Christmas is a joyful season. The music, decorations, the variety of food and the many gatherings during this season give the festive and joyous atmosphere. Yet, the liturgy today, just a day after the birth of Jesus reminds us how faith and commitment to the Word-made-flesh will make us a contradiction to many.
Indeed, yesterday we celebrated the joyful birthday of a child and today we celebrate the cruel death of an innocent man. In some ways, the birth of Jesus led to the death of Stephen, one of the first deacons of the church and the first Martyr. Stephen was put to death because of his faith in Jesus, declaring him to be the glorious Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
St. Luke describes Stephen dying with two prayers on his lips. First, a prayer of surrender, “Lord, Jesus, receive my spirit.” Second, a prayer of petition for his executioners, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.”
When Jesus was dying on the cross, he had two similar prayers on his lips as well, a prayer of surrender, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” and a prayer of petition for his executioners, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing.” We can see that Jesus prays to the Father while Stephen prays to the risen Lord.
Mary’s child is now the risen Lord and can be prayed to as we would pray to God. In the church, we often pray to the Father through Jesus, but we are also invited to pray directly to Jesus. Stephen died as Jesus died because he was “filled with the Holy Spirit.”
We have been given the gift of the same Holy Spirit, and it is the Spirit who empowers us both to live like Jesus and to die like Jesus. On this feast of Saint Stephen, we pray for a fresh outpouring of that Spirit into our lives in this Season of Christmas that we may also be filled with grace and power like him. Hinaut pa.
There is something I want you to do now. This is a short breathing exercise for this morning. Ready?
Breathe deeply and inhale God’s Spirit. Hold.
And exhale your fear and negative emotions.
Inhale God’s assurance of love. Hold.
Exhale your doubts and anxietiesof tomorrow.
And inhale the gift of the present moment. Hold.
Now, exhale the pains of past.
Doing this would hopefully help us to think clearly and recognize what we have in life at the moment. Possibly, some of us now have many concerns and worries in our own homes that we also bring at work and in our studies or to our relationships.
Things can be complicated when we do not see the direction of each aspect of our life. Home, work, friendship, love-life and other extra-curricular activities when they come together, our hands will be full. And when there is one or two aspects in our life and become overwhelming for us, other aspects of life will also be affected. And from all the stress and burdens that we experience each day, there is indeed a need to take a break, that we will first breathe deeply and re-balance our life.
And our faith has something important to remind us today. We are able to recognize this in the life of Mary, who in the midst of confusion and worries, when the angel appeared, she was able to manage and gather her mind – and she was able to do that because she has faith, because she believed.
Yet, what does it really mean to believe? What is the meaning of faith in our everyday life? Or does it have a meaning at all in our daily life and daily affairs?
The Gospel brings us now into that story and life of Mary, in which she believed even in the midst of a seemingly unbelievable circumstances in her life.
Thus, the Angel Gabriel greeted her, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you!” Reflecting upon it, we find that the greeting is so deep. It is a statement from God that Mary is certainly favored and that God is delighted with Mary. Mary is, indeed, filled with GOD!
In her simplicity and being an ordinary woman, she accepted God’s invitation extra-ordinarily because ‘she believed’. In her simplicity, Mary felt the trouble of being honored as favored by God. I am sure that Mary with her human emotions felt confused and afraid when the angel appeared before her. The revelation of the angel was difficult to understand, thus, she pondered in her heart the meaning of those.
These troubles, confusion and fear led her to ask in all honesty, “how can this be?” It was neither a question of defiance nor of doubts but of concern on how she would go about it. The answer she got was God’s promise, that God is with her. This is how Mary inhaled God’s spirit.
This promise from God inspired Mary and motivated her to give her consent, her big YES to God. Mary was called by God to be the Mother of Jesus, and Mary responded with joy and confidence. Her response is out of gratitude to God for being good to her and out of love and kindness for that was her experience with God. And this is how she exhaled her fears and anxieties.
This tells us now that when we also respond out of joy and serve others out of gratitude, then, we will be able to give life to others, like Mary, because we too will be able to breathe God’s spirit and expel our fears and worries.
