Every other game of mahjong I play is when I aim to hit 5-limit cards. The only times I don’t try to make a full suit is when I have a lot of “flower” cards already – those are additional points – then, I will try to game as soon as possible.
Now it isn’t that I’m being greedy. I only play among friends and with friends, money is never the goal. It’s the thrill I’m after – to know if I can finish the game plan or not.
So when someone else games before me, I get very much excitable. And when I am close to completing my own set, I get even more thrilled and want to show my friends what I have in my collection.
Sometimes, we show one another our cards at the end of each game. Sometimes, we don’t. It depends on the individual.
Recently, I realise that the challenge to not open my cards at the end of one game, can be pretty trying. I would want to show off my nicely fitted cards to my friends, either to ‘wow’ them with the cards I have, or to whine and lament about how close I am to finishing the game and why someone else had to game before me.
For a while now, I have thought how much of an act of humility can be practised from adopting a mahjong-etiquette of simply quietly folding my cards back and letting it go, however spectacular they may be.
I’ve been trying; succeeding sometimes and failing at others. It has not been easy, just quietly folding my cards without lament or pride.
The other strange thing about mahjong is, you tend to feel as if ‘luck’ exists. Those who know how to play mahjong can probably testify to how things have an exceptionally strange way of turning out in games. There are common ‘passed-down’ superstitious practices, like changing seats if you’re losing, calling for the card you want, knocking one tile against a similar one you want so it appears, etc..
But because I play only with my friends who are also Catholics, we make it a point to bring God into the game. Like, when we are tempted to be cheeky and make remarks like calling upon our mahjong cards to present themselves in our favour, or to make statements like, “Luck is with me today”, or “Tonight, no luck!”, the others of us will respond, “No need to change seats. There’s no such thing as luck. It’s just a game.”
Our God is bigger than any ‘luck’ there might exist out there, we remind one another. And we end up having a good time and sharing faith experiences.
Never have I imagined that even a game of mahjong can be a practice of humility and Christian sharing.
If you have other innovative ideas of how to practise Christian humility (or other morals) in the everyday business of our lives, do share, then perhaps I can be more mindful of God in the other areas of my life too.
In the meantime, I guess the games will continue amongst us friends who serve together at Church of the Holy Spirit, friends who have shared one another’s joyous occasions and loss; we shall try to learn that precious lesson of humility, and to continue placing our God higher and above than banal ‘luck’.
After all, as the late Father David Thexeira who baptised me, informed us while we were going through RCIA, only to have a few of us cheeky catechumens break out into giggles, “Catholics have no luck!”
Just over the weekend at a Day of Recollection retreat held for our LANDINGS team at Church of the Holy Spirit, in preparation of the new journey to begin July 11, I was reminded of a miracle that had happened the year I was in RCIA as a catechumen.
The first time I heard this story was after we had returned from our Lenten retreat, back in 2004. The details have not changed, as Mr C (coordinator of RCIA and now LANDINGS), also a very good friend of mine, shared last weekend:
“That was my first year as coordinator of RCIA. I think God knew I still needed signs of affirmation from him,” he confessed.
“At that retreat, when I got back the love offering box after it went round and counted the money, I was $1,104 short. I had counted all the cash in the box! The only thing I didn’t include in the pool was a cheque that someone had put in as love offering too.
In my head, I was quarrelling with God already. ‘Want me to do your work and still have to pay out money too!’,” he laughed, recollecting the memory. “I picked up the cheque – I mean, how much can it be right? $50?” He sighed melodramatically to his then captivated audience.
“And when I opened the cheque – it was folded – I almost fell off my chair. The cheque was made out with a contribution of, $1, 104.”
…
Mr C subsequently called up the lady who made the donation to thank her. And of course, he asked why she donated such a sum of money.
She replied, “Two months ago when I gave you a cheque of $1,000 for donation, you didn’t want to accept it, telling me that the ministry was still doing okay with funds. But you see, I had made a covenant with God that I would give Him a percentage of my profits from my business. Now, two months later, you needed funding for our retreat… I had to top up the additional $104 that I promised to God!”
