Christmas homily at All Saints' Leonia adapted from the reflection shared on Christmas Eve at Saint Agnes'
This Christmas is very different as well as DIFFICULT for all of us for obvious reasons. When I spell or pronounce the word Christmas, I am so tempted to add the letter K at the end, making sure Christ wears a mask! As I can casually joke around this situation we’re facing, there’s something much deeper, sadder, and more serious as we enter into the Christmas season this year. For many of us, it’s not the same as it used to be. Some of us are grieving for the losses of our loved ones while others are still struggling to recover or simply to adjust to changes. There are also those who are living in isolation, keeping everyone safe. What we’re missing the most in this crazy and uncertain time is the presence. The presence of our family members and friends. Being present to each other, especially on Sundays, on feast days, on Christmas Day. When faced with sorrow and grief, our attempt to be joyful, to lift up our moods is challenging and laboring. Rather than pushing ourselves to be happy and merry, I would like to invite all of us to acknowledge and appreciate the very presence that we’re missing. This is the reality that we’re experiencing. We don’t find God elsewhere but right here, right now, in our very reality. This rather dark, gloomy, and sad reality is the true face of the nativity scene 2,000 years ago. Instead of imagining the Holy Family beautifully depicted in a hallmark card, see them as the lost, the poor, and the homeless who are looking for shelter, not just to sleep but to give birth. No one welcomes this family into their home. It’s a cold, cruel world that they face. Imagine Mary, the pregnant girl’s agony, fear, and anxiety. Imagine Joseph’s feeling of helplessness and powerlessness that he isn’t able to provide a safe place for his wife and the baby but a stable. This is the context where our Christmas tradition begins. In this dark, depressing, brutal reality that Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are encountering, God is revealed. God is present with them in Christ. What Jesus reveals is God being with us even when we don’t sense God’s presence, at times when God seems to be completely absent and missing in action. God becomes the stable where Mary can give birth. God becomes the manger that can hold the baby Jesus. God becomes the warmth of animals around them so that this poor family can stay warm. As we reflect on those missing presences that are no longer physically with us, we go beyond the vanity of life and see God’s very presence that goes beyond life and death. When we see this divine presence in the absence of our loved ones, we are once again found by God. This presence of God transforms our isolation into communion with our loved ones in Christ. It turns loneliness into contentment in Christ. When God is experienced and seen in the darkness, all the curveballs life throws at us become manageable and bearable. Rather than asking “why curveballs!?” God becomes a bat with which we can swing or a glove that we turn into a catch ball. The mystery of the incarnation defeats all the images that God is far from us. Perhaps our spiritual dullness numbs our experience with the very presence of God in us, yet the good news is that God’s presence does not disappear even if we are completely unaware of it. This mystery of the incarnation then takes us from the manger of Jesus to the cross on which he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This cry of Jesus is not the proof of God forsaking him but Jesus forsaking the image of a god who is somewhere out there like a bystander. As God is present in the wooden manger that once held the baby Jesus, God is present on the wooden cross that now holds the dying body of Jesus. The mystery of the incarnation shows us how God is present in our suffering. Our faith in God gives us the eyes to see God’s presence even when God seems to be absent. With these eyes opened by the mystery of the incarnation, we find our ways to be present with and for each other. We ourselves become an anchor to hold each other when storms of anxiety, fear, and loneliness come at us. “Emmanuel,” meaning God with us, is not only the gospel of the incarnation but also the challenge and the mission that God asks us to join. Me with you, you with me, us with them...the union of God and us, you and me, us and them is the essential message of the Christmas story. My friends in Christ, to us, to the world a child is born. And into Christ, we are, the world is born into. I wish all of you a meaningful Christmas in which the void of your hearts is filled with the everlasting presence of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. That “the Word became flesh” or “God became human” is the essential message of the incarnation. It is as simple as the wordplay between Christmas and Christmask during this pandemic crisis! But how we experience and understand the mystery of the incarnation is not that simple. So we begin with this fundamental question to ponder on the mystery of God becoming human: “Is Christmas merely about celebrating the birth of Jesus or experiencing the revelation of God transcendently and immanently indwelling in our humanity?” The latter it is.
