The burning coal
There is a favourite preacher’s story that goes like this: a member of a certain parish, who previously had been attending Mass regularly, suddenly stopped going. After a few weeks, the priest decided to visit him. It was a cold evening, and the priest found the man alone at home, sitting before a blazing coal fire.
Guessing the reason for the priest’s visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a big chair near the fireplace and waited. The pastor made himself comfortable but said nothing. In the heavy silence, he just sat and looked at the fire.
After a few minutes, the priest took the fire tongs, carefully picked a brightly burning coal from the fire, and placed it to one side of the hearth, all by itself. Then he sat back in his chair, still silent. Both of them watched the coal. Gradually, the coal’s flame diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire went. Soon it was cold and dead. The priest got up again, picked up the cold, dead coal and put it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately, it began to glow once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.
The moral was simple. A single lump of coal cannot burn on its own; it takes many lumps of coal to make a fire that does not go out. No Christian can burn for God for very long without the constant support of the rest of the Church.
Paul O’Reilly SJ, Hope in All Things
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What is it you want?
The question, ‘What is it you want?’ is one that Jesus often asks in the gospels. How people answer that question is an indication of what their priorities are. When Jesus asked the question of the blind man, he answered, ‘Let me see again’. When Jesus asked the question of the disciples of John the Baptist at the beginning of John’s Gospel, they answered, ‘Where are you staying?’ In both cases, Jesus could respond to the answer given to his question. When the same question was asked of the mother of two of the twelve, James and John, Jesus could not respond to the answer he got to his question. The answer given by the mother revealed that her priorities were for her sons to have positions of status and honour in Jesus’ kingdom. This was to misunderstand the nature of the kingdom that Jesus came to proclaim. It was at the moment when Jesus was devoid of all status and honour, as he hung from a Roman cross, that he was publicly proclaimed king. This was intended in mockery, but, ironically, it proclaimed a truth. Jesus revealed God’s kingdom of love most fully at that moment of greatest shame and humiliation. James, John, and the other disciples needed to know that they were signing up to a kingdom that bore no relationship to the kingdoms of this world. Jesus was not to be found among the ‘rulers’ and ‘great men’ who ‘lord it over’ their subjects and ‘make their authority felt’. His authority showed itself not in being served but in the self-emptying, loving service of others. The same goes for all who would be his disciples. Jesus’ work today remains that of bringing God’s kingdom to earth, not building another earthly kingdom.
Martin Hogan, The Word is a Lamp on my Path
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The Seekers
The Wise Men were probably astronomers and philosophers from the region of Persia, but most importantly of all, they were seekers. They looked to the skies for astronomical signs which would foretell the birth of a powerful leader. They were awake to the signs of the times. We don’t know details of their religious affiliations, and it really does not matter, for this story of the Wise Men is the story of people of all cultures, all countries and all faiths who make a journey in search of God.
The arrival of the Wise Men in Bethlehem is a moment of great joy and grace, as ‘on entering the house, they saw the child with Mary, his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage’. God is found in the simple spaces. Let us have the courage to take the risk and move out of our comfort zones in search of Jesus, just as the Wise Men did. They had no idea of what awaited them, but the Gospel speaks of their delight and joy when they arrived at that place. Tríona Doherty and Jane Mellett, The Deep End: A Journey with the Gospels in the Year of Luke
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