So much to do! So little time!

Advent begins this Sunday and for many people, the task of celebrating Christmas has already begun. Presents have already been bought, cards sent, preparations for menus made and travel plans initiated. Yet into this mix, there are Carol celebrations to attend, end of year parties, Nativity plays and jostling to find a car park near the shops.  It can be easy to see how Christmas as well as being one of joy can also become one of tension and stress. People can build up expectations within themselves and of others of what the celebration will be like. People at there most open and vulnerable especially if alcohol and bonhomie are added to the mix. This may be why the Gospel warns about losing focus and seeing this a time of drunkenness and debauchery. Now with more breath test units around at least people seek to find a plan B rather than chance a ride in a blue light taxi.

Yet in the midst of these preparations, we need to find how we also prepare our hearts for this season. It is so easy to have everything crammed with activities that we miss the reason that we are called to celebrate. This is not just about the fact that Jesus is born in Bethlehem but the fact that God takes a profound interest in our lives with so much love that he becomes at one with us. He shares our joys and sadnesses, our successes and our failures, our apathy and our excitement. Jesus becomes one with us so that we can become one with Him. He wants us to discover our true worth which cannot be valued in dollars and cents. He sees that we have eternal value. The call is to find the place where we can at least there is room for him to enter. If every hour is used up if we do not have an anticipation for him to find that empty space that longs for a life which is everlasting then when all the tinsel and glitter is gone we may wonder what has happened and start planning for the next year.

So what to do. I think the one thing that we can do which can make a profound difference to others is to have an active concern for each person we meet as though they were the Christ child. This can be looking for opportunities to help people carry the load, prepare the way and open our hearts. To pray for the person who takes the car spot we were hoping for, to pray for the mother who is struggling with young children, to visit a person we know who will not have family around for Christmas, to pray for those who are homeless and without the shelter of family and friends. The Advent Calendar might be considered in reverse rather than filling it with things we don't need mark off an act of kindness that brings us closer to Christ and each other. Allow yourself to be surprised by generosity and encouraged to give thanks. Discover the way also that you are gifted by the kindness of strangers who make way for you and be willing to receive them with gratitude and peace.

What type of leader do we follow?

Living in a democracy we become used to considering who should lead us at times of elections. More recently certainly in Australia the question of leadership has become increasingly fluid. Who will give the party the best chance of winning the next election rather than considering who will helping us to value what is important to us. This is not limited to just political parties but we see it almost in every walk of life where more is expected of a person in leadership to listen to the people and respond to the signs of the times. Yet too often the person in leadership can start to resemble our own self interest rather than what can help us to become our best self. This is probably the greatest challenge of our age as we seek to consider not just simply whether a person  can do what we want but rather whether a person  will help us to discover how to become our best self.

In following Christ, especially as we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King it is easy to fall into the temptation of asking for things that we want to happen. We need to feel secure, respected and valued. We look to have enough money to see us get by, to be treated with as someone important and to be acknowledged for the gifts we possess. This is all good but when it becomes the sole focus of our life we can become driven by wanting more possessions, wanting greater honors and pointing to our achievements. The siren call is that we can start to feel bereft of an identity if we do not have the latest fashion, having our name written in lights and people speaking well of us. Our lives can become driven by things over which we have no control and in fact they can start to control our lives. We start to surrender ourselves to things that are illusory and which can be taken from us by forces beyond our control. 

Christ seeks to encounter us in our own inner poverty, in that place where people's opinions about us can cause us to feel isolated and alone and where there is a sense of being less than other people we compare ourselves with. We want to escape this uncomfortable feeling of not feeling worthy. Yet it is in this place where we can truly meet Christ as ourselves. Without pretense we can entertain him as the person we truly are where we can have a certain raw honesty about who we are and what we truly value. When we meet Christ in this place we discover that he meets us with a love which is not earned and which cannot be traded away on trivialities. It is a life giving gift of Himself which can transform us anew by recognizing that we have an inherent dignity. This allows us to  discover that we are an elect whom God chooses for our own good and the good of our world. An election which cannot be taken away by the vagaries of power, position or pride. This calls us to be the person who God created us to be so that we can love, honor and walk with Him.