The baby Jesus in a manger surrounded by Joseph and Mary may be the most commonly commercialized image during the Christmas season. Yet, we do not want to romanticize it. Instead, we want to be realistic and consider Joseph and Mary’s struggles and suffering. There’s not much difference between the Holy Family and children and parents detained at or near the U.S. southern border in terms of its brutality. Imagine Mary’s physical pain from contractions, the emotional pain of fear and anxiety for herself and the baby, and the spiritual pain of abandonment she might have. There’s no medical help. No one welcomes this pregnant girl into their houses. It’s a cold, cruel world that she faced. What about Joseph who probably feels so helpless and useless for not being able to find a decent place where his wife can safely give birth but a stable? If we put this challenging and scary situation of Mary and Joseph in a hallmark card of the Holy Family, it wouldn’t sell at all. This rather pessimistic, sad, and gloomy situation, however, is when and where God is revealed. As we can’t see the beauty of Christmas tree lights in daylight but only at night, the nativity scene symbolizes dark moments we encounter in our lives. This does not mean that God can only be seen in dark times but is ever present even in the darkest times where we feel like God is absent or abandoning us. God was and is still present at the stable where Mary gives birth to Jesus. God was and is still found in the manger where Jesus is laid. God reveals God’s eternal union with us in the most unexpected and unimaginable times and places. This then brings us from the manger of Jesus to the cross on which he cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This cry of Jesus is not the proof of God forsaking him but Jesus forsaking the image of a god who is somewhere out there like a bystander. On the cross, Jesus experiences the everlasting presence of God who gives him strength and courage to fulfill the promise of God for the entire humanity. Don’t look for God outside but in you. The very humanness that we all share universally is God’s presence embodied in each one of us. This God in us, us in God, the eternal union of God with humanity, this oneness is what Christ reveals to the world and what we’re called to experience. This is what we celebrate with joy and gratitude during this Christmastide. When God is experienced and seen in the darkness, all the curveballs life throws at us become manageable and bearable. Rather than asking “why curveballs!?” God becomes a bat with which we can swing or a glove that we turn into a catch ball. The mystery of the incarnation defeats all the images that God is far from us. Perhaps our spiritual dullness numbs our experience with the very presence of God in us, yet the good news is that God’s presence does not disappear even if we are completely unaware of it. In my spiritual life, I usually don’t start my prayer by saying the word God. I rarely talk. I speak the language of silence. It’s like you’re having such an intimate and deep conversation with someone you wholeheartedly trust. During that dialogue, there’s no need to call each other’s name to draw attention from each other. You and your beloved are lovingly gazing at each other. What about those odd moments, the sounds of singing birds or looking at the snow gently falling on trees somehow stop you from thoughts and feelings, easing your busy mind? God’s long loving look on you is felt within and without in your deep connection with others or nature. When words are gone, meaning when our words become divine as the Word becomes human, God is in you and you are in God. St John the Baptist experiences the Light within and without himself and comes as a witness to testify to the Light. The Light brightens where it is dark, gives warmth to a cold world, remembers what’s forgotten and ignored, and exposes what’s hidden and buried in the world. Like John, we too bring this Light to the world and live it out. Our baptism becomes the sign of the Light and our partaking of the Eucharist provides us the fuel to carry out the mission of God. On this Christmas Day, we merrily remind ourselves to commit to the life of the Light. Christ is born to the world. Merry Christmas! In his letter to the Thessalonians, St. Paul commands the following: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances...Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise the words of prophets, but test everything; hold fast to what is good; abstain from every form of evil.” I think we can all agree that his teaching on how we ought to conduct our spiritual lives makes sense. Not quenching the Spirit, not despising the words of the prophets, testing everything, holding fast to what’s good, and abstaining from every form of evil do sound reasonable and even doable.