God sure has a way of connecting the dots in His time…
Mr C said ruefully, “These miracles don’t happen to me anymore. Maybe God knew my state of being then, I was still very much in need of such signs. Now, I like to think I trust Him more… He doesn’t need to ‘prove’ His presence as much.”
My takeaway message:
- Miracles exist. Just look out for them.
- God does not play favourites. If someone else experiences miracles and you don’t, thank God for your faith that you still trust Him.
1104. Four digits that revealed God’s presence to us who needed that affirmation.
Have you encountered God today? If you too, have such experiences, why not share them because you never know, the person you’re telling might be in need of exactly such a testimony.
And that, to him, could be the very miracle he needed for the day.
Filed under: GOD
Usually, after I receive communion, I continue to hold my hand palm-up and after returning to my pew, the first thing I do is to check if there are any specks of the host left on my palm.
This, I suppose, is the result of a good formation by Father David Thexeira, who passed away in December 2008. He was the Spiritual Director when I was going through RCIA and when we neared Easter (when we get baptised), he shared with us the importance of being reverent to the Body of Christ.
He said, “I see people returning to their pews after receiving communion and dusting their hands, as if to dust off any remaining bits. But when you tell them there is gold dust on their palms, they will make sure they pick out every bit left!”
Then there is the other story:
“Overseas, on Halloween, the Catholic Church watches carefully who receives communion. Wardens are tasked to ensure that those who do, consume the communion within their sight.”
“This is not because we are paranoid. But because in other countries where satanic worship is not uncommon, satan worshippers would sneak into church to take the communion host, hide it, and perform satanic rituals on it later.”
The surprising bit is this: “Even the satan worshippers believe that the host is the Body of Christ! And we, Catholics, don’t even treat the host with as much reverence!”
Indeed.
In recent months, I found myself having adopted another personal ritual. After checking for remnants of the host, I place my right thumb onto my left palm, close my left hand around the thumb, and with my right hand holding my left, I give thanks.
For a while now, that gesture has left me feeling very much in touch with Jesus. Not only did I consume Him, I get to touch Him as well!
Yesterday, at Mass, I did the same and while I was on my knees, I felt a pulse in my left palm – a slow but steady pulse. And I looked up at the rest of the congregation queuing up for communion and I see in them, the Body of Christ.
I spoke to Jesus, “I can feel your pulse! Thank you for letting me feel you…”
At the same time, my mind rationalised this through instantly (faster than I like, sometimes) and it said to me: “That’s not Jesus’ pulse. It’s yours.”
I know that, of course.
But I acknowledged within myself, “Jesus is in me. I am the Body of Christ too.”
If my pulse is beating, is that not because of Christ living within?
Yes, it is.
Amen!
Since I’ve been meaning to write and have either
(a) not found the time
(b) not found the energy
(c) not found the inspiration
which are the reasons I have that cheese me off because I accept them only as excuses, I thought I’ll give a brief summary of the many things that I had wanted to blog about, but didn’t.
- Wine tasting with August’s bosses and colleagues at Wine Connection @ Evans Road. The latest one. Had more fun at One Rochester with Cape Mentelle though.
- August’s and my new Suzuki Swift – a beautiful, silver sleek car. Inside are two stuffed cats – one pink one standing by our Cashcard IU and one black one with yellow eyes wide open stuffed into a compartment we fixed up for our iPod, a rosary from Lourdes hung on the rearview mirror, a small icon of the Holy Family to remind me of my family, and a crucifix with the ‘Serenity Prayer’, all of which remind me to be a more conscientious driver. It’s a secondhand car but it’s ours.
- Our new rented flat, a tiny three-bedroom but one that’s entirely sweet and lovely, cosy and personal. I love it though I’m hardly here; it would be hard not to when there are so few imperfections and so much to savour here. Being as nicely set up as it was since we got it, we only needed to add a few personal touches to it and it’s entirely… us. The process took time but it was a lot of fun! [We just added our flowers to the home this weekend - it's NICE.]
- The last Landings journey just ended and if I had to summarise it, all I can say is, it has once again been a journey so deeply fulfilling and worthwhile, especially when a few Catholics found their way home to the Church through it. It’s nice to know in our small ways, God has done something BIG once more.
- Sharing lives, making new friends.
