25-Nov-2012
Dear Friend, Today we begin a new season in the life of the Church, the season of Advent. It's a new beginning, and beginnings are important for us. It's an opportunity to start again, to forget the past and the mess which we have made in our lives and the possibility to begin anew. Our God is a God of the now, the present moment! This new beginning is important especially in our faith life. We have begun the year of faith and God gives us another opportunity to walk with Him along the way! We don't have to be afraid, He will be with us every step of the way! Be not afraid! Have an exciting weekend, walking His way! Fr. Jude Sunday Reflections: First Sunday of Advent: "Be not afraid, your liberation is near!" 2-Dec-2012 Readings: Jeremiah 33: 14-16Thessalonians 3: 12-4: 2Luke 21: 25-28, 34-36 The first reading from the prophet Jeremiah starts with the reiteration of the proclamation of the promise of the Lord. "The days are surely coming," says the Lord, "when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah." Faith means accepting what God speaks and offers, rather than what human beings like and choose. Hope means trusting and accepting what God promises in Jesus Christ, even if it is not what human beings might prefer to have. Hence conversion is integral to responding to the word of God. What I discovered It occurred some years ago. A Hollywood actor suddenly became ill. When his personal physician checked him, the doctor informed the actor bluntly: "Your situation is desperate. We've got to operate within 35 hours if we're to have any chance to save you." Later the actor said in effect, "I learned more about myself in those 36 hours than I had in the previous 36 years of my life." And what I discovered gave me a joy that I'd never experienced before in my life. I discovered that I wasn't afraid of death. I had made it a habit to pray to Jesus every day of my life. And now when he was minutes away from coming, I experienced the fruit of my praying. "It was then that I discovered that Jesus and I were not strangers. We were close friends - thanks to those daily conversations." Anonymous In the Gospel Luke has Jesus using the same apocalyptic language when he speaks of his return in glory. "There will be signs in the heavens and on earth distress and confusion." Those who do not believe will be frightened by these signs and portents. For those who have no faith the signs can only spell doom and destruction, they are seen as the punishment of God. But those who are believers have nothing to fear for these signs, trials and troubles point to the coming of the Lord. He is near. True Christian prayer is the typical Advent invocation, 'Thy Kingdom Come', which is rightly translated 'Come Lord Jesus Come!' Though the coming of the Lord is as certain as the dawn, yet if we are not ready, if we are not vigilant, we will miss the Lord. "Be on your guard, so that your hearts are not preoccupied with other things. Be alert at all times and pray." The Gospel of Luke, which is characterized by a strong interest in prayer, urges us to pray in the context of the end of history. Advent speaks to us of an order of being and existence that is beyond a natural outlook of life. While the faithless say: "Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die", while sceptics affirm: "this is all there is to life". Advent reminds us that this world is not all there is and so we pray for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will help us to look beyond, to the Kingdom, while we wait with joyful hope for its realization here on earth and in the next. Advent reminds us to take stock of our priorities in life. We have to be on the alert always, we have to be prepared. Prepared not only for the disaster or dangers that may strike, but we need to be prepared for the opportunities that come our way but once. The greatest opportunity, the greatest blessing is the Lord's coming into our life. But if we are not watchful we may miss the chance of a lifetime. Missing the signal In its day, the Titanic was the world's largest ship, weighing 46, 328 tons and it was considered unsinkable. Yet late during the night of April 14-15 1912, the unthinkable happened to the unsinkable. Near midnight, the great Titanic struck an iceberg, ripping a three hundred foot hole through five of its sixteen watertight compartments. It sank in two and a half hours killing 1,513 people. Before the Titanic sank, warning after warning had been sent to tell the crew that they were speeding into an ice field, but the messages were ignored. In fact, when a nearby ship sent an urgent warning, the Titanic was talking to Cape Race about the time the chauffeurs were to meet arriving passengers at the dock in New York, and what dinner menus were to be ready. Preoccupied with the trivia, the Titanic responded to the warning, "Shut up. I am talking to Cape Race. You are jamming my signals!" Why did so many die that night? Perhaps the crew disregarded the danger of the weather; there were not enough lifeboats on board; and the radio operator of the nearby California was off duty; perhaps those responsible did not heed the warnings, they were preoccupied with other things! - Sometimes we believe that our 'ship' is unsinkable, our life is all well planned, the unthinkable can never happen to us. We need to read the signs of the times, we need to pay attention to the warning signals. But if we are preoccupied with the trivial things of life we will miss the most important till it is too late. The Watchman There is an old Hasidic tale about Rabbi Naftali. It was the custom of the rich men of his city, whose homes were on the outskirts and sort of isolated, to hire men to watch over their property at night. Late one evening, as was his custom, Rabbi Naftali went out for a walk and met one such watchman walking back and forth. The Rabbi asked, "For whom do you work?" The guard told the rabbi who had hired him and then the guard inquired, "And for whom do you work Rabbi?" The watchman's words struck at the heart of the rabbi, who replied, "I am not sure whether I work for anyone or not." The rabbi walked along with the watchman for some time in silence. Then he asked, "Will you come and work for me?" "Oh Rabbi, I should be honoured to be your servant," said the watchman, "but what would be my duties?" Rabbi Naftali answered quietly, "To keep reminding me with that question." Like that rabbi, we need help if we are to remember for whom we work and for what we live our lives. Advent helps us to ask that question of ourselves. 