But the first three tasks might sound much more challenging than others. If St. Paul said, “Rejoice sometimes, pray when you can, give thanks in appropriate circumstances,” his commands wouldn’t sound so demanding and impossible. Is he being unrealistic? We know we would like to rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances, but we don’t and can’t for many reasons. The real question is “How do we do that?” I personally do struggle with this consistent spiritual practice of joy, prayer, and gratitude. Rather than focusing on what we can’t do, let’s pay attention to what we can. Can we think of one thing that we’re doing always, without ceasing, and in all circumstances? There’s one thing that all of us including animals do in common: breathing. We breathe always, without ceasing, and in all circumstances. It’s the most fundamental function of human survival. We never had to learn how to do it. As we come into this world, it’s the very first activity we do automatically. Since then, we’ve never stopped breathing. Even right now as you’re reading this, you’re breathing. What if we consider our breathing as a form of prayer? What if our breathing is transformed into prayer? “Breathe without ceasing” doesn’t sound so difficult. It is the only thing we can confidently do in all circumstances, without ceasing, and always. We naturally know how to do it. What’s at stake then is to turn our breathing into an act of prayer. Spiritually reflecting on the vital function of breathing, our Scriptures show us God breathing into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life (Gen. 2:7) and the resurrected Christ breathing on the disciples and saying to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22) These two biblical images analogously apply to us too. God breathed into the nostrils of each one of us the breath of life. In our baptism, the resurrected Christ breathed on us, and we received the Holy Spirit. Yet, these are not just a one-time event. God is still breathing in us. So, breathing is not just a mere physiological function. It is not only physically but also spiritually vital to our lives. It is the very presence of the Holy Spirit breathing in us. Closing our eyes, we pay attention to our breathing. We listen to how we breathe. Air coming in and out, as if the boat of our very being is floating gently and calmly on the water. Deep down, breathing is the anchor that grounds our existence. The source of our breath is God. Breathing is in a way a sacrament, an outward sign of God’s very presence which can be felt in our bodies. Even after our faculty of thinking and feeling stops, breathing continues. It’s the only activity that can be left alone, that doesn’t have to be suspended in our union with God. As we mindfully and attentively breathe in and out, God breathes in and out within us. This union of the breathes is the essence of our prayer life. To pray without ceasing is to breathe in the presence of God without ceasing. In this prayerful breathing, we encounter the deepest reality of our lives. We’re filled with gratitude for the breath of life and joy of the resurrection in the Holy Spirit. Breathing the breath of God, God sanctifies us with peace. In this season of longing for the coming of Christ, let us pay attention to our breathing in which God lovingly and compassionately breathes in us the breath of life and the spirit of the resurrection in Christ. “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.” (Psalm 150:6) From time to time, we come across some wonderful quotes that we actually want to memorize because they speak some truths. There’s this one quote that I highly recommend all of us to keep in mind. It’s the saying of Adel Bestavros, a Coptic Christian scholar and an Egyptian lawyer: “Patience with others is Love, Patience with self is Hope, Patience with God is Faith.” If I may add one more to this according to St. Peter’s second letter which we heard this morning, “God’s patience with us is salvation.”
During this season of Advent, we hear the theme of preparation and patience. These two are always interconnected. Preparation always presupposes an act of patience. Imagine you’re throwing a surprise party for your loved one. You will prepare a birthday cake, candles, and gifts. You’ll also decorate the place with balloons etc. Then, you’ll wait patiently until the birthday person arrives. This image of a surprise party might be what Advent is like to us, waiting for the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth. This time, I would like us to flip the side. Let’s place ourselves on the other side where God is preparing a surprise party and patiently waiting for us to be seen, felt, and experienced. It’s not that we’re waiting. God is. Advent becomes the season when we notice God who is always patiently waiting for us, who is constantly coming to our midst. We are the ones who are invited to walk into the darkroom where God’s surprise party is about to happen when all the lights are lit. We’re the ones who will be given a feast of God’s kingdom in our hearts. How do we then join this surprise party of God? It’s through contemplation and action. It’s as if we’re walking into a dark room where a surprise is about to happen when lights are turned on. Advent can be considered as the time for us to raise our spiritual awareness to the very presence of God within ourselves. God is so close to us that we cannot see. It’s like we cannot see what’s attached to our foreheads because it’s too close. Advent calls us to the life of contemplation which opens our eyes to see God in our neighbors in need. Contemplation goes like this in my personal experience: We attentively and mindfully sense this intimate nearness of God’s presence as we sit comfortably, close our eyes, and focus on the sensation above our eyebrows around our forehead where the frontal lobe is located. When we pay attention just to that physical sensation, thoughts and feelings tend to disappear or settle down. When there’s no thought or feeling arising, we encounter an experience of things unchanging or unmoving. One thought causes another thought like a chain reaction, which indicates a change of time. It’s like at time t1, a thought T1 happens. T1 causes a second thought T2 at t2. But when there’s no thought or feeling taking place, there