawn, a rabbi asked his students to distinguish between day and night. As the first sun rays pierced the formless darkness in the distant east, a cock crowed. “Ah! Rabbi,” said one, “When the cock crows day has come and night is spent.” The rabbi shook his head. 
     
    “Rabbi, is it when we can see and name the animals in the dawning light?” asked another tentatively. “It is not,” replied the rabbi. “Then, it must be when we can look out into the dawning morning and see much more than what our lamps show.”

    Raising his head, the Rabbi looked steely but lovingly into the faces of each bewildering disciple and said, “There is light when we can look at each person we meet and recognize in the distinctive face of another, a brother or a sister, one like you and me, all of us bearing the image of God. Now, that is light.” 
    In Jesus, God’s light enables you and me to see His divine contours etched into our human faces more clearly: each of us truly is God's beloved. I also imagine Jesus enlightening God’s memory about who we must always be to God: His own, never to be forgotten and lovingly saved into eternity.
     
    This is our joy in Jesus. We have every right to celebrate this joy; it is  already ours with Jesus’ birth in history and in his Spirit we have as Isaiah tells us. And we have every right to hope in this joy; it is our salvation when Jesus comes again.

    Today is Guadete Sunday. Its resounding refrain is ‘Rejoice!’ We hear it in our first three readings. Isaiah rejoices because God will make justice and praise spring up before all the nations. The Psalmist sings joyfully of the Lord’s marvels for him. Paul commands us to rejoice because God’s faithfulness never fails those He chooses.

    These are God’s goodness. We have experienced them all, and much more. So, rejoice now and always, “praying without ceasing, in all circumstances giving thanks," we must. This encapsulates the essence of Christian living, Paul explains in the second reading. It is especially poignant at Advent time. 

    This call to perpetual joy is not an invitation to ignore the realities of pain or suffering. Rather, it encourages us to maintain a hopeful stance in the face of life's challenges. The anticipation of Jesus’ coming reminds us that joy is rooted not in our current circumstances but in the promise of God’s faithful presence and ultimate salvation.

    This is the Good News today. We hear it but will we share it? What about God’s goodness will we announce in this third week of Advent?

    We all have something joyful to proclaim about God and God’s goodness as Jesus showed us. We need to find the resolve and courage, kindness and generosity, and most of all, the vulnerability and trust to do this. When we do, won’t we be doing what God did once at Christmas and does everyday? Yes, we will: bringing joy to someone we care for, to another we want to connect with again, to those we yearn to forgive and reconcile with, to many who seek hope hope, and even to that one person some of us desire to love for the first time.

    When we dare do this we will share God’s love generously. And this gift might be good enough, maybe even better than all the Christmas presents exchanged. It will be so very good that it moves the hearts of him and her and all of them to say, “This feels like Jesus has come, and I’m going to be just fine this Christmas!” 

    Sisters and brothers, let us not delay anymore; let us share this joy. After all, the Lord, our joy, is coming soon and very soon!

    Shall we?





    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Ekaterina Shakharova on Unsplash


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  5.  
    Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 15 December
    Reflection based on Matthew 14.22-36 


    “’Lord, save me!’ he cried. Jesus put out his hand at once and held him.” 

    We hear about this moment in today’s gospel reading. It is about Jesus saving Peter. If we are honest, we are Peter too; we need Jesus. When we doubt, we need his assurance. When we sin, we need his salvation. When we are apart from him, we need his presence. When we are in danger, ‘yes, come, Lord Jesus, come.’

    Peter’s experience reminds me of how small I feel when I am not good enough for Jesus. Maybe you’ve experienced it too.  It’s a struggle I describe as the “little guy, little girl” complex. Or, in spiritual terms,  “I am never being good enough for God” complex. 

    This feeling of being small, feeling inferior, struggling with being never good enough extends beyond our relationship with God. Don’t we feel small in comparison to the universe? Or,  small to the most efficient work colleague or the cleverest classmate? Small to the holiest, most self-giving parishioner in Church? Small even to the most loving family member or most caring friend? 

    When we struggle with the “I am never good enough for God” complex, don’t we wonder if our own lives will really make even the slightest positive difference to the world, to someone else?

    When I feel like this, I have a nagging despair that I do not matter at all. Do you feel the same sometimes?

    All of Advent prepares us to hear a different message at Christmas. God’s message that we matter. It explains Jesus’ coming: because we matter. We mattered two thousand years ago when God came to be one like us. We will matter in the future because God will come again. 

    Even now, we matter. We are raising up our petitions to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Aren’t we able to do this because we believe God is not just with us but He is God for us and for everyone else we pray for? We do because we know this wondrous truth: God chooses to be with us tonight and always.

