S: Advent Losers (or are they?...)

Now, we are at the final Advent posting just before Christmas! In this entry, we have to speak up for the little guys. Those that have no say in a world that craves for power and might. Yet, the first Christmas message was given to them, the...

Shepherds! They are the ones whom the greatest news in the universe is told to, right after Joseph and Mary: Then an angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them... 'to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord... you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger...' (Lk 2: 9 - 12)

It is said that good guys and the weak never win. They always end up last as total losers. So, to be on top, you need to be ruthless and don't give in to any signs of deficiency or feebleness. Be a Vader and embrace the dark side. I am sure that there are many of us who would be very tempted to do just that, especially when our priorities, whatever they may be, are threatened. We may want to rebel just so we can get what we want and bully our way right through to the top of the heap.

The shepherds have come to symbolised a sign which goes against all the might and the powerful which the world can throw at them. Yes, to be a shepherd is to be no one, nothing. They have no say and play no part in the world's arena of governance and politics of their time. Even in society, they are nobodies. They are the anawim, "the lost and the forgotten ones", to whom Jesus refers in his beautiful beatitudes on The Sermon on the Mount. Anawim is also the plural form of an Old Testament Hebrew word which is variously translated as "poor", "afflicted", "humble", or "meek". But it is to these people that God exalts and have a very special place in His heart.

As we end our Advent journey and get ready for Christmas, we are reminded again to reflect deeply where we stand with our faith. Do we find ourselves constantly wanting to claw our way to the top or do we practice humility which provides the ability to trust in the promise of God; "I will be with you always"? Trusting in that promise is a choice for one who returns good action for evil.

May you have a good, blessed, peaceful and joyful Christmas!

A: Winged Advent

We have arrived at the penultimate entry before Christmas and about to, also, complete the traditional Christmas novena associated with this Advent preparation for the celebration of the birth of the Christ child. While figuring out which possible item of reflection/sharing to choose for the letter 'A', I have gone through a whole gamut of ideas but kept coming back to this same item.

I thought that it was an overused theme and would not bear a decent consideration or reading here. Yet, the series would not be complete without any mention of them and despite being overused or sometimes made to be overly fantastical or exaggerated, they do bear great tidings for they are...

Angels we have heard on high! Yes, angels are spiritual beings acting as intermediateries between God and men. Our Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) has entries which run from paragraph #328 - #336 and #350 - #352 that speak and teach about angels. In particular, the Church affirms its long tradition of belief that each of us is assigned a personal guardian angel: "From infancy to death, human life is surrounded by their watchfulness and intercession. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd..." (CCC, #336). So, our belief in angels are not without merit and has always been a part of our faith. The Bible, right from the first chapters of Genesis right on till the very end of the last book of the Bible in Apocalypse (or Revelations), have angels in different forms interacting with God's people. The most well known one, during this period to reflect on, is none other than Gabriel, who was sent to a little town in Nazareth to announce to Mary the news that would eventually change the whole world.

Despite our spiritual and faith understanding of angels, this did not stop the secular world from appropriating angels into a manner that would serve their look and feel in the entertainment business or whatever that suit the circumstances. That is where we get these exaggerations and fantastical ideas and rendition of the hows, whats, whys and powers of the angels. Apparently one can even think of wanting to turn into a human! (after falling in love, that is). Whatever stories that center around angels in this entertainment industry, their depiction or portrayal usually have them with wings, like here and here, just to name a few dramatic ones. This perception may follow that which are already depicted in the arts. Whether they have wings or not, it is important for us to realize that their role and presence in our faith lives cannot be underestimated nor trivialised. A piece here by Joanne Turpin ought to help us get a better grip on who these angels really are for us.

Finally, while I was a hesitant to use this reflection on angels earlier, I was won over by a bookmark, from Blue Mountain Arts, given by a friend recently . On it has a poem by the Blue Mountain resident author and artist Douglas Pagels, entitled "May You Always Have an Angel By Your Side".

There is one already by your side...

M: Advent Maiden

In choosing a theme for this, I cannot but say, what about...

Mary? In the whole history of salvation, the very name of the young maiden of Nazareth is always never far from the lips of anyone worthy of his or her Scriptural and theological background. The Mary issue has already garnered much heated debate as to her role and importance in the salvific plan of God for his people. The Church honours her and has given her the title of 'Mary, Mother of God and Mother of the Church' which was stamped in chapter 8 of the Second Vatican Council document, Lumen gentium, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church (21 November 1964).

This totally gave a whole new look, feel and understanding to the very appreciation of our Lady. No longer would she be misconstrued or misunderstood as a 'demi-goddess' or having special status which seemed even greater than her Son, Jesus Christ. The document clearly shows that Mary has a special place in our Church's life of faith because she shows us how to be, as a Body of Christ, a disciple (one who listens and do), a virgin (one who is holy and chaste) and a mother (one who is life-giving and caring). Mary can show us the way towards all of this because she was one of us, human herself. Mary also shows us the very promise of our own resurrection, mirrored by her Assumption.

