Welcome to our Celebration of Advent!
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Advent Reflections by Sheila O’Handley, Diocesan Hermit
Advent and Christmas can evoke soul-heart questions that have frequented the human spirit from the beginning of human consciousness… soul-heart questions seeking understanding which are often inconceivable to the intellect, questions such as: the Mystery of the origins of life? of spirit? of soul? from whence did I come? why am I here? and does life have meaning?
Today these same soul-heart questions continue to occupy the human spirit; however, these very questions are over-shadowed by present day concerns such as: world conflict, financial insecurity, survival of planet earth, the moral impact of artificial intelligence, and the relevancy of faith, religion, spirituality, even GOD.
Hopefully, during Advent, these reflections will provide an opportunity to enter the landscape of the soul-heart, and in a spirit of contemplative pondering, ground us in HOPE to trust LIFE. So, join me as I attempt to put some reflective content around these soul-heart questions.
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Fourth Week of Advent
…and a little child shall lead them…Isaiah 11:6
Fifty years ago, my niece Sonya gave this picture to me. It has accompanied me through the years, and now it rests on the wall in my apartment.
Isaiah, prophet of the Hebrew scriptures and Israel’s great prophet of realism, of comfort, and of hope, prophesied during the dark days of Israel’s history, a future ladened with possibilities… possibilities in the arrival of a child… the child embedded in nature, accompanied by animals, and birthed by a young maiden… “the maiden is with child and will soon give birth to a son whom she will call Immanuel” … God with us.
This ancient prophetic story foretold the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, and is feasted every year at Christmas; even though we do not know the actual date of his birth, the Christian scriptures tell us that he “grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man”. (Luke 2:52)
Christmas is essentially a celebration of ‘soul-heart knowing’ that we are the Beloved of God. It is also a cosmic love story affirming that all of LIFE is held together in the Mystery of Love – a PRESENCE ever ancient, ever new, and ever present among us.
Raimon Panikkar, philosopher, theologian, and a great supporter of interreligious dialogue described the cosmic love story as a union of three – the Divine, the Human, and the Cosmic, in these words, “as a dwelling within one another”.
Let Christmas be a reminder of this ‘dwelling within one another’, and that this ‘Cosmic Love Story’ is now dependent upon us to imagine, and to narrate in every act of love, forgiveness, welcoming, in every effort toward peace, justice, and compassion, in every creative invention… in dance, music, poetry, art, and scientific advancement. We continue the birthing of God in the world today.
During this the final week before Christmas, let us take time to be with this Love Union of ’dwelling within one another’.
Let our mantra be… ‘dwelling within one another’.
Light a candle in solidarity with our Jewish sisters and brother as they celebrate Hanukkah.
Be comforted with these words… “Do not be afraid said the angel. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the peoples”. (Luke 2:10)
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Third Week of Advent
There is a ‘knowing’ that we are in possession of, without ever having been told, a knowing without ever having been taught. We call this knowing intuitive or mystical knowing. It is love-knowing homed in the soul-heart, and it has never forgotten who we are… the Beloved of God.
Thomas Merton, social activist and Trappist monk contended that Love is the deepest form of knowledge.
Jesuit priest, scientist, and mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, maintained that the core energy of the universe, and of evolution is love, and that this love-energy is the Presence of God in all things.
Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth century mystic of Divine Love, emphasized that between God and the soul there is no between, simply a ‘oneing’. (Julian, created the word ‘oneing’ to describe the unity between God and the human. Her book, Revelations of Divine Love, is recognized as the earliest English language work written by a women).
Carl Gustav Jung, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, referred to soul-heart knowledge as the innate religious instinct encoded in the very soul/psyche of each human being.
It is no coincident then, that these great thinkers, and lovers knew that the mystical knowing of the soul-heart is aligned with the Creative Love Impulse of Divinity, and gives answer to the soul-heart question… “why I am here”? Love is the answer, to love and to be loved.
Culturally, the giving and the receiving of gifts at Christmas seems to be out of control in society. Let us then be counter-culture gift-givers, and decide upon giving one of the following gifts of love during the Third Week of Advent:
- Feed the hungry
- Offer drink to the thirsty
- Welcome the stranger
- Clothe the naked
- Visit the sick
- Visit the imprisoned
See Matthew’s Gospel Chapter 25:23-33
For a feast of Divine Love, delight yourself in a read of Julian of Norwich’s little book – Revelations of Divine Love.
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Second Week of Advent
As we move into the second week of Advent, grounded in the reality that we are born of Divine Love, let us recall, once again, what it is like to be loved like that. And while astronomers tell us that we are made of stardust, let us not forget that we are made of Love.
