Make Our Hearts A Crib for Jesus
As we celebrate Christmas, we are asked to open our hearts, to make our hearts a crib —a place to welcome and encounter Jesus. What does this mean? As we hear the Christmas story today, what effect does it have on us?
Perhaps we are like the shepherds, bubbling over with joy. We might identify with Mary, still trying to figure out what it all means. There is room for both. There is a depth and intimacy to Mary’s understanding of Jesus, whereas the Shepherds have perhaps only scratched the surface. Our faith and our relationship with God go through seasons. The ups and downs of life can take us by surprise, and we might find ourselves looking at things in a different way. When the flurry of Advent is over, Christmas has a way of stopping us in our tracks, giving us time to rest in wonderment and give thanks for God’s faithfulness in our lives. This is a time to sit with Mary as she treasures and ponders.
Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Deep End: A Journey with the Gospels in the Year of Matthew
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A Mystery
Something to think and pray about each day this week:
In religious terms, we would call Joseph a faithful type of guy, observant in religious thought and practice. The visit from the angel tests his faithfulness to God and to Mary. He doesn’t let them down. He was called to be the carer of Jesus and Mary and to find a new openness to the mystery of God.
A temptation of religion is to tie things down too much. Good religion is open to the mystery of life; however, life challenges us and calls us. True religion is open to mystery. We need a church lit with the light of God, as Joseph was. His burden was lifted when he was open to God, to taking Mary home as his wife, no matter what others might think. This is the annunciation to Joseph – the word of God from the angel to Joseph in a dream. It opened up a huge new meaning in his life. We accept this word as a central part of our lives, and the next time we meet the word, it will be made flesh.
Donal Neary SJ, Gospel Reflections for Sundays of Year A
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A Change of Heart
It is not by chance that we meet John the Baptist and his challenging message during Advent. His call to repent might not excite us, as we’re in more of a celebratory mood these weeks, but ‘to repent’ literally means ‘to turn around’ or ‘to return’ (metanoia). It does not mean we riddle ourselves with guilt; rather, it is an invitation to transformation, to turn away from what is not life-giving for us and embrace that which helps us to live a full, more balanced life. In this way, we create space to welcome Christ’s grace and love
at Christmas, and we become aware once more of his loving presence in our hearts and in the world around us. This is liberating and enables us to commit to love and the birthing of God in our hearts. How we prepare in these weeks is important and can lead to many blessings. Today, John invites the
people who have gathered and us to a change of heart.
Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Deep End: A Journey with the Gospels in the Year of Matthew
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The God-Bearer
Over time, our images of Mary have become somewhat sanitised, partly due to cultural perceptions of the role of women, but also due to the longstanding correlation in Church tradition between ‘holiness’ and ‘purity’ for women. We return to Mary’s roots, to her early appearance as the brave, decisive, breathless, and excited young woman who rushed to Elizabeth’s house, pregnant with God’s promise, pregnant with joy, carrying the Word of God and passing it on. Many of us have a particular devotion to Mary. Advent is an ideal time to reflect on what Mary can teach us about being a disciple and ‘God-bearer’ (Theotokos). God asks each of us to be bearers of his love and his Word. Our challenge is to create a space for God in all of our human experience, in our joy and our brokenness. Let us follow in the footsteps of the first evangelist, Mary. Let us also listen to the experiences of the women in our Church and society who, through their strength and enthusiasm, continue the task of carrying Christ in and to the world.
Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Deep End: A Journey with the Gospels in the Year of Luke
The Tidy Soul
For us, in this Advent season, we are being called to realise that the tidy soul, like the tidy house, requires effort. It doesn’t just happen. If we truly want the Lord to come and stay a while, we must prepare the way. It’s about putting the house in order – the soul in order. Somewhere and somehow, we need to hear the centurion’s words again and realise his words are ours too, ‘Lord, I am not worthy to have you under my roof’. For that, we need a plan of action, a road map of sorts, to guide us on the journey.
The Sacrament of Reconciliation provides some of that roadmap. Its coordinates are already there for us, and the initial movement might be found in ‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned’.
Vincent Sherlock, Let Advent be Advent
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The Greater Good
In an individualist culture, perhaps more than ever, we need to learn from the lesson placed before us by Christ the King. We are our brothers and our sisters’ keepers. ’We live in each other’s shadow’, as one Irish saying puts it. While independence is all fine and well, inter-dependence is the greater good – a kind heart and open hand. The plight of war refugees has been well documented, but there were and are disquieting voices raising opposition. The Irish Rune on hospitality says:
We saw a stranger yesterday.
