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New Year's Eve invites us to prayerful reflection and self-examination as we look back on the year passed and look to the coming one. The liturgy aids this process by presenting to us St John of the Cross’s Prologue for prayerful consideration.

Today's Gospel helps us to understand that the search for meaning begins and ends with the coming of Jesus, because today's Gospel helps us to understand that the search for meaning begins and ends with the coming of Jesus, because he is the Logos: the reason and meaning of all that is. If the question is, “What is the meaning of life on earth?”, the answer is, “Jesus of Nazareth”.  Our lives find their meaning, direction and purpose in him because by and for him we were created.

What the Scriptures and revelation make clear is that a time will come when at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, in heaven and on earth, and every tongue will confess that he is Lord. Our reflection, then, as we look back on the old year and forward to the new, should be evaluated not on achievements or goals, but on growing and maturing in our ability to give praise, glory and honour to the Father for sending us his Son.

Our lives find their ultimate meaning and purpose in giving glory to God for Jesus, so our main attitude should be gratitude. We must search for the mercies of God. The more we look for him the more we will find.  As the saying goes, "Better to lose count while naming your blessings than to lose your blessings to counting your troubles”.

The great poet and mystic William Blake said, "Gratitude is heaven itself”. Today let gratitude for the past inspire us all with trust for the future. We don't know what the New Year will bring, but we do know that God is with us, in our failures, successes and every moment of our lives.

This year may we thirst to know the Father more deeply, love the Son more intimately and walk in the Spirit more eagerly.

The children of Israel did not find in the manna all the sweetness and strength they might have found in it – not because the manna did not contain them, but because they longed for other food.' (St John of the Cross)

1 John 2:18–21 • Psalm 95(96):1–2, 11–13 • John 1:1–18

Jesus was amazed at the centurion's faith. Nowhere in Israel had he found such faith as in this Gentile, a representative of a hated foreign oppressor. What was it in the centurion's behaviour that so impressed the Lord? The disposition with which he approached Jesus can be summed up in two words: faith and humility. He had complete confidence in Jesus's ability to heal his servant, and he was so humble that he did not consider himself worthy to have Jesus come into his house.

What did the centurion see in Jesus that gave him such faith, when many of the Jewish leaders were not open to Jesus's message? He was a man in authority and recognised Jesus’s absolute authority over sickness and evil. But this was not just his own shrewdness; only the work of God's grace in his heart could have brought him to such a position of faith.

It's with these same two attitudes that we should approach Jesus during this season of Advent. We need to be humble enough to see our weaknesses and neediness, and we should have complete faith in the power of Jesus to heal us and cleanse us from our sins. So perfectly do the centurion's words sum up the way we should approach Jesus that they have been incorporated into the liturgy. We say them just before our most important encounter with Christ, our reception of his body and blood. Advent is a time when we prepare for the coming of Christ into our lives in a special way, and we can take these words to heart as we begin this season.

The same is true for us: only God can bring us to see who Jesus really is and our need for him, and we must be open to his work within us. If we approach Jesus with faith and humility this Advent, inviting him into our lives, we shall find that he will work powerfully within us and give us far more than we imagined. Let us be expectant that he will do great things for us in the coming weeks.

Lord Jesus, we are not worthy to receive you, but we know that if you say the word we shall be healed.

lsaiah 2:1-5 • Psalm 121(122):1-9 • Matthew 8:5-11

Wisdom 7:22–8:1 • Psalm 119:89–91, 130, 135, 175 • Luke 17:20–25

Paul taught us that the kingdom isn’t about rules or regulations but about our interior life of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (see Romans 14:17).  And St Anthony of Egypt said, “There is no point in our travelling to find the kingdom of heaven . . . As the Lord has already told us, God’s kingdom is within you.”

Jesus turned the idea of God’s kingdom on its head.  the Jews were expecting a political Messiah who would overthrow their Roman oppressors and re-establish the Davidic line and dynasty.  They rejected Jesus as a result of their expectations.  God’s kingdom was breaking into their world but they were too preoccupied with their own concept of the kingdom to recognise it.

God’s kingdom, manifested in Jesus, is first and foremost a spiritual reality rather than something earthly (vv. 20–21; John 18:36).  The kingdom is not even a place or a way of life but a person:  Jesus is the kingdom and the kingdom is Jesus.

Reflecting on the Our Father, Cyprian of Carthage wrote, “ ‘ Thy kingdom come’ . . . Christ himself is the kingdom of God, whom we day by day desire to come, whose advent we crave to be quickly manifested to us.  For since he is the resurrection, because in him we rise again, so also the kingdom of God may be understood to be himself, because in him we shall reign.

The closer we are to Jesus, the closer we are to God’s kingdom.  Also, the closer we are to Jesus, the more we will pray for his return, because we long to see the ones we love.  We manifest God’s kingdom to the world by showing that we know Jesus, through our witness of peace, love, joy and righteousness in the power and the grace of the Holy Spirit.

“Let the proud seek and love earthly kingdoms, but blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (St Augustine)

Matthew 6:7–15 St Polycarp (Commemoration)

Jesus’s teaching on prayer is warm, clear and direct.  In teaching us about prayer he reveals his Father. Jesus wants us to relate to God as our Father – to cry out, Abba, Father'.  The greatest privilege and joy we have as Christians is that we can address God in this intimate and loving way:  The new man, reborn and restored to his God by grace, says first of all, "Father!" because he has now begun to be a son (St John Chrysostom).  The Father we worship transcends all time and space; he is the source and end of all things.  We bow down before him. 

