Sleepwalking into Christmas

 So many things need to be done as we prepare for Christmas. There are cards to write, decisions about buying gifts, menus to plan and people to visit. There can be a sense that we are caught up with so much frenetic activity that we have no time to sit back and contemplate who we are called to become. Suddenly, the day approaches and we try to wrestle our way into vacant parking spaces, reply to unexpected greetings in cards and wonder whether we will find time to rest.

Yet amid all this activity we need to take time aside to become present to the person at the heart of all this. By setting time aside for prayer and reflection we can find greater clarity to our activity. Rather than being faced with a tsunami of activity, we can discover those hidden graces that shape our day. We need to find space where we can be ourselves. God wants us not to sleepwalk our way into Christmas but with open hearts.

As we are guided along the way. I pray that you may find time to experience the places where the peace of Christ disturbs you.

Who do I listen to?

 We are besieged by information, opinions, and ideas that seek to grab our attention. This constant wave of ways of living, solutions to our problems and analysis of almost every human situation can create a crisis of trust. This crisis is reflected when people start to question and doubt even the most basic of human instincts and inclinations. The foundation of society is built around the belief that we share common values and aspirations. It is on these foundations that we choose people to govern us who share those ideals. Yet so often we can be disappointed because there is an appearance that they shape the world in their image and likeness.

The Feast of Christ the King helps us engage our imagination with God's vision. In proclaiming this feast, he does not seek to be a person who amasses wealth, power, and popular approval.  Rather he seeks for us to discover and share the vision that every life has fundamental worth. That each person is loved by God and that we can discover who we are called to become as people created in God's image and likeness.

As we approach the end of the Church's liturgical year this can give us pause to reflect on how we are called to listen to the voice of Christ in our daily lives. To make room for prayer so that our hearts may enlarge to embrace the vision and the people we encounter. May we be blessed to become a people who can listen to the voice of Christ.

The End is Nigh!

We live in interesting times and it is natural to be shaken by the unfolding calamities that seem to appear daily on our television screens and news feeds. They can naturally cause us to fear the future and wonder what will unfold. There seems to be a rush into highlighting differences between nations, stoking the fires of conflict and retreating into our own castles. Almost daily we are called to navigate the opinions of others who seek to offer solutions or point to fresh problems. In an age where everything is questioned, we wonder whose voice we will listen to and trust.

As we draw towards the end of the year we can believe that it is only those who seek to seize control of the situation, remedy the ills of society with instant solutions and who seek to smell the breath of popular opinion who will guide us through uncertain times. Yet we are called to surrender ourselves to divine providence that is called to engender a sense of trusting obedience to the voice of God. This discernment of direction means that we need to know the limits of power and wealth to transform the situation of the heart. There is a need to be people who are open to the movement of the Holy Spirit and seek to remain in the presence of God.

This is not undertaken by a fatalistic vision that abandons hope but rather builds hope through the accompaniment of each other. This seeks to be people of faith who seek Christ who offers his life to us so that we may not become lost in our own fears. As we review the year may we learn how God is present in our times and calls us to trust that we are not abandoned.

What do we value and what is our net worth?

  The Gospel readings for this weekend seek to examine how we become good stewards of the possessions that we are entrusted with for the good of the whole creation. How we use these possessions seeks to determine whether we own them or whether they own us. How we use our own possessions for the good of another determines how our characters are shaped and what values we seek to uphold. The Gospel provides the contrast between a narrow focus on our own needs in isolation to the greater needs of another. Often, we can become focused on building and preserving our wealth, achieving a particular position, or having status within society. The danger is that when we focus on these external signs of success, we can become slaves to that which is under our control, what makes us look good or causes us to see our value determined by the opinion of others. We become shaped by our wealth, status, or power. Yet all of these can be taken from us suddenly due to sickness, poverty, or loss of employment. 

This is where our prayers need to be a place where we discover what truly brings life. This is not just that we become people who say prayers, but we discover how our prayer shapes our responses. This is where we are called to notice how our response to the generosity of another may be shaped by the quantity, they give more than the quality of their giving. Jesus brings this into his reflection on the widow's mite compared to the giving of others who give vast amounts to the treasury. The emphasis is on the wholehearted response of the widow who trusts God is more generous in sharing than those who give just what is left over. This reflects the abundance of the goodness of God who does not measure a person's worth by how much they own but through the goodness of their life.

This is also noticed in the life-and-death discussion of Elijah and the woman. On the surface, this just is about the practical needs of sharing a cup of water and a piece of bread. This dialogue draws both into a more profound trust that God will meet us at the time of our greatest need when we have little to share. This abandonment to God's providence allows the person to see that their value is not determined by what they own but by the person they are called to become. Sometimes we can be people who hoard God's gifts or squander them on what satisfies us rather than trusting that we might be in the right place, for the right time, and for the right purpose.

 God seeks to reframe our way of living so that we spend our time, treasure, and talent on what brings life to others and not just ourselves. This is a challenge for all of us to examine how we spend our time and money. Our diaries and our bank accounts become Theological statements that show what we truly value. This is where we allow God to meet us in the practical events of daily life. Not ignoring our responsibilities but not ignoring the needs of the other. It is often those who have the least who appear the most generous. How do we trust God to provide what is needed for the good of another and not just to make us feel good? This frees us to make steps in faith to allow God to be at the centre of our giving and receiving. To seek who I am called to be for this day and this time.

 

Rearranging our priorities

 When we hear Jesus's commandment to love God and our neighbour, we can subtly mishear them. He does not draw on any new text but refers back to the book of Deuteronomy. What we tend to hear is that we need to love God with all our strength, all our mind, all our soul and all our heart and to love ourselves as our neighbour. This way of listening to God puts all the emphasis on our own efforts and abilities. Yet we discover in our prayer that God gently reorders our priorities. This lets us notice that our initial entry into prayer observes what we can see and how we feel about these observations. It helps us become aware of what we are thinking and how it directly affects our lives. Yet as spend time in prayer it is almost as if our thoughts are shed and we are drawn to a deeper appreciation of what nourishes us. This quietening of our minds and hearts helps us to enter a place where we can encounter God in a silent place. This way of being present can appear timeless. It is from this timeless place that we can be renewed and discover what truly nourishes us. This allows us to clarify our thinking and our actions.

Thus we start to see how the commandments are actually written and called to be lived. We are called to love God with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind and all our strength and love our neighbour as ourselves. This gentle reordering shapes our priorities to a rule of life that is simple and liveable. This is not about working harder or longer but allowing us to cooperate with God's way of being present in our lives. 

This is important to how we structure our days. We are called to encounter God wholly as ourselves. Our holiness is not something that is added on but emerges from the inside out. This way of being present then helps us to look at the context in which we are called to live and how our lives make a difference to others through our actions. This allows our prayer to become truly incarnate by being aware of the environment in which we live and acting in a way that embodies what our hearts desire in union with God and each other.