“Now, Master, you can let your servant go in peace, just as you promised; because my eyes have seen the salvation which you have prepared for all the nations to see, a light to enlighten the pagans and the glory of your people Israel.”           (Luke 2: 25-32)

What was it about Simeon?  Yes, he was upright and devout but so, I’m sure, were many others.  Why did the Lord single out Simeon and give him that certain promise?

I wonder how Simeon would have answered that question?  A lesser person might have claimed that such a promise was a reward for being good.  I’m sure that Simeon, however, would have seen beyond himself to the One who gave him the promise: ‘I do not know why the Lord has made me this promise;’ he might have said, ‘I do not pretend to know his thoughts.  I do know that I am not worthy of such a great gift but in humility I accept it from him and wait in hope for its fulfilment.’

A lesser person might have kept the promise to himself and, upon seeing the Christ child in the Temple might simply have thought, silently, ‘the Lord promised that I’d see Christ before I die and now here he is.  Wow.  He must love me much more than these others because they don’t notice anything special about him at all’.

… but not Simeon.  Simeon, ‘an upright and devout man’, began there and then to praise God, letting the Light begin to give glory to Israel by enabling many others to recognise Christ the Lord in this tiny child, who until that moment was presumably was not attracting second glances from the others in the Temple.  Although the promise had been made only to Simeon, its fulfilment affected many others and brought glory to God.

Christ our Light lives on in you and me.  The choices we make every day can either ensure that it is kept hidden, with only just enough fuel to keep alight, or ensure that we show Christ’s salvation to the nations in a blazing fire of charity.

 ‘My grace is enough for you, Paul; my power is made perfect in weakness.’

This is taken from the Lord’s response to Paul (in 2 Cor 12) when he pleaded with the Lord to take from him ‘a thorn in the flesh’, which he had been given to stop him getting too proud.  Remembering those words must have been very comforting for Paul when he was experiencing his extreme hardships and setbacks.  As Paul explains, those words of the Lord’s enabled him to endure cheerfully the ‘insults, hardships, persecutions, and the agonies I go through for Christ’s sake.  For it is when I am weak that I am strong’.  

It was the use of the Apostle’s name, however, that made that Antiphon really stand out for me.  This insertion of Paul’s name into the biblical quotation really brought home to me the fact that God was speaking to him personally, individually.   We know, but perhaps often forget, that Christ speaks to us personally through the scriptures.  Inserting ourselves into the text as we read (something which we have explored in greater depth here) can help us to listen more actively to the scriptures.  And remembering that God calls us by name each and every time we read the scriptures will help us respond to His call.

Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by your name, you are mine.

Isaiah 43:1

‘The time has come.  The Kingdom of God is close at hand.  Repent, and believe the Good News’ (Mk 1:14-15).

Let’s reflect on those statements in reverse order.

 ‘Repent, and believe the Good News.’

Jesus does not try to form his will-be followers all at once but is content with simply asking them to make a start.  Repentance, then, is the first step, and one which is not true if it is not joined with a determination to mend ones ways.  Turning away from sin is a life-long struggle, but we are not without help, because we have the mercy and grace of God always available to us in the sacrament of reconciliation.

A true belief in the Good News means responding generously to whatever it means for us, now, in our lives.  Each time we read or listen to the Gospel, we should ask ‘what does it mean for me to believe this Good News?  How is God calling me to respond?’  It can be hard to trust that God will not ask of us something that is too difficult.  However, the God who made us (and knows us better than we know ourselves) knows what is good for us and will not ask for more than we can give.

‘The Kingdom of God is close at hand’

…it is if we co-operate with God’s will.  Otherwise, we can let it slip through our fingers as we miss those grace-filled opportunities to make him known, loved and glorified.  We need to ensure that we are aware of the proximity of his Kingdom every day and pray for the grace to do what we can to make ‘Thy Kingdom come’.

 ’The time has come’

The time has come for what?  For repentance, primarily.  It is so easy to avoid our daily examination of conscience and so easy to come less frequently than is good for us to the sacrament of reconciliation.