When we pray, Jesus urges us to go to the Father with our needs, requests and petitions.  Let us look afresh at the prayer he gave us.  The first request is that the name of the Father be acknowledged and revered as holy in our daily lives in our words, our actions and our thoughts.  As we understand the holiness of God, we shall radiate life to all those around us.

Jesus wants us to be bold and confident in praying for the coming of God's kingdom – since we live now in the age of theChurch we can eagerly pray for the return of the Lord.

Jesus calls us to pray that God's will should prevail over the earth as it prevails in heaven: God wills only that which is good, loving and perfect.

Jesus says we need to ask each day for our daily bread: for the daily sustenance we receive from the Father as our spirits are fed and nurtured within us by reading his Word and celebrating the Eucharist.

Jesus reveals that unless our hearts forgive, then we in our turn will not know the joy of forgiveness: forgiveness and prayer go together:

Finally, Jesus shows that each day we face a threat from the evil one, who seeks to lead us into  confusion and away from the Lord.  Each day we need to pray: “Lord, deliver me from all evil.

We can be encouraged by St Teresa of the Child Jesus's experience of prayer: “For me, prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned towards heaven, it is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.”

Father just as St Polycarp laid down his life, may I too lay down my life in love and service of you and your kingdom.

Chris

from Bible Alive

Isaiah 55:10–11 • Psalm 33(34):4–7, 16–19 • Matthew 6:7–15

Mark 1:12-15 First Sunday of Lent (B)

The Spirit led Jesus into the desert for forty days to be tempted and tested. During Lent we too are led by the Spirit into the mystery of Jesus's time in the desert. By the solemn forty days of Lent the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus in the desert (Catechism of the Catholic Church 540). We too, during this holy season, can expect to be tempted and tested.

Mark informs us simply and straightforwardly that in the desert Jesus was "tempted by Satan" (v. 13). The name Satan means "adversary". In the book of Job we are given a vivid picture of Satan in God's heavenly court, along with all the other angels, where he has the role of accuser or prosecutor (see 1:6ff.). The Scriptures identify Satan as the serpent in the Garden of Eden who tempted Adam and Eve (Gen. 3) and, therefore, as the origin of sin and temptation. What the Scriptures and tradition make clear is that humankind has a mortal enemy who, although a finite being created by God, is in a desperate struggle to overthrow God's reign, usurp his Lordship and lead his creation into darkness and death. On Easter Sunday each of us will recite our baptismal promises and in doing so renew them. Bear this in mind as we move through Lent because, as you will be aware, a renewal of our baptismal promises involves us actively, freely and voluntarily rejecting Satan.

Lent is also a time for us to discover anew and afresh the gospel, the 'Good News’, which Jesus began to proclaim immediately after his time of testing. What is the Good News? The Good News is a message of two parts: the first part is to repent and the second part to believe the gospel. We walk together on this road marked out for us by the Church and take up our call to stand firm and resist the devil knowing that he will flee, and embrace freely and with love the gospel, which is Christ with us and in us, the hope of salvation. 

“In these days, therefore, let us add something beyond the wonted measure of our service, such as private prayers and abstinence in food and drink. Let each one, over and above the measure prescribed for him, offer God something of his  own free will in the joy of the Holy Spirit." (St Benedict)

Chris

from Bible Alive

Genesis 9:8–15 • Psalm 24(25):4–9 • 1 Peter 3:18–22 • Mark 1:12–15

Luke 21:34–36

Jesus understood the human: condition with all its weaknesses, inclinations and peccadillos. He counsels us to be careful or our hearts will be weighed down with three things: dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and ‘that day’ will close unexpectedly on us like a trap. The day the Lord was referring to is the day of his coming, the day of judgement but also the day of our death. We know for sure that these things will come upon every person who lives on the face of the earth (v. 35).

Since the beginning the Christian faith has encouraged the idea of keeping watch, being vigilant and in constant prayer in anticipation of the coming of the Lord. In this we are united to our brothers and sisters in the Jewish faith, who pray and long for the first coming of the Messiah in glory and honour. We pray for Jesus’s second coming, for we believe he is the promised Messiah, and returns in glory and honour after securing our eternal salvation.

However, truth be told, if we can resist being dissipated and drunk, most of us succumb to being overwhelmed by the anxieties and cares of life. When this happens, we  are easiiy  confused, lose clarity and are consumed with the things of this world. The real challenge for all of us is keeping our goal, destiny and purpose to the forefront of our minds and hearts.

What is our goal, destiny and purpose? To be with God, to share in the joy of heaven, to know the resurrection life – these are the end realities for which we long and pray and which one day will be a reality. For sure we need to strive, for sure we need to apply ourselves and work, but more, much more than this, we need to turn humbly to the Spirit who helps us in our weakness.

Tomorrow the season of Advent and Christmastide begins and we enter a time of waiting, longing and hoping as the liturgy makes present to us the events, the drama and the grace of Jesus’s first coming, while looking forward to his second, his return in glory but also to his coming into our lives in a new, exciting and dynamic way.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. With eyes of faith we see his glory, the glory of the One and Only who came from the Father full of grace and truth.

Chris 

From Bible Alive

 Apocalypse 22:1—7 •  Psalm 94(95):1–7 • Luke 21:34–36

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