is neither T1 nor T2. t1 and t2 are not sensed either. We experience something that goes beyond time and space. This is Peter’s experience of the fact that “...with the Lord, one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day.” With the Lord, there’s no change whatsoever. What’s left when everything else disappears as Peter so powerfully describes, “...the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed” is God. Peter’s dramatic depiction of the impermanent nature of everything that exists can be rephrased in our context of contemplation: What’s left after “...the heavens of holy thoughts will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements of thoughts and feelings will be dissolved with fire…” is God who remains in the depth of our being, reveals to the eyes of our hearts, and restores what’s broken and hurt in us. This is when (beyond time) and where (beyond space) we are “found by God at peace, without spot or blemish.” As there’s no shadow at noon, when the light of God is directly overhead, when we’re in the presence of God, when we’re in union with God, there’s no spot or blemish. My friends in Christ, I encourage all of us to observe this Advent as God’s invitation to the divine surprise party. We may be slow at going to the feast, but God is not slow but patient. Because God’s patience is salvation, we can and must be hopeful, faithful, and compassionate to ourselves and others in the presence of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. I once had an experience with a psychiatrist who was emphasizing his point to his patient how he’s giving full attention in his session. (I’m not sure whether he really gave his full attention to the patient because he picked up his phone in the middle of the session!) This sense of giving full attention, however, has stuck with me since then.
I often reflect on what it means for me to give my full attention to people who I encounter and ask myself, “Was I truly listening to my friend to fully understand or just to reply?” Or was I caught up in this habit of competitive listening in which I have a negative reaction to what is being said because of the person who is talking to me? What about confirmation bias that I simply interpret what others say as a means to reinforce or confirm my values or prior beliefs, rather than trying to understand as they are? Then I also ask myself whether I give my full attention to myself. What I’ve come to understand about this sense of giving full attention is how difficult it is to do that! Especially in this whole new world of carrying a small computer in the palms of our hands, it seems the more we connect with social media, the less we connect with ourselves and others (though our pandemic situation redirects us how we can better utilize our technology to connect with others). Our attention span used to be 12 seconds in 2000, and 8 seconds according to Microsoft’s 2015 study. Now, it probably is less than 8 seconds. At this point, you might wonder why I’m talking about this problem of attention. Here’s the reason why. I would like us to develop a spiritual practice of giving full attention as we enter into the season of Advent. As we wait for the coming of Christ, our spiritual preparation is quite simple that we just need to pay attention. Then, to what do we give our full attention? Nothing. No images. No words. I would like us to walk into the cloud of unknowing where we try not to think of anything else. Whenever a thought or a feeling arises, you can simply say simple words or phrases that can help you get back such as “God,” “love,” or “let go, let God.” These words or phrases are not to be reflected on but used as an anchor to ground you back in your being. That very moment of full attention, which would last less than 8 seconds, is when God’s presence is experienced. That we become aware of God’s presence in which we sense peace or serenity manifests we’re one with God. Pay attention to no thing since God is not a thing! This presence of God in and of itself is the coming of God in us, Christ. Advent can be understood as the moment when we start giving full attention to the presence of God, the moment when we begin to set aside our thoughts and feelings so that God who is always present can reveal God’s loving countenance. In this moment, we see we have been God’s full attention! This spiritual practice of entering into the cloud of unknowing doesn’t demand anything but ourselves. This is the grace of God that St. Paul talks about in today’s lesson. It has been given you in Christ. The presence of God is the grace of God being available to us wherever and whenever we are. So that Paul is confident, “...you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” He goes further, “He [God] will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We might have stumbled upon the word “blameless” but it’s possible. When we’re not tainted by any thoughts or feelings, we are indeed blameless. When we act while giving full attention to the presence of God and others, our acts are blameless and selfless. Due to the increasing number of Covid-19 cases, we’ll have more time for solitude, not loneliness or isolation, in which we can actually practice expanding our attention span. The more and deeper we encounter the presence of God, the more we love our union with God, and the more we become available to our neighbors in need. In a way, this spiritual practice of walking into the cloud of unknowing is a practice of forgetting oneself or as ancient contemplatives would say, “self-abandonment to God” that we ourselves are not in our own way to reach out to others in need. During this season of Advent, let us not be in the way. Let us set ourselves aside. Let us offer our full attention to the coming of God who has already come to us. Amen. Regarding the coming of the kingdom of God or the day of the Lord, both Jesus and St. Paul share in common that it comes like a thief at night. Some might have a vast interest in finding out exactly when and where it will arrive but it’s obviously missing the point. It comes LIKE a thief at night, which does not mean God’s coming will literally happen at night. God comes every single moment. As long as we set aside ourselves including our thoughts, feelings, and sense, God is seen within and without us.