The time has come for us to respond generously to whatever God is asking of us, confident that he will supply us with the requisite grace, strength and courage and that he will not ask of us more than we can give.

God will never be outdone in generosity.  The time has come – why wait?

‘The almighty and most holy Word of the Father pervades the whole of reality, everywhere unfolding his power and shining on all things visible and invisible.  He sustains it all and binds it all together in himself.  He leaves nothing devoid of his power but gives life and keeps it in being throughout all of creation and in each individual creature.’

Those are St Athanasius’ words, taken from a discourse against paganism.  I wonder if he wrote it in the winter, when the sun rises and sets behind thick layers of cloud and life lies hidden in dormant plants and hibernating animals?  It is through the Winter that God most clearly ‘sustains it all and binds it all together in himself’, so we need to look more closely for the fingerprints of the Creator upon his creation.  In the Spring, however, we see God  ‘unfolding his power and shining on all things visible and invisible’.   The snowdrops are already out, in all their miniature glory, there are shoots of other Spring bulbs to follow and the birds are in good voice: the unfolding of His power is not far away.

Whether Winter or Spring, the Word of the Father pervades the whole of time and space.  The Lord of all creation ‘leaves nothing devoid of his power’… but we need eyes to see.  Let us pray that we may have the grace to see the Word of the Father ‘in each individual creature’ and in every season.

  – What can I give Him?

Those words have crossed my mind several times during Advent, though admittedly with my brother-in-law in mind, rather than the Child in the manger.  However, the question we asked in the Bleak Midwinter comes to the fore most especially now, as we concentrate on the manifestation of the Word made flesh at the Epiphany.

For the purposes of our reflection, let’s address this question in the way that we might address it when asked of a dear relation.

- Well, what does He want?

- What does He like?

 - What do I have to offer Him that He might find useful?

- Perhaps He’d like a subscription – something He’d really enjoy?

As a new mother, it is almost impossible to resist baby’s desire to be picked up.  Although the cord is cut, the tie remains phenomenally strong and those kicking legs, the waving arms, the crying or gurgling and the smiles (when they come) pull the mother with something akin to a strong magnetic attraction towards her newborn.  Even if one is given the opportunity to catch up on much needed sleep in another room while a kind husband or mother looks after baby, sleep or even rest is impossible if that room is within earshot of the crying newborn.

This would have been Mary’s experience, just as it has been mine and every mother’s.  Whilst not entertaining any illusions of grandeur, the child in the manger to some extent treats each of us as ‘mother’, desiring more than we can ever know that we give him the attention he deserves.  He wants us to take him to our hearts, to be adored and treasured.   And just as a newborn settles happily in the arms of his mother, so too is Jesus delighted when we come to him.

Let us take Christ child to ourselves today and every day and live our lives with him in our arms, so that we may be made worthy of his presence.

And then, in the Temple in Jerusalem, what was it about the baby Jesus that enabled Simeon to recognise him, that moved him to take him in his arms and sing God’s praises?

Sometimes, I find myself wishing that I could have been there, to see Jesus in the flesh; not only at the incarnation, but throughout his earthly life.  What was it about him that inspired others to leave everything and follow him?

I recently discovered that Teresa of Avila would have been laughing at me for holding this attitude.  James McCaffrey writes ‘the Lord had given her such living faith that when she heard some persons saying that they would like to have lived at the time Christ our Good walked in the world, she used to laugh to herself.  She wondered what more they wanted since in the most Blessed Sacrament they had him just as truly present as he was then.’[1]

We, who live in the Anno Domini era, we are the blessed ones who have the Lord with us always.  The joy of the shepherds and the wonder and gratitude of Simeon are ours too as we behold the child in the manger and reflect that in Christ our Eucharist, he is ‘just as truly present as he was then’.

Let our prayer be, then, that the joy of the shepherds and the wonder and gratitude of Simeon is ours not only this Christmas but always… and ours to share.

