Towards A Truly Spiritual Christmas!

Today is the last Sunday of Advent. The season is about to end and we are closer to Christmas. 

From the first week of Advent, our ears were bombarded with Advent and Christmas songs everywhere we go.

Our celebration of Christmas is not a yearly birthday party for Jesus; it is the celebration of Him who once came in the flesh but who continuously comes. With Christmas around the corner, the days of Advent waiting are almost over. The Lord is coming very soon. 

A special attention is given to Mary. Mary has become more prominence on this last Sunday of Advent because, no one can help us to understand the meaning of Christmas better than Mary.

Mary is truly the model of Advent. God the Father prepared her from the first moment of her conception to be the worthy mother of His Son. Her “fiat”, her wholehearted “yes!” to the Archangel Gabriel, launched the immediate preparation for the birth of Jesus, the Messiah.

Today's Gospel is a story of Mary visits Elizabeth, (LK 1: 39-45). By going to Elizabeth’s aid, Mary was carrying the tiny Jesus in her womb and She became the first missionary, the first bearer of the Good News that would change all of human history. 

To bring joy to others this Christmas, we really have to bring Christ to others. He is the greatest gift we could ever bring to someone we love or to someone we meet. Without sharing Jesus, we are not giving our loved ones anything that is truly lasting. Bring Christ and you bring everything into someone's life.

In this Year of Mercy and as the day of Christmas quickly approaches, is there someone in my family or among my friends who is lonely, who is sick, who is estranged or alienated from me? How my presence can make a difference?

“Come Lord Jesus, come, through Mother of Mercy!"

It’s the first day of the Church's New Year – the very first Sunday in Advent - and as you’ll see, everything is a bit different today. The colours are different, the hymns are different, and there’s a sense of love and festivity in the air.

Advent and Christmas times are always busy with merrymakers around us. They come and go so quickly. But we should give more time and effort to our spiritual lives by living at our full potential is finding strength through Christ, the real meaning of these important liturgical seasons. Advent and Christmas are all about Christ coming to us.

Advent is a wake-up call – Advent confronts and wakes us from our dream. Advent is a time to wake up to Christ in our lives. We are invited to quietly prepare our hearts for His coming on Christmas so that He can be received by us with warmth and joy.

The “coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” is what we should really prepare for. Christmas is about Our Saviour, Our Emmanuel and it begins in our hearts.

The hustle and bustle of the holiday season is fine. The gifts, the shopping, the family gatherings are wonderful.

Pray that the Lord will help us during this Advent Season, which begins today, to see that the priorities in our lives, is preparing ourselves and those around us for a truly “spiritual” Christmas. Let us begin by opening our hearts to God, and humbly asking him, in the quiet of our hearts, for the grace to live this Advent better than the one before. 

Have a Jolly, Merry Advent & Christmas everyone!

Christ the King!

The Feast of Christ the King was established by Pope Pius XI in 1925 as an answer to secularism. This feast is intended to proclaim in a striking and effective manner Christ’s royalty over individuals, families, society, governments, and nations.

Today, on this solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe, we are to examine what it means to us to have a king and to actually submit ourselves to a ruler in humility.

Catholics are called to give total loyalty to the King, to kneel before Him in adoration and continually give themselves to Him. And Jesus’ mission is to reign as king over all. In the end, “every knee should bow, in heaven and earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:10-11).

A Poor Widow "Mite"

This Sunday’s gospel (MK 12: 38-44) is about the widow who gave her last two “mites” to the temple treasury. She could easily have put one in the offering and kept one for herself but this woman put in everything she had. St Mark makes clear that the widow’s two small coins were the reminder of her earthly wealth.

The English version of the bible says, “She put in all she had to live on.”

The original Greek is a little bit different and gives a better perspective – “She gave her whole life.” 

If she gave her whole life to God, she would walk out of the temple area with absolutely nothing. Nothing, that is, except her faith in God is so great that she gives all she has to God, knowing He will provide.

What would you have done?