Indeed, Mary’s whole life is all about love, only love. There is no bitterness in the heart of Mary; no scars of fear or hate, only love. That is why, Mary would always choose to love which she always does. In her heart, there are no grudges, no malice. This love of Mary makes her affectionately close to us. Thus, we should neither fear nor hesitate to be close to her.
The mission of Mary now was to be part of our story of salvation. Mary has a big role here, and that is, to be the Mother of the Redeemer of the World, who will bring peace and mercy. With Mary’s open heart, pure conscience, deep faith and love in God, she accepted the call from God and prompted her to declare, “Behold, I am God’s servant. Let it be done to me according to your word!” She owned this statement and kept it in her heart despite her confusions and anxieties. And this is how Mary inhaled the gift of the present moment – because in doing that she has placed herself in God because she believed in the saving presence of God.
Everything became possible with God because Mary believed. Remember, God cannot and will not work wonders with us unless we give our consent and believe.
This is the invitation today for us, TO BELIEVE, because God reveals His presence in the events of our ordinary life.
TO BELIEVE, then, is to be constantly aware of God’s many revelations in every single moment of our life. And so, inhale God’s spirit.
TO BELIEVE is to trust in the Lord’s Words and promise despite our troubles and questions, worries and anxieties. And so, exhale your fears and anxieties.
TO BELIEVE in the Lord also means to be aware of the needs of others –that we may become more responsive to the needs of others like Mary who responded for the salvation of all. And so, let us inhale love not hatred.
TO BELIEVE is to listen to God’s invitation so that through our life, the Lord will be able to do wonderful things when we allow God also to change us. And so, exhale our arrogance.
TO BELIEVE also means being pregnant with God’s presence. Yes, God invites us today that our life, our words and actions, and our relationships with one another will become pregnant with His loving and compassionate presence. And so, inhale God’s presence. Hinaut pa.
Have you ever experienced being opposed by others because you are different? Because you think and do things different from what many would think and do? Have you also experienced being rejected because you do not adhere to the status quo, to what they used to follow and live?
Such opposition can be experienced within our organization, work or communities. And when we become a person who thinks, acts and believes to something different from the rest, we could become a threat to that “status quo.” We will be disliked and rejected by many.
In Matthew’s Gospel today, it tells us how the arrival of Jesus was received with opposition by people around him particularly of those in the leadership. Despite the call of the prophets from the ancient times from Isaiah, Elijah and up to the person of John the Baptist, God’s coming was received with great opposition.
Indeed, the prophets called the people to turn away from sin and selfishness, yet, because of this they also received violent condemnation from the powerful. This happened to John the Baptist who confronted King Herod for his immoral union with his brother’s wife. In consequence, John was silenced by beheading him. In the words of Jesus, he said, “they treated him as they pleased.”
In spite of this , the Lord continued to reveal himself, yet the people refused to recognize him because their hearts were filled with malice and evil. These people who continually rejected and opposed Jesus had become so comfortable with life but trapped by their own selfishness.
They held on to that comfort they enjoyed in their way of life that they neither want a change nor to be challenged. They were afraid to lose what they enjoyed. Herod and his mistress were also contented with their immoral life and did not want to be confronted. Thus, these people did not want God to change their life. What they seek was the preservation of that kind of life they were living. However, this was not what God wanted. Jesus wanted them that their hearts be free, that is why, he had to confront them.
In this Season of Advent, we are reminded to also examine ourselves if we have become too comfortable with what we have been doing, with what we have been thinking and with what we are living for.
The problem is not the comfort in itself, the issue is our attitude or way of life in choosing to be indifferent and unmoved with what is happening around us and with God’s self-revelations in our life. This also include our attitudes of not wanting to change, not wanting to be challenged, to be criticized and or to be corrected.
And so, we are invited today to confront ourselves with those attitudes that do not lead us closer to others and closer to God. As the Responsorial Psalm proclaimed today, “Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.”
As we prepare ourselves to celebrate the birth of Jesus, may our hearts be free. Hinaut pa.
Children are especially favored by God because of their vulnerability and dependence. The affection a child shows and the child’s capacity accept without judgment and pretension, makes a child more open and welcoming. In fact, Jesus would tell us that the Kingdom of God belongs to the children.
Yet, in this particular Gospel today, we have heard another attitude of a child, that can also be present among us adult. This dark side of becoming “childish” endangers our relationships as well as our dependence to God.