What must be more troubling about this coming of the day of the Lord is whether we really “know it will come like a thief in the night” as St Paul writes to the Thessalonians. He even goes further, “Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers and sisters, you do not need to have anything written to you.” I find his words testing my Christian knowledge which makes me a bit anxious. I really think I need something written to me. I kind of want to teach him our modern saying, “If you didn’t document it, it didn’t happen!” As I understand it, however, what Paul is saying is that we’re supposed to know about this as if this wisdom is written in our hearts. This knowledge of God’s coming to us is experienced in ourselves. Metaphors used for those who do not know that the day of the Lord comes like a thief at night in today’s lesson are pointing us to one spiritual condition of being drunk or asleep. We constantly hear the message of Jesus and Paul, “let us keep awake and be sober.” This time, rather than talking about what it means for us to be awake and sober, what does it look like when we are asleep and drunk? The quickest way to see it is to revisit our personal experience of being asleep, drowsy, and drunk. Physiologically, if we consume too much alcohol, we get all of them! What about drowsy driving? I remember when I was getting so drowsy while driving, I sang loudly out of tune, slapped my face, or pinch my thigh to wake myself up. In this condition of being asleep, drowsy, or drunk, we do not see things as they are. Our ability to rationally assess things is severely deprived. Thus, Paul describes people who are drunk and asleep belong to the night or are in darkness. It doesn’t matter whether they’re actually asleep or drunk at night time but because they’re spiritually asleep and drunk, their world is like being dark at night. What can wake up the asleep? What can sober up the drunk? What brightens this spiritual darkness? I can easily say, “God,” but this is a cop-out if I do not say how. True spirituality is not vague but quite concrete because it is always rooted in the reality where God shows God’s very hidden countenance. I do not know all the occasions that can wake up and sober up our sleepy and drunk hearts. But I know one life experience where we can be awake and sober. It’s when we face our mortality. As a hospital chaplain, I meet people who in their stage of life are somewhat forced to face their very human nature. Some find this hospital experience as their turning point of life while others call it the darkest time of their lives. For some, this reality of human mortality is something they’re familiar with. For others, this may feel like a thief coming at night. Something so essential which has been stored in the corner of our spiritual garage dusts off itself and finally reveals itself with the fundamental question about life, “What matters? Who matters?” I want to call this Something as the primal or ultimate reality or God. When we encounter this Something, we come home to the source of our being. Without letting any thoughts to justify our reason for being or feelings to turn our focus on ourselves, we are simply one with God. This thoughtless and emotionless experience can sound terrifying but it may be because we are too addicted to ourselves, our thoughts and feelings. Instead, it fills us with God’s peace, wisdom, and compassion. This is why contemplation matters to us. It is the way of communing with and in God, which we also commune with others. We do not have to know exactly when the day of the Lord comes because we live in God’s eternal oneness with us. The day of the Lord is everyday and every moment. It is neither dark nor bright. In God, everything is one, and beyond one. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
|