- Watching catechumens and candidates get baptised on Easter Vigil, Apr 11, for the first time from a view that was not clouded by having a whole list of tasks to accomplish for the night.
- Going to my printer with the Publishers and settling the finals of my book, “The Flea Market”. I am finally able to envision my book on the shelves of bookstores.
- Remembering some past loves with the new step that August and I are going to take.
- Having a counter that reads “Six months to go” to that new step – getting married to August.
- Being in the midst of God’s abundant showers of blessings.
Filed under: GOD
Lent has always been a rather confusing time for me. I tend to feel like in keeping with the austerity of Lent, I shouldn’t be feeling any joy in my daily life.
It all begins on Ash Wednesday, the night we get stained by ashes, a reminder that from ashes we come and to ashes we will return. After Mass, I would head out for my one meal – dinner – with some friends, before heading home. With the ash remaining on my forehead the whole time.
I learnt one benefit from doing that two years ago, when the stallholder at the coffeeshop asked what the mark was. That was an apt opportunity to evangelise a little, although I admit I faltered in explaining it in Mandarin.
Then there is Palm and Passion Sunday, celebrated on the same day. Outside the church, I will be waving my palm and struggling to catch a view of the priest and proceedings, tiptoeing to look above the heads of fellow parishioners. I imagine myself as one of the crowd welcoming Christ into Jerusalem, also desiring to catch a glimpse of the Messiah.
As if with multiple personalities, once I enter the church, I shout “Crucify him!” But then I realise Christ did die for us, the sinners who crucified him. I do want to claim my share of that salvation. Denying that only means a denial of his sacrifice too. A sacrifice, for me.
Isn’t this reflective of our lives on a daily basis when we proclaim our love for God only to turn away from Him the very next minute in pursuit of our personal interests?
Realising that, I am one again.
The very first Holy Thursday I went through as a catechumen, two days before my baptism in 2004, was painful. That afternoon, a fellow catechumen and I watched “The Passion of Christ” in a last attempt to experience Holy Week more profoundly, and we left the theatre with a massive headache and swollen eyes from all the crying. While we had been reminded not to simply focus on the barbaric torture of Jesus as man, but to cherish the deeper significance of his enduring such cruelty and death for us, the movie wasn’t pleasant to watch.
We arrived at church to celebrate the Maundy Thursday Mass and when the priests removed the Eucharist from the tabernacle, I heard myself screaming in my head, “Don’t take him away!” I was filled with images of Jesus being arrested, tried, insulted and sentenced to die.
That’s how Holy Thursday has remained for me ever since. At the same time that the night is always charged with an almost electrifying ambience. Keeping Holy Hour, and for some, vigil later that night, makes me feel in camaraderie with my fellow Catholics. It’s as if Christ has been taken away and we now have to realise the community we have and band together as one. We will be the ones to keep each other straight on our journeys until He returns.
Easter Friday always rains, my fellow Catholics tell me. This always amuses me, just as much as my mum says it always rains during Ching Ming, when we sweep our ancestors’ graves. Then again, surely if God wanted to indulge us with a timely reminder of what the season is about, He could.
In church, sheltered from the rain outside, we sit, stand and kneel to the Stations of the Cross. After a while, I feel wearied from the long prayers and the repeated motions. Which I then wonder why I can’t go through two hours of when Jesus went through more for me.
On penance and abstinence, I once gave up smoking for Lent.
Those 40 days felt like I was in the desert with Christ.
It was one of the toughest thing I had to do… What amazed me though, was how each time I felt like I simply had to light my cigarette and quickly cast out a desperate prayer to God to keep me from doing that, the urge to smoke and the obsessive thoughts about smoking, dissipated.
All at once.
That Lent was difficult to get through psychologically but it taught me a few things about penance and how not losing sight of God, can get you through it.
But on the last day of Lent, right after the 40th day, I went straight out to procure my cigarettes and savoured my first stick in 40 days.
I knew then, I hadn’t comprehended the spirit of Lent.
What I dislike most about Lent, above everything else, is the lack of the Gloria at Mass. There is something missing when we don’t sing the Gloria. No rejoicing, no outward praise of God… it strips away a certain joy I feel at Mass.