As we make our way through our lives, those three dimensions which the Church sees in our Lady, will inevitably impinge greatly upon our conscience and thinking. These may be having an effect on us now. Whatever it may be, the person of Mary as presented in the Bible (however briefly it may be), honoured and celebrated accordingly in the Church's liturgy and being continually debated and discussed in theological, biblical, ecumenical and inter-religious dialogues, will always have an effect on our own lives as a reminder that we can be far more capable than what we usually think we are in fulfilling God's plan for us and for humanity. It only takes to say, like Mary, a fiat.

T: Advent Trio

Now we come to the letter 'T'. It is the...

Three Kings! Well, they may not be actually three but let us just go along with the known tradition of these famous 'kings' that came to visit the Christ child, following the star (which was shared in the previous entry) that led them to their destination. From them, came the well known gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Now, I am not going into the known stories or legends about these three kings or 'magi' or 'wise men' as they are sometimes refered to. Instead I would like to take you on a little journey onto a less beaten track where the Three Kings could very well signify any one of us!...

This comes in a form of a lesser known poem of T.S Eliot, namely, The Journey of the Magi. Eliot wrote this poem after his conversion to Christianity and confirmation in the Church of England in 1927 and later published in Ariel Poems in 1930. It is an account of the journey from the point of view of one of the magi which carries with it, the themes of alienation and a feeling of powerlessness in a world that has changed. The poem, instead of being a celebration of the wonders of the journey or of creation, becomes largely a complaint about a journey that was painful, tedious, and seemingly pointless. The speaker says that a voice was always whispering in their ears as they went on, that “this was all folly”. The magus seems generally unimpressed by the infant, and yet he realizes that the incarnation has changed everything. He asks:
“. . . were we led all that way for
Birth or Death?”

In this poem, we can feel that the birth of the Christ was the death of Eliot's own world of magic, astrology, and paganism. The poem, in a symbolic way, highlights the recollections of Eliot’s own life that had, at one time, engaged in the primitive and the speaker may very well be Eliot himself.

The speaker can also be one of us. When faced with this question of what do we want to do with our lives, the difficulty of letting go our previous life to engage in a life which the Lord calls us to, becomes apparent. Sometimes when we do make that leap towards that conversion, it does not thoroughly brings about the hope of a new life for us, but instead merely tells us about the hopelessness of the previous life. So, we can become resigned rather than joyous, absorbed in the negation of our former existence but not yet physically liberated from it. Hence that line of question in that poem about 'Birth or Death'. Like the magus who questioned (were they led there for Birth or for Death? Or, perhaps for neither? Or to make a choice between Birth and Death? And whose Birth or Death was it? Their own or Another's?), we are made baffled by the apparent contradictions of it all, and left simply wanting to 'die'. Like the magus, we have reached the end of one world, but despite our acceptance of the revelation as valid (concerning our faith, God and conversion) we cannot gaze into a world beyond our own.

But all is not lost! One of the O, Antiphons which unfolded during this Advent has anticipated all this: O Rising Sun, you are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice. O come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. A similar rendition of this can be found in the 4th stanza of the famous Advent hymn O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The Advent preparation towards Christmas and the wearing or use of the penitential colors of purple in the liturgy during this period offers us this opportunity to reclaim our rightful spiritual heritage that the Christ child at Bethlehem wants to give through his birth. Whatever unease that we may harbour, let it be dispersed by the very Light that shines ever on, in leading us into our true, beautiful and authentic self ready to say, Maranatha!

R and I: Advent Journey Continues...

Continuing on the Advent journey towards Christmas, today we have the letters, 'R' and 'I'. Here goes...

Rejoice! Why 'rejoice?', you may ask. What's the point of rejoicing when the gloom of the world's crisis have pervaded all sense of our economic and political fabric of our life which has already taken a toll on people's livelihood. This follows from the previous entry which spoke of 'Hope' and where does one places that hope. St Augustine in his Easter homily or message aptly puts across that we, Christians, are an Easter people and 'Alleluia' is our song. Unfortunately, most of us carry our lives around with long faces that drag on the ground. Nothing seems to satisfy or astonish us anymore. We have closed our minds and hearts to the everyday wonder that God wants to show us and even offer us, especially those that can sustain and encourage us to continue to live courageously and holding life's tension in a noble manner, knowing that God is doing the rest for us. We rejoice because God is fighting on our side to give us the dignity of his children that we all are. We rejoice because we continue to possess the freedom to chose to stay sober and never give up our strength to see through another day and grow stronger and wiser by it all. We rejoice simply because we are given the opportunity to fulfil the Beatitudes that bind us closely to our Lord who first taught and lived by their principles to the end.

