The Gift

Christmas is a season of gifts.

We spend a lot of time thinking of gifts, saving for them, looking for them, buying or preparing them, wrapping them. For a lot of people, even the wrapping of gifts is a big enterprise.

But we also like, nay, we enjoy a lot receiving gifts, not the promotional ones coming from anonymous people and companies, but gifts from people we know, people who matter most in our lives.

So Christmas is like a season of anticipating and savouring gifts.

I hope we don't forget that these gifts are mere trifles when compared with The Gift: Jesus, the babe in Bethlehem who is God-made-flesh.

Beautifully wrapped gifts have a way of attracting our attention, as we anticipate what is inside.

When The Gift came, more than 2,000 years ago, He did not cause any fanfare, no promotional blitz, no blinking lights, no colourful packaging. He was born in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes, in the company of Mary, Joseph and some shepherds. In the quiet of the night, The Gift came welcomed by the poorest.

It is a very meaningful message. Jesus is The Gift for everybody. With the coming of Jesus, no person can ever be poor as to possess nothing. We have the greatest Gift and He freely comes to each one of us.

Will I receive Him, will I see in this poor and simple babe My Saviour, My Greatest Gift and Treasure?



I wish you a happy Christmas. May you be filled with peace as you receive in your heart and in your life the Prince of Peace.

Georgina's gentle heart

"Keep clinging to the Rock! Fear not my loving friend and try to smile outwardly even when your gentle heart is breaking."
This line comes from one of Sr. Georgina's last email messages to me. Early this year, she got really sick and she now lives in a nursing home. She is undergoing therapy and, little by little, she has started to walk again.
Yesterday I got a surprise call from Sr. Anne, another Sister from her community. Sr. Georgina asked her to give me a ring and to give me her love.
I cried. This Sister, who has been sick for a long time, and who is taking slow and painful steps to get back on her feet again, this Sister has thought, nay, is thinking about me.
Dear, good Sr. Georgina, it is not I who have a gentle heart. It is you who have it. You have been with me in the most difficult moments of my life. You have kept watch with me as I contemplated, in my own life, the mystery of the cross - when my mother died, when I left my country to live in a foreign land, when my sister left the Institute, when I struggled with a very painful experience of rejection, and now as I live in my flesh the solitude of midlife transitions.
For me Sr. Georgina is like a lighthouse, an assurance, especially in a tempest, to keep rowing or to keep swimming because there is dry land.
Thank you, Sr. Georgina, for being an expression of God's tender mercies. Thank you for sharing with me your good and gentle heart.

PS. By the way she ended her message with these words "Sr. Georgina friend forever through thick and thin."

Community life, our furnace

Life in community does not keep the darkness away. To the contrary. It seems that the light that attracted me to L'Arche also made me conscious of the darkness in myself. Jealousy, anger, the feeling of being rejected or neglected, the sense of not truly belonging - all of these emerged in the context of a community striving for a life of forgiveness, reconciliation, and healing. Community life has opened me up to the real spiritual combat: the struggle to keep moving toward the light precisely when the darkness is so real.
As long as I lived by myself, it seemed rather easy to keep the elder son hidden from view. But the sharing of life with people who are not hiding their feelings soon confronted me with the elder son within. There is little romanticism to community life. There is the constant need to keep stepping out of the engulfing darkness onto the platform of the father's embrace.

From "The Return of the Prodigal Son" by Henri Nouwen

Mary

Today is the feast of the Immaculate Conception. We, Catholics, believe that Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.

Too much focus has been placed on this singular privilege granted to Mary that, perhaps, I have failed to see what is the Immaculate Conception's message for me.

In Mary, I find the heights to which a person can arrive when she/he allows her/himself to be totally loved by God. It is God who has loved us first. This loving God does not make our life easy, but if we just follow Him our lives acquire meaning.

Many of us have been formed in a moralistic faith that puts the focus on our efforts to do good, to make sacrifices in order to be pleasing to God. In reality, it is God who has reached out to us first, who has sacrificed Himself for us. When I contemplate the person of Jesus, I see not a vindictive or a "law enforcer" God, but a God who delights in the company of sinners, who rejoices when the one lost sheep is found.

Mary is not a statue we pray to when we don't have any other options. She is a living presence who continues to show us the way, to encourage us that the only way to happiness is to live our lives with God. Only God can give us the fullness of life, the home and the love that all of us have a nostalgia for.

A tie that binds

There are certain moments in life when an experience just overwhelms you. It involves your whole being in a very deep way that your mind fails to describe it and, much more, to understand it. Words are scarce, yet the experience is very real, touching your inmost being.
I have come across a reflection of Joyce Rupp in a book entitled "Praying our Goodbyes". It is a very clear description of what I am going through, what I have been going through these past months. It is as if I have finally found the words to describe to myself this experience.
It is like taking another step forward. One other realization I had is that, I am not alone. Many other men and women have walked and are walking the same path.
I pray for these people who, with tear-stained faces, soiled hands and bruised feet, still try to go through the journey. They are my kindred spirits.

Healing

Lord, I know that Your love is healing.

He will wipe away the tears

"On this mountain the Lord of hosts will provide for all peoples a feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines. On this mountain he will destroy the veil that veils all peoples, the web that is woven over all nations; he will destroy death forever. The Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces." Isaiah 25:6-8

For me, this is the Bible's most tender description of God. How often this image has given me comfort especially in my most difficult moments.
I see a God who leaves aside His other concerns, and for that moment only has me as His concern.
I see a God whose full and undivided attention is focused on me.
I see a God whose right hand caresses my tear-stained face, while his left hand holds me close to His heart, stroking my head and my back until my sobs fade away.
This image of God gives me a lot of comfort. It doesn't take away my problem. It doesn't solve my issue.
But it gives me a renewed strength and self-confidence. I am not alone in the struggle. Despite any mess I may have been through or I may have created, I can always go home to Someone who loves me unconditionally. He believes in me and this faith makes me believe that no matter how long the journey, I will find again the song in my heart.

"Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning." Psalm 30:5