One afternoon on Holy Saturday, when a group of us from RCIA had finished our preparations for the Easter Vigil that will take place that night at our parish of Holy Spirit, we gathered around our baptismal font and watched as the water that would be blessed for holy water, filled it up. There we were, huddled around the font where most of us had sacramentally received Christ into our lives, talking, laughing, in eager anticipation of the night ahead.
The choir was rehearsing by their pews.
And then, they broke into the Gloria. First, the organ struck those familiar chords. We turned to look at the choir who were readying to practise that familiar hymn. One brief look at one another and all of us burst into song together with the choir.
They smiled at us; we laughed in joy.
That year, we received our Easter joy a little earlier than the rest.
And that’s how it is for me.
Lent, that period of austerity and bleakness that we endure, has never failed to heighten the joy at Easter for me. And at Easter, it is always worth it.
Will I exchange that piece of joy for not going through Lent? No. Which is why as much as I continue to shy away from shouting, “Crucify him!” on Passion Sunday, I will always say it as if I mean it.
So although I believe I will continue to puzzle over how I should really feel at Lent – that I may feel a little guilty if I were to enjoy a night out with friends or to laugh a little too loudly at church – I have to admit, Lent has grown to become one of my favourite liturgical season. For all its richness of symbolism, its communal experience and for its great reminder of what our good Lord went through.
What will I give up this Lent? Probably not smoking.
Perhaps to curb my tongue when I have nothing good to say, to say a little prayer before my impatience consumes me and most of all, to remember what Lent is and to do whatever it takes to keep my sights on Easter.
Filed under: GOD
“Do you want to come to Batam with us?” Boon asked a couple of months ago.
He was referring to a trip a few of us from Landings had planned to make to Batam, as invited by the parish priest of St. Filipus Church, a church that some of our Holy Spirit parishioners had helped build from scratch.
“Okay, I don’t mind, sure!” I told him.
That was a couple of months ago.
The response on the morning of 18 January 2009 at 6.50am is quite different: “If you had told me we were leaving so early, I wouldn’t have come!” I complain.
A couple of hours after that, we board a Penguin ferry that will take us to Batam.
Another couple of hours after that and we arrive at St. Filipus.
There are people standing in two rows outside the church to welcome us.
Mass had been delayed for over an hour while parishioners await patiently for our arrival.
I hang my head in shame as I make my way to my reserved pews.
Mass begins.
The procession enters carrying a small crucifix which they place on the altar table.
There is no Book of Gospels. In its place is a very common Bible – a Good News, perhaps – which the priest places on the altar too.
No golden crucifixes… no lovely cover for the Bible… no intricately embroidered cloth to dress the altar table… no elegant clothe for the altar servers… everything is… plain and simple.
All of the liturgical symbols we have in our church in Singapore – which we accord with so much pride and glory – are missing.
I wonder … if it is because of their absence that we begin to see God.
In the candle wax that overfills its tray and drips to the floor… without anyone being chided for negligence.
In the lack of a choir that leaves the space for the lovely voices to fill the church.
In the miscommunication happening between us and the St. Filipus parishioners that makes us seek out a different way of understanding one another – through their smiles (big grins!) and handshakes, laughter and spontaneity in greeting us.
God is in that church. And He is unrelenting in making His presence felt.
Perhaps we see Him more clearly because there were no other distractions around.
The St. Filipus parishioners made us feel like some very important people. One might think they are expressing gratitude for our fellow friends who helped build the church. But I like to think their spirit of welcome goes beyond that.
Thanksgiving aside, I think they are simply people who remember how to appreciate God and all that He gives us in our lives.
And we, the very important people, are simply fellow friends to extend a welcome to.
Perhaps they see Him more clearly because they are not easily distracted.
Two years ago, parishioners from Church of the Holy Spirit went to St. Filipus at Batam. Over a period of many months, they tore down the old church and built the new one from scratch. The number of St. Filipus parishioners has since grown to three to four times more.
Filed under: GOD
“I was in the seminary in Malaysia many, many years ago,” FA shares almost shyly, speaking quietly with eyes focused on the tiled floor of Room #03-11 at Church of the Holy Spirit.
“But whenever I came home, my mum will be waiting for me.
No matter how late in the night or how early in the morning, my mother is always there at the door.