Remaining supple

There is a difference between suppleness and flexibility. The call is always that we are available to God as we are. This not only means that we need to be aware of ourselves but also the environment in which we live. This self-knowledge allows us the opportunity to discover God within our inner self. The awareness of what brings life and hope which allows us to flourish as a  human person. God seeks us to become more rather than less. This creative essence helps us to appreciate the intimacy and the desire of God which permits us to grow in our humanity. 

Equally important is the circumstances in which we give ourselves the best opportunity to thrive as  Christians. This calls us to reflect each day on where we discover the same life reflected in our interactions with other people and where we meet them. These encounters should allow us the opportunity to be more ourselves rather than less. In our daily life, we are called to respond rather than react to the lives of others. This provides us with the means to see how our lives belong to Christ and how this influences the way we live. This is where we need to be supple in our response to others. We need to see what allows them to grow most easily in their relationship with God. 

Often the tension we meet is that mistake this suppleness for flexibility. Suppleness allows us to be responsive and attentive to the other person. To discover what helps them to encounter God more easily as the person they are. Flexibility, on the other hand, means that we can at times change to meet the expectation of another without consideration of whether it is good for us and good for the other. It can cause us to deny that our lives have their origin in God and our lives need to be responsive to his love. In determining how to make the right choice we need to consider will this bring life to me and to the other. Where discordant notes are sounded we need to notice what it is that sits uneasily with us. Similarly, when we take the path of least resistance we need to notice the end that this can lead us to. In all things and all situations, we need to grow in this suppleness and openness to God's presence. To discover what most allows for the greatest good and what most easily leads to the flourishing of the love that God calls us to bear witness to. We need to trust the other person to God that the spirit working in them will produce the spiritual fruits which are necessary for their life and the life of the community.

What do we offer?

Often we ask is this value for money? Are we receiving what we paid for? This attitude seems to be inbred within us as a natural reaction to how we spend our money and our time. We want to know that we receive something of value which respects our own worth and identity. 

In the scripture we notice how people dispense their offerings to those in need to draw attention to themselves rather than seeking the good of the other by offering their whole self. What we discover is that we need to be focused on the person in front of us with the resources at our disposals. This is not just about how we share our material resources but how we are attentive to the person as they are. We can often appear distant and distracted rather than attentive and loving. This is where we treat the gift that we are giving as though it was a person and the person we are giving our time to them as a thing. We might not say it in our words but our bodily attention is not present to them. We are there and not there at the same time. I know when this happens to me that as if I go missing in action and I am observing the other person from a place which treats them in an I and them experience rather than an I and thou engagement. I seem to space out and remove myself from the equation.

What Jesus invites us to attend to is to notice when this starts to happen and when we start to distance ourselves from others. Once again this is the difference between being close to someone and being proximally in their presence. We are called to be both but it is how we move from the inside out by seeing our prayer lived in our actions. This unity is what God wishes for us to be lovingly present in both what we pray for and how we relate to others. We see all our life as prayer, not just the times when we choose to be present. We offer everything.

All in!

The Lord our God is one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this, you must love your neighbour as yourself.

Holiness calls us to be equally present whether we are in a chapel or in the shopping centre, a retreat centre or in a classroom, in a seminary or in a parish. God seeks to be present in every aspect of our human lives. Therefore, our prayers are called to immerse us into the heart of God and into the heart of the human condition. We can encounter God equally spending time when we are praying and in having a conversation with a friend; we can be able to spend time interceding for those in need and being present to the needs of those in our workplace. God is at the heart of all creation and seeks to draw everyone into a relationship with God’s desire in the course of our daily lives.

Each person is called to become friends with God and those we meet each day. This friendship shows how important it is to be in a constant relationship which allows our prayer to become incarnate.  Our prayer is not just a one on one time with God but at its essence calls us into a profound communion with the desire for each human person. God seeks us out so that we may seek out God. This is a profound giving of our whole self to discover what we are called to become.

This means that our prayer transforms our own square metre in which we are called to live. We are called to discover how God is present to us unfolding in our presence. This is not just following our hearts but allowing them to grow in understanding and to giving our best in whatever area we find ourselves each day. God allows us to discover how we may be open to the Holy Spirit in the midst of what seems ordinary and every day. This everyday mysticism seeks to draw a unity between our prayer and our lives. We are not called to pray in isolation but we are called to be people who pray at all times with the way we relate to God and the way we relate to each other. 

To love him with all your heart,

To love him with all your understanding

To love him with all your strength

To love our neighbour as yourself