Faith

Ask Jesus – Saturday, 2nd Week of Advent/Sirach48:1-4,9-11b/Matthew 17:10-13

“And the disciples asked him…..”

Taking things to the Lord is a great way to clarify your faith doubts. Today, when in doubt, we simply ‘google it.’ While our smart phones may give us smart answers, they may not give us the answer we need for our soul. Google answers the matters of the mind, the Lord answers the matters of the heart. Google is impersonal the Lord simply IS.

Taking our questions to the Lord may not always give us the answers we want to hear but will certainly give us the direction we need to move towards or the areas we need to look at. There was movement in this Gospel text; a journey had just begun. This was a journey that had filled their sight and left them in wonder and now they needed a deeper insight.

Jesus had been transfigured in the presence of Peter, James and John. Moses and Elijah had appeared and were talking to Jesus. If only the disciples knew what they were in for, they would have come prepared; after all, realizing how unprepared they were for this, the greatest and most historic summit of Judaism’s heavyweights had just taken place. Peter feels compelled to respond to this unplanned program; he desires to build three tents. Comfort and convenience is perhaps what he hoped to bring to this meeting or perhaps as some suggest, this for Peter was a moment he wished would last forever.

The voice from heaven was not an indication as much as it was instruction. “This is my son, the beloved in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.” Ironically if you read the Gospels, the disciples failed to even do this. But the apparition of the transfiguration and the instruction to listen to him was not lost on his disciples who were plagued several times with doubts as to the identity of Jesus.

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Don’t know what I want because I don’t know what I have – Friday, 2nd week of Advent Isaiah48:17-19/Matthew11:16-19

“We played the flute and you and you did not dance, we wailed and you did not mourn”

We live in a world that pushes us to be constantly dissatisfied with what we have and with who we are. This dissatisfaction is not thrown in your face but it grows under your skin rather subtly. From our phones to our holidays to the furniture in our home, life has been a constant push towards being dissatisfied; and that dissatisfaction grows like a cancer.

At one time snail mail did the job. We licked stamps and posted letters. Then speed got to us and we had the telex and telegram. All this was too slow for us and so we soon slipped into the world of email. Then it was instant and short messaging services (SMS) and now all of that is given to us with privacy and speed in the form of WhatsApp. Then, out to the blue, people are tired of the fast and furious, the impersonal and technical and want good old snail mail back with its pretty envelopes and fancy stationery.

The dissatisfaction with all things begins in the heart. A fickle heart leads to a fickle foot loose and fancy-free mind. A dissatisfied heart may not be symptomatic of an ungrateful heart but more a heart that does not know what it wants because it has never reflected on what it has. Let’s take children for example; they never really know what they want and that’s not because they are ungrateful but because they can’t make up their mind; they don’t have settled minds. Their minds have to be trained. Standing at a bakery filled with goodies, they may want an entire box of chocolates and the blue berry muffins and the chocolate chip cookies. Mummy knows that giving in to all that they want will give them a stomach ache and so mummy trains the child to choose and be happy with just one goody from a range of good things.

Our hearts need to be trained to be satisfied with what we have. Jesus bemoans the fickleness of the people of his time. They were dissatisfied with even the options of a spiritual life. Jesus came and John the Baptist came. They both had different approaches to a spiritual life. John seemed a bit like a loner, Jesus fit into the crowd. John fasted for the coming of the bridegroom, Jesus was the bridegroom and so he feasted. John’s cry was for penitence, Jesus’ calling was to love. John had the insects and animals of the desert as his companions, Jesus sat with tax collectors and sinners in the heart of the city.

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Jesus the stress buster – Wednesday, 2nd week of Advent/ Isaiah 40:25-31/Matthew 11:28-30

Doctors have our lives down to one word; stress! Often times, most of us find ourselves running around like headless chickens and ironically with good reason. There is much to be done, much to be achieved, much to be delivered. We look for help and should it come our way we are more than happy to get a couple of things off our hands. Ironically, no one has the time to help; it’s a rat race.