I remember one time, I had to take the train from Penang and I was on the train for many, many hours. It was the wee hours of the morning when I finally reached home, exhausted.
And there, my mother was. As usual, she would look at me, say nothing else but ‘Welcome home. Have you eaten?’”
FA smiles to himself at the memory of that one particular night, as if he is seeing his mother standing before him once more.
The room, filled with about seventy people, is distinguishedly silent. Nobody is fidgeting. Everyone seems hushed as we listen to his story.
FA goes on, “To those of you who have journeyed – no matter for how short or how long a period – welcome home to the Church. Landings is a ministry to welcome you, returning Catholics. This is where our home is. Welcome back.
You need to eat the food that the Church provides to sustain your faith in God. It is that simple.”
“So now I say the same to you,” FA continues.
This time, he does look up and meets our eyes.
“Welcome home,” he says and I feel a familiar warmth in my heart, as if I too, have come home as perhaps, indeed, I have once more. “Have you eaten?”
It is late afternoon and the office is pretty much quiet and still, like there is not much of a pulse at its heart after all.
I am blogging; Hainan-boy is looking at photographs of his most recent trip to Hainan and Richie is… doing something at his desk.
She-Who-is-of-the-Valley, now known as ‘Valley’, from Church of Prosperity, walks past Richie’s and notices a Manchester United flag.
“Why do you support Manchester United?” she asks in her usual inquisitive way.
Hainan-boy gets up from his chair. “Because red is their colour. And China’s colour is red too. We support China and so we like red!”
Now, Hainan-boy is not really from Hainan. Well, his grandfather was but he is born and raised a very Singaporean-Chinese here on sunny island Singapore. For some reason though, he is completely fascinated by everything-China. He swears by China in history (fascinating one), art, culture (amazingly unchanged through thousands of years), government, politics, hygiene (or lack thereof), people, ways of life…
He displays China flags proudly around his workstation.
When I first came to CN and he used to say to me, “we are all from China because we are Chinese”, I would reply with “Nope! I’m from the Middle East because I come from Abraham!” But we kid with each other in jest. Well, at least I’m jesting…
So here we are today, Hainan-boy playfully teasing Valley and she asks again, “Yes, but whhhyyy (I can almost hear, ‘Why-oh-wwhhyyy’ in my head as she asks) Manchester United?”
I am thinking to myself, “Yup! There is Liverpool and Arsenal whose colours are red too… and of course, not forgetting our Lion cubs of the Singapore team…”
Richie answers, “Because when I was a kid, I already supported Man-U. I like to watch them play…”
“But do you know,” Valley continues gently but firmly, “that they call themselves the ‘Red Devils’?”
“Ooh!” Hainan-boy bursts out laughing. “It’s just a name.”
“But why must they associate themselves with the devil???” she goes on.
Hainan-boy tries again. “Like how the dragon is a beast in the bible but it’s just mythological…”
The dragon is likened to a devil in the Book of Revelations that describes the ‘end times’. In the past, people used to look at the dragon as the very incarnation of the devil but Bible scholars have explained it well – the imagery of a dragon was used when writing about the devil because it was deemed the most fearsome creature then.
Today, it may very well be _____ (fill in name of your own nemesis). As I don’t wish for my blog to be banned yet, I shall refrain from filling in my own.
Valley reminds me of a talk Eccentric and I had attended before, where both of us had alternated between being in stitches and rolling our eyes at the insistence of the speaker to not be associated with dragons, fortune-cats, toads and other prosperity-preaching icons.
Sometimes, I wonder if, by deliberately wanting to disassociate ourselves with harmless trinkets and icons that carry absolutely no meaning to us, we are placing more emphasis and belief in what they represent than we should really be doing. A dragon is a mythological creature; a fortune-cat is as much fortune-bringing and as much a cat as Hello Kitty is a cat; a toad is a toad, whether it be in prosperous-golden or lucky-red colours.
Why give useless items a power over us?
To me, it’s simple. These items are so gaudy that probably only a believer in the superstitions they carry, would purchase them. If so, then we need to be respectful of other’s beliefs. On the other hand, if they just happen to be there – perhaps another family member bought it – we don’t have to fear them. Neither should we believe in any seeming power it has. It is merely an object, perhaps an idol for some, but nevertheless, an idol it remains.