    Today Jesus comes to Peter; He puts out his hand at once and holds him safely. Jesus’ action reminds us of Isaiah’s proclamation in the first readings throughout Advent. That the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, will come to rescue and save the Israelites. He will do this by reaching out and grasping Israel by the hand. This is how God helps and saves the Israelites. He does this because Israel matters. Though a small nation, often dominated by one power first and then another, God cares enough to save. 

    This is the God we are waiting for throughout Advent. The Advent readings and songs call us to lift our eyes, look out expectantly to His coming. People look east, they proclaim. We want to: His light will come; it will dawn and scatter the darkness of the night. 

    Peter also looked up from his probable drowning. He had to. He wanted desperately to live, he looked up and outward for help.

    Who else did he see but Jesus. Jesus who has walked to him on the water, emerging from the darkness of the stormy night. Jesus who now stretches out his hand to save. 

    Tonight we are being asked to consider: could we be like Peter, drowning in our sinfulness, our busyness, our bad choices and addictions? Do we need to look up and outward to Jesus who comes? What will we see?

    This truth: that God is with us. He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness to all. He comes when we feel small and insignificant. Indeed, He comes especially, when we judge ourselves never good enough for God, like Peter when he began to doubt as he walked to Jesus

    Maybe now we will understand more clearly what draws us to the manger in church on Christmas morning. That with Christ as our light, we will begin to see in that little guy, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in the manager, the very hand of God reaching out to us. All He wants is to grasp our hand again, to hold and save us.

    Shall we reach out too?





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  6. Year B / Advent / Week 2 / Sunday
    Readings: Isaiah 40.1-5, 9-11/ Psalm 85 (R/v 8) / 2 Peter 3.8-14 / Mark 1.1-8


    “What we are waiting for is what he promised: the new heavens and new earth, the place where righteousness will be at home” (2 Peter 3.13)

    These words are from today’s second reading. They are Peter’s assurance to Christians that the Lord will keep his promise: there will indeed be a home with Him. Advent directs us to where we will find it. Simply here: where God is, there we will also be. Christmas proclaims that in Jesus, God is with us. Truly, God’s home is with us. This must be our Christmas joy!

    We know today is not Christmas. We await it. We should not waste time as we wait. Advent is God’s gift of time to prepare ourselves spiritually to receive Jesus, his Son. We need to because Jesus is not coming to birth in a crib in church. No, he wants to be born in us; his manger is our soul. This is why Peter encourages us: “do your best to live lives without spot or stain so that the Lord will find you at peace.” I pray we’ll not squander the gift of Advent time.

    Many interpret the spirit of Advent to be penitential, like Lent. It is not; it is expectant and hope-filled. God is coming. Not because we are unworthy. Rather, because God loves us. For Isaiah,  this is the reason God gathers his people, feeds them, holds them against his breast and leads them to their rest. Truly, “Here is your God,” Isaiah proclaims in the second reading.

    This good news easily gets lost. Some can’t hear it because they beat themselves up with their sinfulness; they struggle to see God’s goodness in and around them. In Advent, many get distracted by the commercialism of Christmas shopping, excessive merry-making, or the busyness  of Christmas preparations; there is then little or no room for God. When these happen, God seems far away,  even absent.

    However, if we practise Advent stillness we become more attentive of who God is and what God is doing in Jesus’ coming. 

    For the Jesuit priest, Fr Larry Gallick, Advent stillness demands we hold "our breaths as God does a fantastic athletic act of leaping from eternity into time, from heaven to earth…from mystery to history.” We are now more aware of this divine act that only God can do to become human. Then, we might be ready to answer this question, “What does Jesus’ birth mean to me this Christmas?” 

    Our individual answers will determine how each of us will welcome Jesus and celebrate Christmas. Advent gives us the space and time to honestly consider our answers before God. To do this, we need to shut up, to keep quiet, and shut down, to stop busying ourselves. God now has the space and time to time to speak with us. Wise are we to remember God speaks in silence. Wiser are we to silence ourselves to listen. Indeed, Advent stillness is best for this.

    What might we hear? The Good News of God’s incredible love for all his people: He is coming to save us; He will make all things new; He calls us to prepare a way for Him; He asks us to take Him into our hearts.  It resounds throughout today’s readings.

    Isaiah tells of God instructing him to “Console my people, console them.” The psalmist speaks of God’s mercy that saves and helps. Peter assures that God will come because he does not want anyone to be lost. And in Mark’s gospel, John the Baptist calls everyone to repent and convert for Jesus is coming to save everyone.

    All this is good for our Advent prayer and preparation; it keeps us expectant and watchful for Jesus’ coming. However, I wonder if God has something more to say. 

    This is the resounding refrain of Advent: ‘tis the season of joyful expectation: Jesus is coming. He will come to us as “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). He is coming as God’s light for people in darkness and all the nations. Indeed, it is right for us to sing loudly and merrily, ‘Christ be our Light!’