Invitation is not usually associated with the powerful or a despot. For them, everything will come down to coercion, at best, or forceful oppression, at worse. But for the child in the manger who will grow up to be the Lord and Saviour of all mankind, his style will always be that of a gentle invite into his world where the blind see, the lame walk, the prisoners set free, the hungry fed and the naked clothed. He continues to invite us, even today, to follow through this commitment as his disciples and 'friends'. For many of us, invitation can sometimes be a word that denote a sense of 'whimpiness' or 'weakness'. We want to be more assertive, even to the expense of other people's rights. We push our way through like a bull in a china shop, upsetting and destroying everything in our path. Such is our fallen human nature. The Christ child in the crib that you see in the church or in your homes would give you pause as to how a God that is Almighty, Omnipotent would want to be born as a helpless baby in a manger whose only defence are his parents, and if you follow the Christmas tradition, an ox and an ass/a donkey. This scene certainly is an invitation to ponder the silent power in being meek and humble before the powers of the world that would not hesitate to put it out of existence. The ultimate invitation, however, is that to the Banquet of the Lord where Jesus Christ will be our host. Would you still want to take a raincheck on an invite like that or would you immediately send in your replies in the affirmative?...

C and H: An Advent Journey

I finished the last class for today and as of now till January 6th 2009 I am on a 2-week Christmas/New Year break. Fun, ya? :-D

Anyway, since we are on our way towards Christmas and there is a well-known practice of having a novena in preparation for the celebration of birth of our Lord, which began some two days ago, I thought I would use the remaining days to Christmas to bring some cheer and hope and not let the gloom and fear that is prevalent in this recent times to be the Grinch that steals the joy and power that is Christmas. I was also encouraged to do something like this because a friend had requested a homily on this blog for Christmas. I thought I would obliged, but not just with a Christmas homily (more on this later) but also some thoughts to the coming event which the Church celebrates in remembrance of God's greatest gift to humanity - Himself.

I am a little behind time with this, so, here's the first two instalment...

Christ is the reason for Christmas. Or so many message of homilies or sermons would say or preached. That is certainly true and would not be a strange phrase to hear for any Christian worth his/her salt. However, saying that is one thing but to really allow that phase sink into your whole being, to begin to grasp its implication for one's life and to savour the deep and profound meaning which can be easily missed is another thing altogether. Without getting all technical and too theological with it all, let us just say that with Christ in the very scheme of our salvation history, God broke into our fabric of time and space and became like one of us, in all things except sin. By doing so, our humanity has been deemed worthwhile and dignified to be divinized. All this done, not by our own merit but because God loves us so much. With and in Christ we are rightly and truly children of God! Have you ever thought, even for a second, what being a child of God is for you? Yet, we can sometimes continue to act and live out our lives as though we are no different than a can of Coke, sold to be consumed and later crushed and disposed of, like the rubbish it really is. Regain the dignity of being a child of God and don't be sell it away for 'thirty pieces of silver'!

Hope is one of the three theological virtues, faith and charity being the other two. In his opening paragraph of his Encyclical Letter, Spe Salvi (on Christian Hope), Pope Benedict XVI writes that "Redemption is offered to us in the sense that we have been given hope, trustworthy hope, by virtue of which we can face our present: the present, even if it is ardous, can be lived and accepted if it leads to a goal... great enough to justify the effort of the journey." The goal of course is eternal life. Depending on how you view the question of Christian hope, it can be life-changing, life sustaining - that is, being a message which shapes our life in a new and creative way - or it can be just "information" which can be set aside and be superceded by more recent information. The current economic crisis, that shows signs of a long ordeal ahead, have already affected many people around the world and has put a heavy burden in many a families. In this situation, it is easily to lose all hope or to feel as if all is lost. Much of our problems tend to come from our perception of having all our hope lie in wealth and power which has ultimately failed us and failed us horribly. Christian hope, on the other hand, is a Biblical hope in the Kingdom of God, not hope in the kingdom of man. This Christian hope is something infinite, something that will always be more than we can ever attain, because we are created for the infinite! While we may need greater and lesser hopes to keep us going day by day, these are not enough without the greater hope that surpasses all, namely God who can bestow upon us what we, by ourselves, cannot attain. What we hope in, will tell us whether we have 'place our bets' in the Kingdom of God or in the kingdom of man. Which will it be?...

Of Lent and Penances

I have just finished my Novena homily after letting the idea stew over for a few days. Actually, they wasn't much of an idea to begin with. All I know, I had to get something done up by Saturday afternoon, latest, if thee is anything of substance to be shared during Novena.

It has always been a problem for me to do up a Novena homily. This is because the topic is not based on any Sunday readings and you can talk share about just anything under the sun. Of course, it has to be relevant to faith matters and Our Lady.

This particular one centers on the question of how genuine are our Lenten observances/penances? We know very well that we have been called to look into the areas of fasting, almsgiving and prayer. None of these are alien or foreign to us, unless you are a non-believer or someone who couldn't care less about them. When we do practice these observances, how much of it is truly from the heart or are they done to promote our own image in selfishness and superiority?

Do we know what we are doing with all these during Lent? What do they point to? These may be pertinent questions we may need to answer if we are honest with our lives and how they affect people around us.