Eccentric put it well when he summed it up, “Oooooh, we better stop eating apples ‘cos they are evil! They brought about Adam and Eve’s downfall! Let’s throw all apples away!”
Right.
The last entry was the homily given at Church of the Holy Spirit at Midnight Mass. As I was sitting in my pew, watching FA giving the homily, those words touched me in a way that stirred the fire in my heart.
It reminded me a lot of what happened earlier that afternoon too:
It is Christmas Eve and August and I are rushing downtown to pick up some more presents – toys for boys and some for his family.
We are in a taxi driven by a Malay man. Just as we are getting ready to pay him for our ride, I wondered if it will be okay for me to wish him Merry Christmas. In a split second, I decide to go ahead with it.
“Merry Christmas, Uncle!” I wish him as I climb out the taxi.
“Thank you, Merry Christmas too,” he replies.
“It should be Happy Holidays,” August laughs after we head off to our destination.
“No, why should it be?”
“Because he’s a Muslim!”
That thought had crossed my mind just before I decided to wish him.
“But it is Christmas,” I tell August, thrilled by the prospect of an upcoming banter. “I will wish a Chinese guy Happy Deepavali too.”
“Will you?” August asks, surprised. “Hmm…” He pauses to consider.
“It is Christmas. I am sincerely wishing him Merry Christmas! Ask yourself, what is the reason for celebrating Christmas? It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in Jesus, or even if you do but is not a Christian. But the only reason why Christmas exists is because Jesus Christ was born on Christmas Day!” I tell him.
And then I go on, “You can choose to ignore this. No problem. But then, don’t declare it a public holiday.”
“But that will be discriminatory.”
I shrug. “Against who? Christians? By preventing us from saying ‘Merry Christmas’, you’re already doing that. Make your choice. You can ignore it as a public holiday and to hell with what everyone else say. But if you choose to commemorate it, then do it for the right reasons. At least respect the tradition of Christmas. It is Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays.”
I tell August about pieces of news I get at work from other countries, about school children being forbidden to wear their crucifixes to school, or erasing Christ from Christmas, etc. I find all that ridiculous.
“You won’t ask a Muslim not to wear their hijab, will you?”
August laughs. “It’s religious tolerance.”
“Oh, so we only tolerate if there may be repercussions? Religious tolerance extends to everybody, doesn’t it? Why can she wear a hijab but I can’t wear a crucifix? It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
“Because you can be taken advantaged of,” he says. I give him credit for being honest about this.
It’s like refusing to ban cigarettes because they simply earn you too much revenue, but then slapping a sticker of a diseased brain or lung on it, to convince themselves that they have given due warning and have displayed proper concern for their citizens…but then, if such concern is there, why not just ban smoking altogether? If chewing gum can be banned, so can smoking.
Oh, because if that is done, it’s like a not so subtle way of admitting that we don’t have rights here… but then, if that’s true, why restrict smoking to only some hidden corner or dark alley… or perhaps the middle of the road and hope we get knocked down too… but wherever it is that other non-smokers don’t go to? Cos yes, we have rights… but ‘we’ are not everybody.
Well and good. Well and good.
Just bloody hypocritical, isn’t it?
Like, we should not take offence when our Malay friends wish us “Selamat Hari Raya” but we should avoid wishing them “Merry Christmas”… The curious thing is, the real people with a heart probably won’t get offended by such heartfelt wishes… yet, strangely, we are made to feel guilty as if we did some grave wrong.
I will never tolerate a Muslim having to remove her hijab by force. That’s not right at all. I will stand up against that act. And if I can do that, the more I should stand up for my own belief too.
As Ruby-doo would ask, “Whose fault is this?”
“Society’s!!!”
So it was that a few hours later, at midnight, I heard FA say,”That’s why in a day when people can be so negative and cynical, we can wish each other Merry Christmas and mean it.”
Yes, I sincerely wish all a Merry Christmas and it remains a Merry Christmas to me, not Happy Holidays.
If you don’t like it, please feel free to go back to work on Christmas Day. The season does not apply to you.
Filed under: GOD
Note: Not to be republished.
