Breaking the Word: When Time Touches Eternity

Saturday, December 25, 2021

When Time Touches Eternity

Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord

(Mass During the Day)

Readings: Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 97(98):1-6; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-5,9-14

Give me one moment in time, when I'm racing with destiny. Then in that one moment of time, I will feel, I will feel eternity...

My dear friends, do you remember these words? They’re taken from a song written for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, and sung by the late Whitney Houston. The song expresses an athlete’s desire for sporting achievement. To feel eternity in one moment of time. I imagine this is what Loh Kean Yew must have felt, when he became the first Singaporean badminton world champion. But it’s not just athletes who desire this, right? We all do. Isn’t this why we get all excited when our team wins? We want to know what it’s like to triumph, especially if our life is stressful, and filled with more defeats than victories, more failures than successes. We want to share the experience of eternity.

And yet, we also know that, however intense the victory, however great the achievement, it will all eventually fade away. The touch of eternity is only a figure of speech. We remain creatures of time. Which is why the Mystery we celebrate today is so precious. For what is the Birth of Christ, if not that moment in history when Eternity literally steps into time? Isn’t this what our readings help us to appreciate?

At various times in the past… God spoke… through the prophets; but in our own time… he has spoken to us through his Son. The Word, who was with God in the beginning, and through whom all things came to be… was made flesh, and lived among us… Through the fragile little baby, laid in the manger at Bethlehem, the eternal God reaches into time, to touch a people who have suffered not just military defeat, but moral and spiritual failure. Prompted by steadfast love and mercy, through this helpless infant, the Lord has made known his salvation, the Lord is consoling his people.

It is no accident then, that the Nativity scene is so important to our celebration. For when we gaze upon that baby with the eyes of faith, and recall what his birth means for us, we truly allow ourselves to touch Eternity. And it’s important to see that we do this not through any achievement of our own. For like the people of Israel, we too know failure. For example, the failure to work together, as an international community, to ensure a more even distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, and to prevent the growth of more variants like Omicron.

No, when we gaze upon the baby in the manger, it’s not to glory in our own triumphs, but to wonder at all that God has suffered and won for us. It is to savour not just the Word’s Incarnation, but also his Passion, Death and Resurrection. It is to claim the power he offers us, to become children of God. To obtain the strength to shine out in the world with the light of his love. To live no longer only in time, but also for eternity.

Sisters and brothers, it’s likely that whenever Loh Kean Yew replays that moment of his victory, either in his mind or on a screen, he finds the courage and energy to keep on striving. This Christmas, what will we do to faithfully revisit that moment in time, when Eternity comes to energise us?

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Breaking News: Ordinary Time

Apart from those seasons having their own distinctive character, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks remain in the yearly cycle that do not celebrate a specific aspect of the mystery of Christ. Rather, especially on the Sundays, they are devoted to the mystery of Christ in all its aspects. This period is known as Ordinary Time. Ordinary Time begins on Monday after the Sunday following 6 January and continues until Tuesday before Ash Wednesday inclusive. It begins again on Monday after Pentecost and ends before Evening Prayer I of the First Sunday of Advent. This is also the reason for the series of liturgical texts found in both the Roman Missal and The Liturgy of the Hours (Vol. III - IV), for Sundays and weekdays in this season. ~ General Norms for the Liturgical Year & Calendar, 43-44

From 36th Jesuit General Congregation

It is our union with one another in Christ that testifies to the Good News more powerfully than our competences and abilities.... In our individualistic and competitive age, we should remember that the community plays a very special role since it is a privileged place of apostolic discernment.... The Jesuit community is a concrete space in which we live as friends in the Lord. This life together is always at the service of mission, but because these fraternal bonds proclaim the Gospel, it is itself a mission. –Companions in a Mission of Reconciliation and Justice (CMRJ), nn. 7-9.

With the poor, we can learn what hope and courage mean.... In our communities and apostolates, we hear the call to rediscover hospitality to strangers, to the young, to the poor, and to those who are persecuted. Christ himself teaches us this hospitality. –CMRJ, nn. 15-16.