Giving frees us from greediness and sets us free to depend on God. A Christian who gives all straight from the heart is a powerful and a true disciple of Christ.

Right Attitude Towards Wealth

The man in the Gospel passage (MK 10: 17-27) is identified as a wealthy man. He is good and honest in every way; he had observed the commandments meticulously and thoroughly. Jesus loved the man because the man had been a good and faithful, that he had kept the commandments from his youth. But, apparently he is not happy; He is not satisfied with his life. Something is missing, something is triggering him and he asks Jesus what it is. Jesus’ answer crushes him, “Go and sell what you have and give to the poor… after that come and follow me.” And he goes away sad, for he had great possessions.

In asking “to give away all,” Jesus is not condemning our material richness neither he did call every one of us to give away everything we have to the poor. He did not want make us guilty about what we have. He knows that every one has thinks of one’s needs and one’s security. The real problem is not so much in possessing wealth but one’s wrong attitude to wealth.

The Wisdom of God, assures us that in return for what we give up, we will be repaid with eternal life and a hundredfold in this life, namely, an inner peace, a deep feeling of fulfillment and interior joy.

CONTINUOUSLY WALKING WITH MARY

As Catholics, we are very blessed to be members of the Church that duly honours and respects the Mother of Our Lord and Saviour.  However we must admit that many of us, even ‘cradle Catholics’, do not really know and appreciate the profound role that Mary plays in the life of the Church. There are even a few groups, among them Christians, who claim that Catholics ‘worship’ Mary!

Mary was born to be the Mother of the Saviour of the world, the spiritual mother of all men and women, and the holiest of God’s creatures. In Mary all human nature is exalted. The Blessed Virgin occupies a unique place in the history of salvation, and she has the highest mission ever commended to any creature! Mary grew of age “treasuring these things in her heart” (Cf. Luke 2:51). Her simple, total dedication to God made her His “highly favoured daughter.”

This month, we’ll be going from house to house either to regular families or lapse Catholics to pray the Rosary. Why the Rosary? To be formed and moulded into Christ with the same loving care that Christ himself received from Mary. But how does Mary form and mould us? By the mysteries of the life of her Son and by the lesson of her own humble, loving and docile attitude before the majesty of God.

Praying the Rosary with Mary does not have to be a solo event. Catholics come together as a family or as a community to ponder the mysteries and to advance in our affection for our Mother. Through our Mother’s eyes, we get to see our Saviour’s love for each one of us.

When we commit to praying the Rosary, Mary walks with us through the scriptures through our meditation, through all our joys and sorrows and sings with us the ‘magnificat’ of our life.

If we begin to walk with Mary each day, our lives will be radically different as she leads us to her Son. Our devotion to Mary will not only be good for our souls but for our bodies - the temple of the Holy Spirit. When we love Mary and the Rosary, we will experience the conversion of our heart.

Go to Mother Mary and pray the Rosary every day for our nation, for the protection of human life and the restoration of family life.

ALL SOULS DAY

On this month of November we are reminded once again to commemorate ALL the faithful departed souls.

All Souls’ Day is a day set aside for honouring the dead. It is a day primarily celebrated in the Catholic Church and a few other Christian denominations. Most protestant denominations do not recognize the commemoration of the Faithful Departed souls and they disagree with the theology behind it.

As Catholics we truly believe that through our traditions and teachings of the Church that one day the faithful departed may be cleansed of their sins so that they may meet God face to face in Heaven.

Our loving prayers and by offering Masses for the souls in purgatory will help them in this transition from purgatory to reach the state of full grace. God wants every one of his child to reach the full state of grace, perfect in holiness. Jesus has promised, “… I shall raise him/her on the last day,” (Jn 6:40).

We shall set aside the whole month of November as a month of intercession to pray for all the souls in Purgatory and all the souls whom we have forgotten to pray for.

On All Souls’ Day we shall visit the cemeteries or columbarium of our departed ones and clean up the premises. We say extra prayers or light up candles and place flowers at the departed souls’ graves.

May all the faithful departed of our loved ones rest in peace.