Christmas Midnight 2008
Christmas is here. Christmas gifts have been bought and wrapped and in some cases, already unwrapped. Food has been purchased and prepared and in some cases, already eaten. And despite all the things that you have had to do, you have managed to get yourself and your family here tonight.
But as we gather here at this Midnight Mass to sing songs of peace and joy, serious and disturbing issues continue in our world. There is still tension in the Middle East with no end in sight. There is the constant threat of terrorism. Many nations have developed or are still developing nuclear weapons.
There is poverty, sickness and disease. In our personal life, we might be dealing with misunderstandings between ourselves and someone very important to us. There may be tensions in our marriage or problems in our relationships or troubles in our family. Christmas does not dispel the pain of sickness, the loss of a loved one or the fear of the future.
There was a busy executive who was running late for an important business conference. The traffic was heavy and he was in a foul mood as his schedule had been disrupted. The traffic lights turned red and he stopped at the junction. Then he thought to himself, “I will be able to beat the next traffic light if I can just get ahead of these other cars.” So he took his foot off the brake and put it on the accelerator, ready to move off as soon as the light turned green.
Then he saw something that made him hold his breath. A young couple, both of them blind, were making their way across the street. The young woman was holding a baby and the man was using his white cane, tapping it on the pavement, as he directed his family across the intersection.
To the executive’s shocking horror, he realised that the man and his family were about to take a walk across the traffic. Unaware of the danger that surrounded them, this young family was moving directly into the oncoming cars.
Then it happened.
In a moment, the executive’s annoyance and fear changed to wonder as he saw what took place.
Each car in each direction came to a simultaneous stop. There was no beeping, no honking of horns, no screeching of brakes, no screams or shouts of “Get out of the way! Are you crazy?”
All the cars just stopped and waited as this young family made their way safely across the street. What happened in that intersection was a miracle!
Not a miracle that defies the law of nature, not a miracle that restores sight to the blind couple, not a miracle that removes all the selfishness and greed of the hearts of those who witnessed it. But a miracle by which patience and understanding became real in the hearts of hurried and distracted motorists.
It was a miracle by which a sense of unity and common concern emerged from so many vehicles, separated and isolated from one another. A miracle by which compassion and a respect for human life manifested itself in the midst of city traffic.
That miracle points to the miracles of Christmas because what happened on that Bethlehem night was not that Christ came and then everything was beautiful. No, it was Christ who came as God made Man and he entered our broken and divided world.
Christ did not come and destroy evil but He came to become one of us as we face the evil that confronts us everyday. This is why we should not be discouraged when we see how much is wrong with the world and how troublesome things are in our own life.
The troubles of life are not a distraction from Christmas. They are the necessary human context in which the meaning of Christmas becomes clear.
We are people who gather in our Church and believe that, despite all the turmoil around us and all the unsettled issues within us, God is Emmanuel, God is here. And if God has become human and is indeed with us, then there is always reason for courage, always reason for hope, even reason for joy.
We are the people who believe that compassion and peace and love can suddenly emerge even in the presence of trouble, even in the presence of grief, even in the midst of a busy intersection.
Yes, life goes on much the same but what we celebrate here is the truth that the world has indeed changed.
It is changed because God has become human. God has become part of this world, the real world, the world in which you and I live. That is why even in a broken world where there is so much that is wrong, we can still see good and we can still see God.
In a world where there is so much that causes us to worry, to be anxious and to fear, we can be comforted and consoled in knowing that we are not alone in any of that for our God is with us. He is in all of that as well.
That’s why in a day when people can be so negative and cynical, we can wish each other Merry Christmas and mean it.
Which is what I want to extend to each of you, from FJ, FG and myself. We pray that the meaning of that first Christmas be with you, not only tonight but all the days ahead and always.
May the meaning of the manger make a miracle happen for you. May it bring you the miracle of peace in the midst of turmoil, the miracle of love in the presence of hate, the miracle of forgiveness in the face of hurt and the miracle of hope in the midst of despair.
That’s what tonight is all about. May it be what you celebrate not only in the darkness of this silent night, this holy night but throughout the New Year that lies ahead. Again, a Blessed and Holy Christmas to you and to all of your loved ones.