    But what if Advent is also about God waiting patiently, expectantly, even anxiously, for us to come home? Come back to Him from our far-away wanderings, not only now but always? 

    Many of us, in small and great ways, are wandering about in darkness. Like the prodigal son, we keep running further and further away from all that is Good and True that God so lavishly gives. When we do, we foolishly forget He is the generous and forgiving Father who only awaits our return when he can even more wholeheartedly embrace us home and bestow upon us our rightful inheritance, our identity as His beloved.
     
    Indeed, coming home to God is the message John the Baptist preaches in today’s gospel:
    A voice cries in the wilderness: Prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight and so it was that John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 
    John’s message calls us to a change of heart, to convert our lives from darkness to light, from hatred to love, from self to God and others, from being far away from God to coming home to God.

    John does something more. He points us to Jesus. His coming announces this more remarkable truth: that where we are, Jesus will also be. Indeed, the more wondrous Christmas proclamation is that in Jesus, God comes home to us first. His coming then draws us home to Himself. This is the rightful expectant joy Advent wants to fill our hearts with. It compels us onward to meet Jesus at Christmas. This is how God is drawing us home to Him.

    What are we waiting for? Come home. Shall we?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo: www.morningstar.org.sg




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  7.  
    Year B / Advent / Week 1 / Sunday
    Readings: Isaiah 63. 16-17, 19. And 64.2-17 / Psalm 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19 / 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 / Mark 13:33-37


    “Stay awake!”

    These are among the first words Jesus speaks in today’s gospel reading as we begin Advent. “But stay awake for what, Lord?” we might ask, and “For how long?” we might add.

    The Advent readings and prayers proclaim this assuring answer: we stay awake for the coming of Jesus, God’s promised messiah. Over the next four weeks, we will wait, anticipate and prepare for his birth at Christmas. Our waiting is shorter than our ancestors in faith; they waited in spiritual darkness for the longest of time for the light of Christ to come. 

    Waiting can be overwhelming and tiring. Sometimes, lonely and frustrating. “Nothing happens,” many lament. “A waste of time,” many more complain. If we calculate all the time we’ve waited and are still waiting it might feel like we’re waiting too much and too long.

    Yet Advent demands we pause, wait and stay awake for Jesus’ coming. No one but God makes this call. Do we hear Him?  However we yearn for God in word and deed, song and art, we’re simply echoing God’s desire for us to come to Him. He longs to hold us close to himself (Ps 63.8).

    How shall we wait and prepare for God’s coming in Jesus?

    First, with honesty.

    Isaiah describes the longing and heartfelt pleading of the exiled Israelites for God; they want Him to return to them. Lost, estranged and abandoned, they lament: “Why do you let us wander….Return for the sake of your servants”. Feeling they are being punished, they cry: “you are angry, and we are sinful…unclean people, withered like leaves….and guilty.”  Yearning, in pain and misery, and lost without their God, they plead, “Let us see your face.” 

    They are waiting for God; they stay awake for his coming. We are these people. We too have wandered far from God, rejected God with our sins, alienated ourselves from God and one another in our shame and despair.  Are we really longing for God as we enter Advent?

    Second, with hope.

    St Paul encourages us to wait for God with gratitude and hope. He says: “I give thanks to my God for all the graces…received through Jesus Christ…so that you will not be without any of the gifts of the Spirit.” For Paul, God labours in our waiting to give us His peace and goodness, his kindness and mercy, and the hope, trust and courage we need for daily life. He encourages Christians to hope in the certain knowledge that “God is faithful.”

    This is how some are approaching Advent. Their hearts are eager and excited. They are  already looking ahead to Christmas. Do we share their expectant joy and hope?

    Third, with trust.
     
    In Mark’s Gospel Jesus demands, “Be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time will come.” Ironically, his call assures us that we can “stay awake!” because He is indeed coming. For us, no more the anxiety and pain Isaiah describes. Instead, we can have quiet confidence and trust because the waiting will end. 

    Isn’t this how you and I, people of faith, should wait during Advent? We wait, focussed on the future, not with a backward look or even a glance into the past. We can because something is coming, a different time, a new experience.The Church teaches this something will be wonderful. It is none other than God-with-us. His coming fulfils our yearning. And so it is.
     
    There is however something more we need to learn about Advent waiting. Consider.

    There is a children’s storybook that captivates pregnant mothers and expectant fathers. In word and art, it offers a day-by-day description of the physical development of a human foetus. Today, the foetus has a heart.  Today, the foetus has a stomach.  Today, he has fingernails.  Today, he has teeth buds. Today, the child has a nose.  Today, this little one has eyes. Then ears, a mouth and hair. Slowly, surely over nine months, God forms this child. 