Indeed, being “childish” reveals our negative and selfish attitudes. For example, a child can throw up tantrums when displeased and does not get what he/she wanted. This attitude of a child is an unconscious form of control and manipulation.
Being childish can develop into deep seated selfishness in the heart of a person that it would propel us to get what we want no matter how unfair that would be to others. This focuses on personal satisfaction and personal promotion even at the expense of others. Such attitude prevents us to believe and accept other ideas and perspectives because we are so convinced of our own judgments and beliefs. Thus, being childish is also characterized by being indifferent.
This was the very attitude of those who rejected Jesus as well as John the Baptist. And they rejected Jesus because he was unconventional. He ate and drank with sinners. He touched and mingled with the sick and the unclean people. Jesus preached a loving and forgiving God the Father. He too was from Galilee, from an insignificant town called Nazareth. He was not a well-known Jewish scholar and did not come from a rich and influential family. And all of these Jesus became a threat to the status quo.
The very people who were in power like the Chief Priests of the Temple and the Pharisees were already contented with the comfort that they had. They enjoyed power and influence. They too preferred a strict and unforgiving God because it was through that belief that they could advance their self-interest. They used their position in the society to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor.
Thus, they were against Jesus because he was changing their ways. Their hearts were filled with bitterness, hate, anger and the desire to have more; in other words, they were filled with themselves, worshipping their very selves. This is idolatry.
These were the reasons why they could not accept Jesus or even recognize the presence of God in Jesus. They rejected John the Baptist by accusing him of being possessed by a demon for being different and radical. They rejected and despised Jesus, accusing him for being a glutton and drunkard because Jesus ate and drank with sinners and the poor.
And so when our heart is poisoned with selfishness makes us blind to what God shows us now, “blind” to what is happening around us today. We refuse to see the suffering of others because we tend to only see ourselves. This attitude would also make us deaf to what God is telling us now and deaf to the suffering of others.
The very antidote to this, is the call to be become childlike and to turn away from childishness. Indeed, the Lord invites us today that we may have the courage and the faith to become childlike who can see and hear God every day in our lives. Hinaut pa.
Why do we feel more at ease, comfortable and open to a friend in sharing and disclosing our most sensitive stories? What would be the reason that we find comfort after sharing our burdens and struggles to a friend? Yet, we feel more distressed when we keep things alone in our heart.
Such comfort that we experience from the presence of a friend whom we can truly trust, gives us the assurance that we are not alone in life. Even though, our friend may not understand fully what we are going through, but the mere presence of someone whom we know cares about us can appease our troubled hearts.
It is from this human experience of closeness and friendship that we too are invited today. Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew, said to the multitude of people, “Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.” This is an invitation from the Lord that we come to him so that we may be free from the burden of guilt, shame and sin, from our anxieties and worries.
Yet, this invitation of God is not to be understood in a magical way because there might be a tendency in us to demand God to take away immediately the burdens we carry. This happened to the people at the time of Prophet Isaiah. The people who were in exile grew weary and hopeless because of their long wait of the Messiah. However, the Lord does not offer us magic to make our struggles disappear at once.
In fact, the Lord God offers us the gentle, empowering and compassionate friendship. This is what Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart.” The yoke that symbolizes the burden we carry, is to be carried with Jesus. The Lord wants us to understand that we carry those burdens together and learn his kind of friendship. This is the friendship that the Lord invites us.
Moreover, Jesus also assures us, “for my yoke is easy and my burden light.” This means that when we are with our friend, burdens become lighter. Life, though might be difficult for us at the moment, but, when our friend sits beside us, we feel assured that we are not alone.
This is how we shall experience strength and courage as Isaiah reminds us, “they that hope in the LORD will renew their strength.”
Hence, as we continue to prepare our hearts this Christmas and allow the Lord to be our dearest friend, in return, let us also be a true friend to our friends. As the Lord comforts us with his friendship, let us also offer and give a comforting presence to our friends. Let not our grudge, jealousy and insecurity ruin our friendship. Avoid gossips and intrigues that will only ruin the reputation and image of our friend.
As we offer, build long and healthy friendship, may this relationship be a mirror of God’s compassionate, gentle and empowering friendship with us. Hinaut pa.
A DOSE OF GOD TODAY 