Then comes Jesus along with the strangest proposition, “come to me.” Jesus does not begin by telling us where we could go to get things fixed, he tells us who we can come to if we want to fix things. His invitation is specific, ‘are you tired, weary, lonely, overburdened?’ That’s not all, his invitation also carries a promise, “I will give you rest.”

But the truth is that when we are tired, we want to sit on the couch and check out our Instagram profile. Destressing for many could be a staycation. Still others might turn on Netflix with a glass of wine or call Zomato or Swiggy and order some food. Does this help? I guess it does; I have done to same when I want to ‘chill out.’

The reality is that all these measures are like short term leases and before you know it your back to moving your furniture leaving you exhausted. So what really happens is that with the last bite of your hamburger, the last name that ran on the credits of your movie, the flight you catch to get home after the vacation and hopefully not the last dregs of wine in your bottle, reality comes to bite you again…and you find yourself weary, overburdened and stressed all over again.

Jesus has a long term and more personal invitation this Advent; “come to me.” To many this may not seem like a fun option when you’re at the end of your tether. Yet, it is the only lasting option. In him we find rest for our souls. Stop there for a while, understand what you are being offered; rest for your souls. The restlessness of the human heart, the stresses of a day, the pressure to conform and comply can’t be fixed by the world; the world tries to help but it cant fix it. There is no do it yourself kit for a broken heart or a ruptured soul. The power to fix that comes from Jesus only.

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How Santa Claus came to be – Memorial of St Nicholas

Meet the real St Nick. Yes, there really is one and while we know a little about his life there is much that has been created from it today. Saint Nicholas was the Catholic Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor. According to Legenda Aurea (The Golden Legend), also called Lives of the Saints, Volume 11, Nicholas was born sometime in the late third century. Nicholas’ parents died when he was young, leaving him a large sum of money. With his inheritance, Nicholas practiced charity, helping those in need.

His uncle, the Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, ordained him priest, and appointed him abbot of a monastery; and on the death of the archbishop he was elected to the vacant see. Throughout his life he retained the bright and guileless manners of his early years, and showed himself the special protector of the innocent and the wronged.

About the time of the persecutions of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, he was imprisoned for preaching Christianity but was released during the reign of Emperor Constantine. He later attended the Council of Nicea in 325. “Nicholas of Myra of Lycia” appears on one of the earliest and most reliable lists of the Bishops at Nicea.

After Nicholas’ death on December 6 in or around 345, his body was buried in the cathedral at Myra. It remained there until 1087, when seamen of Bari, an Italian coastal town, seized the relics of the saint and transferred them to their own city. Veneration for Nicholas had already spread throughout Europe as well as Asia, but this occurrence led to a renewal of devotion in the West. Countless miracles were attributed to the saint’s intercession. His relics are still preserved in the church of San Nicola in Bari; an oily substance, known as Manna di S. Nicola, which is highly valued for its medicinal powers, is said to flow from them.

Popular legends have involved Saint Nicholas in a number of charming stories, one of which relates Nicholas’ charity toward the poor. Nicholas once heard that a man of Patara who had fallen into poverty and lost his fortune. He now intended to abandon his three daughters to a life of sin because he could not pay their dowry. Legends state that Nicholas saved three sisters from lives of shame by secretly flinging into the window a bag of gold and then hurried off. Other legends relate that Nicholas secretly put coins in shoes that were left out for him. I’m sure you can start to see the faint resemblance to the mythological Santa Claus! Still other stories that surround St Nicholas, illustrate that he practiced both the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. He was generous, strove to help the poor and disadvantaged, and worked tirelessly to defend the faith.

The custom of giving gifts on Saint Nicholas’ feast day probably originated in Europe among Protestants. The Reformation had led many Protestants to all but abandon the remembrance of the saints. But St Nicholas’ memory was kept alive by children especially in Holland . They remembered him as Sinterklaas.

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