We put food in the eating place,
Drink in the drinking place,
Music in the listening place.
And with the sacred name of the triune God
We were blessed, and our house,
Our cattle and our dear ones.
As the lark says in her song:
Often, often, often goes the Christ
In the stranger’s guise.
It is not uniquely Irish, of course, for many cultures instinctively know that we need to honour the heart of the stranger; we need to recognise how much like us the person is; we need to remember the humanity of each and every person. Welcoming the stranger blesses us as well as it aids the recipient of our hospitality.
In God’s family, there are no strangers, only kin or clan, as we might say. Kinship is God’s dream come true. It’s about imagining a circle of compassion and then imagining no one standing outside that circle. For whatever you do with love has eternal value.
Today Christ the King says to us, ‘What you do for others, you do for me’.
Tom Cox, The Sacred Heart Messenger, November 2023
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God is Embracing Each Of Us
Christ is risen in us. Sometimes we’re too busy doing to see this truth. But when we do, when we realise that God truly is in all things and embracing each of us, then we change our posture and disposition. We desire to make ourselves available to this God of love and compassion. We desire to manifest God’s will.
And so, our hands stop doing for the sake of doing, and we are put at the disposal of God’s dream. We allow God’s spirit to work through our hands – our very bodies – humbly and patiently, as we discern our unique place in God’s dream. Our hands learn to do the Lord’s work as we enter more deeply into the mystery of God’s very self.
Eric Clayton, The Sacred Heart Messenger, September 2023
Our Life’s Journey
All of us will eventually come to the end of our journey here on earth. For Christians the belief is that life is changed but not ended. We are all on a journey, and many of us will experience loss. We have hope in Christ, but that is not to deny that we will indeed grieve for our lost loved one and experience broken hearts.
You never replace a person who has died as we are all unique. We will discover new loves, but we will not and should not forget. Perhaps God’s plan is to create a unity among people – ‘May they be one as you and I, Father, are one.’ When we lose someone dear we can comfort each other as Jesus taught, but I don’t think he ever meant that one person could replace another.
Your loved one will leave behind many treasured memories. Perhaps they had their own ritual, and we can celebrate their life by repeating this. We can also do something in their memory, such as planting a tree or dedicating a book. This piece is dedicated to my much-loved mother who passed away recently. I am lucky to have the support of friends and family, but I miss her a lot. No one will replace your lost loved one. But love can’t go nowhere and love cannot die.
Mary Hunt, The Sacred Heart Messenger, November 2023
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Prayer to Celebrate the Lives of Our Dead
November is a month to pray for our dead and to celebrate their lives. We have memories of those who have gone before us. We have a treasure trove of good memories of loving family members and maybe some painful memories of separation and reconciliation; there are memories of school, the neighbourhood and countless small kindnesses.
At a time of death, we can look back and see that many unexpected things in life were well worthwhile and brought us happiness, even if they were difficult at the time. Our faith helps with those painful memories of others, whether we miss them or regret some part of our relationship with them. They are now with God and the fullness of love, with maybe repentance for faults, sins and failings. With God we will be at our best in eternity.
A popular funeral reading is the ‘time for everything’ reading from Ecclesiastes. Our time of death is not of our choosing. It’s not that God had the date of death planned, rather it is that the body has its own ‘clock’ and can last only so long. At that time God is close, very near, near to welcome us home.
The funeral liturgy remembers with thanks a person’s life but also faces the question – where is he/she now? All we can say is that we will see God face to face and, in some mysterious way, be united with all those we knew and loved on earth.
At every funeral each of us can bring away something we got from knowing the dead person – help from them, their prayers, their love. Even in sadness we can go from our funeral rituals and answer the question, ‘How did this person enhance my life?’
Donal Neary SJ, The Sacred Heart Messenger, November 2023
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Living in Communion with others
Give us eyes to see the deepest needs in people’s lives.
Give us hearts full of love for our neighbours as well as for the strangers we meet.
Help us to understand what it means to love others as we love ourselves.
Teach us care in a way that strengthens those who are sick.
Fill us with generosity as we feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty.
Let us be the healing presence for those who are weak and weary, by offering our welcome and kindness to them.
May we remember to listen and to offer a helping hand and heart, when the opportunity presents itself to us.
Give us hearts of understanding when we disagree, but let us never be disagreeable to one another.
Inspire us to go out of our way to include those who are unknown and unnoticed.
Help us to be inclusive to all who come to our door.
John Cullen, The Sacred Heart Messenger, August 2023
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