However, difficulties in prayer arise not from problems with multi-tasking but an inability to mono-task.  How often have I come to the end of a psalm, only to realise that I’ve been thinking of several other things and ceased praying the psalm (really) at around the second verse?  How often does an examen at the end of a tiring day take twice as long because of the brain’s inability to focus on one thing at a time?  How many times in these last two months have I uttered, ‘and also with you‘ because I’ve been thinking, ‘this child needs the loo,’ or some similar thought?

Praying while we busy our hands with other things good and laudable^*.  However, during our time-that-is-only-for-prayer our aim, our challenge, is to only pray.  This needs preparation.  If we fail to prepare properly for prayer, we set ourselves up for a half-hour’s battle against a multi-tasking brain that can’t resist compiling a shopping list, thinking over a conversation we had yesterday and composing a letter to The Times at the same time. It is like, I suppose, taking the phone ‘off the hook’ in order to give ones attention fully to God.

So, to prepare for prayer: Teresa of Avila wrote of vocal prayer (though it applies to mental prayer too) that only three things are necessary:  an awareness of who we are; an awareness of whom we are addressing and an awareness of what we are saying.  Those first two are the context rather than the focus of our mental prayer: we have placed ourselves in the presence of God, we have sought – and gained – an audience with Him.  Having established ourselves in the presence of God, taking the phone ‘off the hook’, we then converse with ‘Him whom my heart loves’.

It sounds so simple because it is so simple.  Our problem is that we are not sufficiently simple: we find ourselves thinking of several other things besides ‘Him whom my heart loves’.  We need to gain and retain this awareness of who we are and whom we are addressing… then we will be ready to only pray.

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^{* For more on this topic, see ‘Pray while Smoking’}

We have the whole year to enjoy discovering the Jesus revealed to us through St Mark’s writing… but we would really benefit from reading the whole Gospel over the next few days.

In reading the Gospel swiftly, like a novel, we gain a good overview of its style and content and so many aspects of it will show themselves – like themes running through several chapters – which would remain hidden if we only ever approached the Gospel slowly and in small chunks.

Through reading a whole Gospel, we come to know the Evangelist (and St Peter, in this Gospel) much more intimately than we do when reading short passages.

There are only 16 chapters: come on, let’s dive in!

“Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”

By your life… not only by your acts of piety and your acts of charity, however great they may be, but with your whole life.

Our lives, as Catholics, are not only sacramental but follow the rhythm of the liturgical year.  We adopt a penitential mode on Fridays and in Lent through our prayer, fasting and almsgiving; we feast at Easter as well as at Christmas.  We take care to keep Sunday holy… but what about the other holydays of obligation?¹

Tomorrow is the solemnity of All Saints.  Because it is a holyday of obligation, we go to Mass, but apart from that, how do we mark the holyday?  How will our day reflect the liturgical character of the great solemnity?²  Because, in this country, there is no official holyday – schools, offices and factories are open for business as usual – it can be difficult to keep the day as holy as Sunday.  We can try, however, and we can have fun trying!

To celebrate a Feast with a feast seems like a good place to start.³  I don’t think there can be any easier act of evangelisation than eating cake as a means of bearing witness to ones faith!  Pack a tasty cake in your lunchbox and be sure to mention that you have it because it’s All Saints’ Day.  Better still, pack two cakes and give one away.

The saints of God knew as well as anyone else that life is not all piety and charity.  The flip side of fasting when the Church fasts is feasting when she feasts, so “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life” and get baking!

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^{1 In addition to every Sunday, holydays of obligation are Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, Corpus Christi, Mary, Mother of God, Immaculate Conception, Assumption, St Joseph, Ss Peter & Paul and All Saints.  ‘Episcopal Conferences may, however, suppress certain holydays or transfer them to the Sunday (Code of Canon Law 1246 §2)‘, which, of course, they do but that need not stop us marking the days in other ways.}

^{2 For an overview of how we ought to mark these days, see Code of Canon Law 1247 and CCC 2185-8, as well as the E&W Bishops’ document ‘Keeping these days Holy’}

^{3 Yes, I know tomorrow’s a Solemnity – that’s a feast with extra pudding!}