Let us now give some reflection to what Jesus of Nazareth, our Jewish brother, had to say about this Divine Reality – that we are born of Divine Love. Jesus simply spoke of this Divine-Intimacy between the cosmos, the human, and the Divine, in symbolic imagery of PRESENCE. A Presence, active in us in the cosmos, in the here and now, and in anticipation of future fulfilment.
Jesus’ primary image of Divine-Intimacy was the kingdom of God – “The kingdom of God is within you, in the midst of you”. Luke 17:20-21. We might substitute the word ‘community’ for the word ‘kingdom’, so as to remove any sense of imperial power or royal ascent to the meaning of the Divine kingdom proclaimed by Jesus.
Jesus engaged the technique of parable story-telling to explain what the ‘the community’ of God looked like – loving, personal, relational, and communal, for instance:
The Parable of the Mustard Seed: Luke 13:18-19 – God’s Community is active in discerning choices which nurture maturing growth.
The Parable of the Wedding Feast: Matthew: 22:1-14 – God’s Community is offered to all, inviting freedom of choice, and is manifested in an elaborate banquet of celebration.
The Parable of the Yeast: Matthew 13:33 – God’s Community is revealed as abundance, in the ordinary gesture of a woman’s addition of yeast to bread-making.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son: Luke 15:11-32 – God’s Community is rooted in love, reveals what forgiveness looks like.
An Encounter at a Well: John 4:1-42 – God’s Community breaks all social and cultural barriers as Jesus and a woman-outcast enter into personal story-telling at a well.
God’s Community was Jesus’ focus. He internalized his lived experience of the Jewish Torah as a direct experience of God as LOVE. A consciousness of Divine Love homed within him, as in us.
We are homed in the intimacy of God’s Community of LOVE. We are pregnant with the PRESENCE of the God of Jesus. And we are the midwives, birthing God’s Presence in the world when we tell and retell the parable-stories of our lives.
During this the second week of Advent, let us come home to who we are – parables of Divine Love.
Given that Advent is a time of anticipation, of expectation, of the coming of Divinity – God among us in Jesus of Nazareth, let our mantra be – I am a
parable of Divine Love
You might also spend some time with one of the Gospels and search out the Parables that describe the Community of God.
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First Week of Advent
As mentioned in the introductory invitation, Advent reflections will offer an opportunity to ponder the soul-heart questions that Advent and Christmas might awaken within us.
Let us begin where most people, at one time or another, entertained the ancient question: whence did I come? This very question is immersed in MYSTERY. God is the most widely used name for this MYSTERY, and is inscribed in the heart of everyone, and in all of creation. The answer we seek accrues more from the intelligence of the soul-heart than from the accumulation of intellectual knowledge and/ or ego achievements.
Saint Catherine of Siena, the 14th century Italian mystic, social activist within the Church, the State, and the society of her day, provides a poignantly descriptive answer to the soul-heart question ‘whence did I come’? In a moment of prayerful pondering, Catherine awakened to the question whence she came, and it is captured in her prayer: “You, eternal God, saw me and knew me in yourself and because you saw me in your light you fell in love with your creature and drew me out of yourself and created me in your image and likeness”.
Catherine experienced what the Christian scriptures in Genesis 1:26-27 underscores – “God created humankind in God’s own image and likeness… male and female God created them”.
Given that the feast of Christmas is celebrated in an environment expressing sentiments of longing for home, of belonging, of love, of gift giving, and of birthing, let us awaken to the MYSTERY of Creative Love from which all LIFE is born. We are the Beloved of God – born of LOVE – whole, not broken, nor wounded by sin.
Let Catherine’s prayer be a prayer mantra during the first week of Advent. Let it gestate within us until we know experientially that we are born in and of LOVE, and in all ways. Let us imagine being loved like that – IN THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF DIVINE LOVE – MAKING.
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Advent Family Prayer
God of Love, Your Son, Jesus, is your greatest gift to us.
He is a sign of Your love.
Help us walk in that love during the weeks of Advent,
as we wait and prepare for His coming.
We pray in the name of Jesus, our Saviour. Amen.
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Journey Through Advent: Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops
Each video in the series serves as an introduction to the liturgical season of Advent and presents reflections on the Gospel readings for each Sunday leading up to Christmas.
This year’s spiritual reflections are delivered by the Most Rev. Wayne Lobsinger, Auxilliary Bishop of Hamilton and the Most Reverend and the Most Reverend Guy Desrochers, C.Ss.R., Archbishop of Moncton.
See all videos:
Journey Through Advent: English
Cheminer ensemble durant l’Avent
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