The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light …

As the ending of this year comes ever closer, we can be confronted with a sense of urgency to make sure all things on our list are ticked off and neatly packaged so we can breathe a sigh of relief. Realistically we know that not to be the case. We Religious have been living with uncertainty for too long to fall into that trap – or perhaps we might need to be reminded again. What better way than Advent : the waiting game of our lives when things hang in incompletion and uncertainty. Oh, if only we could be clearer, more certain, more defined in our future directions. But alas the Holy Spirit of Disturbance – that same Spirit that entered the darkened post-Easter room – continues to wreak havoc in our Church and our Institutes to leave us hanging in anticipation.

The imagery of John the Baptist in the desert is a stark reminder to us that we are required to go out to places that strip us of certainty and leave us hungering and thirsting … but, for what? The restlessness leading up to Christmas surrounds us in our cultures. The rush, the busy-ness and haste to get it all done and then what? Oh to long for the desert time of Advent where we just sit and wait. Can we not imagine what that is like for the young couple anxiously waiting in pregnancy for the birthing that awaits them? But it is always fraught with anxiety: What if? Will there be complications? Will it require a caesarean or be natural? So many unknowns. So too the unknowing surrounding the birth of Jesus the Nazorean. Yet amazingly Matthew and Luke’s communities created their birthing story that burst with angels and shepherds, wise men on dromedaries and a last-minute Airbnb found for two distressed young people awaiting the birth of their child … their hope for the world. What cosmic imagery is used in a star, a flaring forth of energetic hope to lead people, all types of people, to come and see. Shepherds are as welcome as soothsayer kings from exotic lands bringing abundant gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh - all metaphors of a kingly reign gone wrong that will befall this child’s later life. Yet this child is aligned to the origins of David, the Messianic King who was called to unite the divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel [i][1].

But the telling of the story goes further than the tight constraints of a known religion, for this Christmas story draws in foreigners and shepherds, both outsiders to the organised and acceptable religious culture of their day. This disarming Christmas story confronts the reader – you and I – with a dilemma. If we are to follow that star of Bethlehem then it will mean opening our hearts wider to receive the unknown in whatever form that takes.

As Raymond E. Brown the late renowned scripture scholar explained : “...the Gentiles never had so explicit a revelation as was given to those of the Jewish faith. It was through nature that God revealed Godself to the Gentiles and Matthew captures it by depicting the magi receiving a revelation through astrology: the Birth Star associated with the king of the Jews brings them the good news of salvation.” [2]

Indeed, this becomes such a disturbing element, it disarms a fairy tale story of Christmas and turns it upside down. It is the outsiders that discover the ‘good news’ in unconventional ways and are legitimately touched by this mystical encounter with the Divine. It is the lowly shepherds, the least in the ‘Kingdom’ who come and see and know that what is before them is something so profound it will change the world.

As we await this Christmas time in our lives may our hearts be widened and our imaginations stirred to see the profound meaning of what this birthing can do for our world today. May our religious institutes continue to be open to learn from contemporary magi and shepherds about the profound Mystery who keeps revealing.

Happy Christmas to you and your communities.

Br Gerard Brady CFC ,

President, Catholic Religious Australia.

[1] Raymond E.Brown An Adult Christ at Christmas : Essays on the Three biblical Christmas Stories pg18

[2] Pp 19-20