Thursday 29 December
5th day within the octave of Christmas Saint Thomas Becket, Bishop, Martyr Gospel - Luke 2:22-35 “Prompted by the Spirit he came to the Temple and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the Law required, he took him into his arms and blessed God”. How many times, we were prompted to do good things and we just ignored the prompting by the Holy Spirit. Simeon did this because his only intention was to set eyes on the Christ of the Lord. When we have different intentions, it’s difficult to follow the prompting by the Holy Spirit. All our intentions must be centered around the one intention. The intention of seeing Christ. When we have this disposition, we will follow the promptings by the Holy spirit. Otherwise, we follow other intentions according to our selfishness. In all those occasions, we lost the opportunity to take Jesus in our arms and bless God. Let’s reflect: Do we follow the promptings by the Holy Spirit or the promptings of our selfishness?
Wednesday 28 December
The Holy Innocents, Martyrs Gospel - Matthew 2:13-18 “Herod was furious when he realised that he had been outwitted by the wise men, and in Bethlehem and its surrounding district he had all the male children killed who were two years old or under, reckoning by the date he had been careful to ask the wise men.” This is what happens when man continues with his plan without recognizing the hand of God in the things that happen around us. We don’t see the plan of God because we are blind by our plan. We pretend to follow the plan of God with the intention of making use of even God’s plan to our own self interests. When we find that the plan of God is different then we become furious like Herod. This is followed normally by accusing everyone else for the failure of our plan. All because we don’t want to accept the plan of God. Let’s reflect: Recognize the hand of God in our plans and adjust our plans to suit that hand of God and not viceversa.
Tuesday 27 December
Saint John, Apostle, Evangelist Gospel - John 20:2-8 “Then the other disciple who had reached the tomb first also went in; he saw and he believed”. The mystery of salvation is not something which you watch from outside. Mere knowledge is not enough. You must go inside. You must become part of that mystery. You must live that reality. It’s not about having information. It’s about having experience. To have the experience we have to go in. Going into the mystery to live the mystery. When you personally become part of the mystery you see beyond the linen clothes lying on the ground. There you see and believe. Often as spectators we have questions and doubts. But when we enter into the mystery, we see answers and we believe. Let’s reflect: Do we want to go in and become part of the mystery to see and believe or not?
Monday 26 December
Saint Stephen, the first Martyr Gospel - Matthew 10:17-22 “But when they hand you over, do not worry about how to speak or what to say;” Most of our worries are about how to perform in a certain situation. We don’t know how the situation will be and we don’t know what situation we will be when we want to face this situation. So, we have to really work in our faith places, where we can really find ourselves in midst our busy schedules. How to work on it? In the gospel we read, “what you are to say will be given to you when the time comes; because it is not you who will be speaking; the Spirit of your Father will be speaking in you.”. Let the Spirit of the Father speak in us. Let our voice be low so that the Spirit of the Father can really speak in us. In the midst our preoccupations, we have this assurance, that God loves us. Let’s reflect: Let the Spirit of the Father speak in us.