'Watch and pray' are the watchwords, they remind us that God is in charge. Anonymous The Light meant Redemption King Alexander of Macedonia, who in his day conquered land after land, used to observe a certain procedure. Whenever his army was encamped outside a heavily walled city or fortress, he would have a lighted lamp hung up where it was visible by day and night. He would then have the besieged inhabitants know that as long as the lantern kept burning, they had a chance to change their minds. But if the lantern was smashed and its light extinguished, then the city and all it contained would be mercilessly destroyed. And he kept his promise. If the lantern was smashed to pieces, all hope was gone. The Macedonians would storm the city, kill any person who could be harmed, and then ransack and destroy the city. The time of grace was over. - The lamp is still burning for us, this is a time for grace- but it will end! Willi Hoffsuemmer The MP Misses Cue! An enterprising Member of Parliament in the 1982 election campaign hired a helicopter for outback West Sepik political fence mending. He had done his homework well, studied the time of services at various mission stations in the bush, and programmed his flights to have the copter land near the church areas just after Mass. At Kafle, as he had launched into his standard party line, an elderly lady hobbled up from a nearby village, and deposited a net bag at his feet. He bent down to it, saw only stones inside, snorted in disgust, and went on with his speech. The village elders had designated the grandma to perform this act as a symbolic gesture of the villagers' problems, which they wanted the MP to address himself to - Politics had brought them only stones. But he missed the point -and all the votes. The name of the MP was Lambakey Okuk. Frank Michalic in 'Tonic for the Heart' Advent A blind man and I were standing in the middle of a throng of travellers at Port Moresby airport. "You just stand here." I told him. I wanted to spare him the disturbance of being jostled about, so I left him in a protected corner. I then went my way to buy a ticket, post a letter, and check on the plane arrivals and departures. At one stage I turned around and looked back at him. He just stood there. People milled around him. A child stared at him. A porter drove his baggage cart around him. A newspaper boy could not understand why he did not even look at the paper. The blind man just stood there. The shuffling feet around him, the unknown voices and all the various noises of humans going and coming had no meaning for him. He just stood and waited for me to come back. He patiently waited, completely content that I would come back. There was no shadow of doubt on his face. Instead, there was an air of expectation about him: I would return and take him by the hand and we would go on. That look of the blind man with closed eyelids standing there put in mind the Advent face of a Christian. Willi Hoffsuemmer On Guard In the Royal Air Force Museum in Hendon, England there is an exhibition of the memorabilia of Lord Dowding. He was appointed Commander in Chief of the RAF in 1936 to take on the challenge of expanding the RAF's fighting force to meet the Nazi threat. Dowding has less than four years to prepare the RAF for the epic Battle of Britain, while at the same time helping France as much as possible. Lord Dowding's accomplishments in getting the RAF ready are summed up on a plaque: "It has been given to few men so to employ so short a time that by their efforts they saved civilization." Lord Dowding's vigilance and preparation while waiting for the Nazi attempt to invade Great Britain played a key role in England's victory in the early 1940's. Vigilance and preparation while waiting are part of the theme of today's Advent gospel. When Lord Dowding was preparing the RAF for the war, he didn't know how much time he had. We too don't know how much time we have left to live - four years or forty years; four months or four hours. That doesn't matter. May we be on guard watching whenever the Lord comes. Albert Cylwicki in 'His Word Resounds' A modern lesson in preparing for Jesus' coming is the story of a junior executive who approached his grouchy boss to tell him how deeply he admired his creative genius. The boss was very surprised, and also deeply impressed. That night the boss came home to his 14-year-old son and sat him down. He said, "The most incredible thing happened to me today," and told him the story. Then he continued, "As I was coming home tonight, I thought about you. When I come home I don't pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school and for your bedroom being a mess. But somehow tonight I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that, besides your mother, you're the most important person in my life. You're a great kid and I love you!" The startled boy started to sob and sob, and he couldn't stop crying. His whole body shook. At last, he looked up at his father and said through his tears. "I was planning on running away tomorrow, Dad, because I didn't think you loved me. Now I don't need to." Harold Buetow in 'God Still Speaks! Listen! Let's wait with eagerness and expectation for God will come! Fr. Jude Botelho judebote...@yahoo.co.in PS. The stories, incidents and anecdotes used in the reflections have been collected over the years from books as well as from sources over the net and from e-mails received. Every effort is made to acknowledge authors whenever possible. If you send in stories or illustrations I would be grateful if you could quote the source as well so that they can be acknowledged if used in these reflections. These reflections are also available on my web site www.netforlife.net Thank you.