At the heart of Ignatian spirituality is the transforming encounter with the mercy of God in Christ that moves us to a generous personal response. The experience of the merciful gaze of God on our weakness and sinfulness humbles us and fills us with gratitude, helping us to become compassionate ministers to all.... For us Jesuits, compassion is action, an action discerned together. Yet we know that there is no authentic familiarity with God if we do not allow ourselves to be moved to compassion and action by an encounter with the Christ who is revealed in the suffering, vulnerable faces of people, indeed in the suffering of creation. –CMRJ, nn. 19-20.

(T)he Society must respond more decisively to the Church’s call for a new evangelization, giving special emphasis to ministry to and with the young and with families.... A special gift Jesuits and the Ignatian family have to offer to the Church and her mission of evangelization is Ignatian spirituality, which facilitates the experience of God and can therefore greatly help the process of personal and communal conversion. –CMRJ, nn. 22-23.

In many societies, there is an increased level of conflict and polarization, which often gives rise to violence that is all the more appalling because it is motivated and justified by distorted religious convictions. In such situations, Jesuits, along with all who seek the common good, are called to contribute from their religious-spiritual traditions towards the building of peace, on local and global levels. –CMRJ, n. 28.

Pope Francis has emphasized the fundamental connection between the environmental crisis and the social crisis in which we live today. Poverty, social exclusion, and marginalization are linked with environmental degradation. These are not separate crises but one crisis that is a symptom of something much deeper: the flawed way societies and economies are organised. The current economic system with its predatory orientation discards natural resources as well as people. For this reason, Pope Francis insists that the only adequate solution must be a radical one. The direction of development must be altered if it is to be sustainable. We Jesuits are called to help heal a broken world, promoting a new way of producing and consuming, which puts God’s creation at the center.... The multifaceted challenge of caring for our common home calls for a multifaceted response from the Society. We begin by changing our personal and community lifestyles, adopting behaviour coherent with our desire for reconciliation with creation. – CMRJ, nn. 29-30

From 35th Jesuit General Congregation

From General Congregation 35

By sending us to 'those physical and spiritual places which others do not or have difficulty reaching,' the Pope entrusts to us the task to 'build bridges of understanding and dialogue,' according to the best tradition of the Society, in the diversity of its ministries.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 6

To be missioned to this work 'at the New Frontiers of our times' always requires that one also be rooted at the very heart of the Church. This tension, specific to the Ignatian charism, opens the way to true creative fidelity.
- Decree With Renewed Fervor and Dynamism, n. 13

In every mission that we carry out, we seek only to be where (Christ) sends us. The grace we receive as Jesuits is to be and to go with him, looking on the world with his eyes, loving it with his heart and entering into its depths with his unending compassion.
- Decree on Identity, n. 15

For ultimately, there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look. We must communicate this look and provide a pedagogy inspired by the Spiritual Exercises, that carries people - especially the young - into it.
- Decree on Identity, n. 10

Our ministries of proclamation of the Word and the celebration of the Life of Christ in the sacraments continue to be fundamental for our mission and our lives together as Jesuits.
- Decree on Mission, n. 19

The complexity of the problems we face and the richness of the opportunities offered demand that we engage in building bridges between rich and poor and establishing advocacy links of mutual support between those who hold political power and those who find it difficult to voice their interests. Our intellectual apostolate provides an inestimable help in setting up these bridges, offering us new ways of understanding in depth the mechanism and links among our present problems.
- Decree on Mission, n. 28

Jesuit community is not just for mission, it is itself mission.
- Decree on Mission, n. 41

In this global context it is important to highlight the extraordinary potential represented by our character as an international and multicultural body. Acting consistently with this character can not only enhance the apostolic effectiveness of our work but in a fragmented and divided world it can witness to the reconciliation in solidarity of all the children of God.
- Decree on Mission, n. 43

Faith in Jesus Christ teaches us that self-realization comes from self-giving and that freedom is not so much the power to choose as the power to order our choices toward love. At the same time, love for Jesus Christ and the desire to follow him call us to trusting commitment. Commitment to the Word Incarnate cannot be separated from commitment to the concrete manifestations of the Word that are at the center of our lives, the Church and the Society which exists to serve the Church.
- Decree on Obedience, n. 19

Saturday, December 25, 2021

When Time Touches Eternity

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