    This book helps parents live in this moment of their child coming to be. It invites them to be present in their waiting – to live the moment, to live life, to experience God as they wait for their child’s birth. There is no waiting for something better.
     
    Christmas is coming but not today. We know this. But today, we will decorate Christmas trees, bake cookies and buy presents. Today, some will begin carolling practices and packing food hampers for the poor. Today, we’re invited to play with our grandchildren and sit with a dying friend. Today, you can hum a Christmas song and delight in the empty crib awaiting Jesus’ coming. Today, you and I are invited to be, to live as we wait. To live in this moment.  Not to wait for something better.
     
    Let’s do this for in our Advent waiting, there is indeed a gift, an invitation, a moment to behold. Simply this: God is. Yes, God is with us. God is intimately present in all the moments of our waiting. There is nothing better. 
      
    We need to hear this good news as Advent begins. It proclaims that there is nothing better than to live in God who is with us always. There is no waiting here, even as we await Christmas. 

    A good preparation for Advent must be for us to practise awareness. That  is, being attentive to God and noticing His Presence with us now. He is among us in this Advent time.  And if we let him be with us in this present time that Advent is, He will come to birth in the manger of our souls this Christmas.


     Truly, can there be any better way to wait for God’s coming?




    Preached at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    Photo by Kylo on Unsplash
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  8.  

    Devotion to the Sacred Heart – Friday, 1 December
    Reflection based on Matthew 14.22-36 


    Advent begins tomorrow. Unlike past years, I find myself distracted by several ongoing works and responsibilities. As such, I haven’t had the time to consider the coming season. In past years, I would have slowed down a week or two before Advent to plan my Advent preparations, be it choosing a book for spiritual reading or identifying the prayer practice for Advent. On the eve of Advent, I don’t really feel prepared for it.  What about you?

    Yet, in some ways, being distracted by life is exactly where Advent is supposed to begin. I don’t think Mary, Joseph, Elizabeth and the Three Wise Men were expecting for God to interrupt their lives as much as God did. Mary and Joseph were probably just planning to start their lives together in Nazareth. Elizabeth and her husband were likely content for many years with their lives, having accepted that they could be at peace without a child. The Wise Men were probably worrying about their travels through different lands and all they had to manage to make their journey. 

    God did not wait until they were ready. God simply emerged from within their busy, challenging lives to draw them back towards love and humility.  And yes back to Himself amidst their everyday lives.

    Jesus is doing the same in today’s gospel reading. He emerges out of the chaos and darkness of the storm, and draws the disciples from panic and fear back to safety and life.

    We hear how they battle strong winds and raging waters as the storm toss their boat about. We sense their fear of drowning and dying. We recognise their anxiety and helplessness. Into their plight, Jesus emerges, walking on water. His coming draws them back to that which should really matter: himself. He who comes to save.  They forgot about Jesus because they were distracted.

    I wonder about you and me as we enter into Advent. What are the distractions that prevent us from entering the season and preparing spiritually for Christmas? Whatever they are and however they progress, even if we do nothing, Jesus will come.  This is the hope-filled promise of Advent. Even more, this is the quintessential Christian truth about who God is – He comes to be with us; He comes to save us. 

    Tonight’s gospel reading offers three lessons. They can help us encounter God’s coming, not once in history but daily.

    First, that when we are distracted like the disciples, we cannot see Jesus clearly. Instead of recognising him as he truly is in our midst – as the Lord – we mistake him for a ghost. 

    Second, that we need to be brave like Peter. Then, we can be courageous to step out onto the water and walk towards Jesus. Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and the Wise Men also responded to God bravely. Like Peter, they trusted. We need to be brave and to trust God too.

    Third, that headstrong winds and choppy waters will always be part of our lives. These can frighten and overwhelm us. When these distract us, and take our gaze away from Jesus, we will sink like Peter. 

    Yet, Jesus  never fails us. He will still come, as he did to the disciples that stormy night. He will emerge out of the everydayness, the busyness, the storms of our lives. He will come as Emmanuel, God-with-us.

    All of Advent preparation and waiting is for you and me to learn this truth. Even more, to let it come to birth in us. Jesus says to us, ‘Come to me,’ like He did to the disciples. Not to the crib in church but to the manger of our souls daily. We honestly want to welcome Him. Our efforts to do so need not be perfect or exact. Rather, we simply need to open our hearts and minds to receive Him.   

    Here we are doing this with our petitions and prayers to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Let us add one more petition: that we humble ourselves. Then, we can receive God’s gratuitous love pouring out of Jesus’ Sacred Heart for us, for all. Let us ask for this, not just for Advent but for every day.

    Shall we?






    Shared at the Church of the Sacred Heart
    photo by Japheth Mast on Unsplash


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"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

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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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