In less than a week we shall be celebrating Christmas. It is not going to be a Christmas like any before it. For months now, our lives have been marked by Covid-19. Almost everything has changed, and Christmas is no exception. We have been instructed not to hold large gatherings, not to have our usual family Christmas meals, and not to celebrate our Christmas Mass as we would have loved to do. And yet, not all is lost. In a way, this year we have the opportunity to focus on what really matters, what is truly essential to celebrate the birth of Jesus. A few days ago, Pope Francis reflected precisely on this:

“I would like to urge everyone to "hasten" towards Christmas, the real one, that is, the birth of Jesus Christ. This year, restrictions and inconveniences await us; but let us think about the Christmas of the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph: it was not all rosy! How many difficulties they had! How many worries! Yet faith, hope and love guided and supported them. May it be the same for us! May these difficulties help us, too, to purify a little the way of living Christmas, of celebrating, leaving behind consumerism: may it be more religious, more authentic, more true.”

Today’s gospel takes us to where the Christmas story started: the annunciation of Mary. By her “yes” to the angel’s message, Mary became the mother of Jesus, to whom she gave birth nine months later. The story’s beauty and simplicity should not stop us from noticing what was going on inside Mary during that encounter. Prior to that meeting with the archangel Mary was a normal middle-eastern young girl in love with Joseph. Both had dreams of a beautiful future together with their future family. Now everything has been turned upside down. She is supposed to become pregnant, but without her man’s intervention. Her future marriage and, indeed, her life are in grave danger. She somehow understands that God wants something extraordinary from her, but she has no idea of how it is going to happen and what the consequences are going to be. At the end of it, Mary was only able to say, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be done to me according to your word.” The strongest words ever uttered by a person of faith! She recognizes herself to be a mere servant of God, someone who is willing to do whatever the Master desires. And yet, she knows that she cannot do it. What is being asked of her is beyond her abilities and imagination. So, she leaves everything in God’s hands. “Let it be done to me”, she says, rather than “I shall do it”. She knows God must be the author of whatever he is asking of her if He wants it done.

King David had to learn this kind of openness and availability to God. He was used to being powerful and popular. At one stage he realized that it was not right that he was living in luxury while God’s arc was in a simple tent. So, he thought of building a temple for it – a noble idea, the prophet tells him. Yet God soon reminds him how it was, actually God who did all the wonders and powerful feats in David’s life. And so, it will be God himself who will undertake the construction of the temple. God always takes the initiative; He is always in charge.

In essence, this is what Christmas is all about. It is the story of God taking the initiative and coming to us. It reminds me of the day when once, before we had GPS in our cars, I was supposed to meet an old friend who had moved to another town. When I arrived at the town, I phoned him saying that I was next to a certain shop and across a small church. He said, “I know exactly where you are. You stay there, and I’ll come and pick you up”.

​Christmas is a gentle reminder that God knows exactly where we are and comes to pick us up.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances”. In a time of pandemic, these words coming from St Paul in today’s second reading might sound strange. In a time when some of us have lost jobs, or at least some of their income, when some have lost loved ones, when many are feeling the pain of loneliness and seclusion, when we know that Christmas this year will not be as joyful as we would like it to be, Paul’s words risk of sounding hollow and unreal. But then we remember that the author himself knows what suffering is. He himself had experienced being misunderstood and rejected, abandoned by people who had been close to him, suffered all kinds of injustices and physical pain. So, how can he tell us to rejoice always, to give thanks in all circumstances?

The only reason we could find for this is Paul’s relationship with Jesus Christ. Prior to his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus power, feeling important, having good contacts with important people, being seen as a perfect Pharisee were the only things that mattered for him. Then, after that episode, things changed. For Paul, all that stuff became like rubbish, as he himself declared, when compared to knowing Jesus. Jesus had told us that all he wanted for us was, “that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” From experience, Paul says today that Jesus is faithful. He kept his word. Like St Paul we all have our problems in life. That’s human nature, life with its ups and downs. However, unlike St Paul, instead of rejoicing and giving thanks, we often grumble and complain. Let’s face it, whether you believe or not, problems are not going to change. If there is sickness, an unexpected death, a loss of a job, an injustice occurred, faith is not going to change it. What can change is how you live through that certain situation or negative experience.

This year’s Christmas is not going to be like any other before it. Yet, it’s good to remember that Jesus’ Christmas was much worse than the one you’re going to celebrate. It was a celebration of a lonely family far from known relatives and acquaintances, a story of rejection and of extreme poverty. And yet, the theme of its background music was a hymn of glory to God and peace for us.

In today’s gospel we meet again John the Baptist. In spite of his greatness and the praise poured upon him by Jesus himself, he declares that he is just a voice. Whatever is spoken by him, the tone itself of what is said, is not decided by him but by the speaker himself, who is God. John is happy to be his true self, without pretending to be what he is not or taking the praise that is not his. Maybe one mistake that we often do in our lives is that of trying to do God’s work, to be our own little gods. We want to decide what’s right or wrong, what’s good or bad for us. John helps us to prepare ourselves to receive Jesus for who he really is – the one and only God. It is only through Him and in Him that we can find our happiness and peace.

​Let us make space for His coming in our lives during this Advent. Far from the usual noise of Christmases past, may this year’s celebration of Christmas truly bring joy and peace to each and everyone of us. 

John the Baptist. Everything about him speaks of a person who is distant from people. He has a message to proclaim, and yet he “cries out in the wilderness”! This is not what normal people usually do. Normal people, when they have an important message to convey to as many people as possible would go to social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, naturally on numerous groups! Not so, John the Baptist. He went into the desert, where crowds are never present. And yet, there was something special about John. People flocked to listen to him.

John’s message was plain and simple. Unlike many of today’s great orators and politicians who claim large audiences, he did not promise a better and easier life, neither did he speak of wealth, affluence or easy money. Rather, his was a simple instruction: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight”.

This is the message the Church presents to us, as we begin our second week of Advent. Prepare the way of the Lord. In John’s time many people were expecting the coming of the Messiah, the one promised many years before. Now, it seemed that the time had come. The long-awaited Saviour was coming, and people were being urged by John to prepare for him the way. Many heeded John’s invitation. They had a good look at their lives, they recognized weaknesses and mistakes, and they went into the water confessing their sins, openly expressing their desire for a better life.

In the midst of all this John makes one of the most beautiful promises. He tells his people that he is baptizing them with water, a symbol of their repentance and their desire of a better life. Soon there was to come another one, obviously referring to Jesus, who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit. Both John and the people around him knew that, no matter how strong their desire of conversion is, they cannot do it on their own. The Holy Spirit, who will be gifted to the people by Jesus, will make this possible. This is the Spirit you and I have received in our baptism.

On Christmas we shall be celebrating the greatest event in history – the day when God became a human being like us. It is a reminder that we have not been left alone, that God is with us. In today’s first reading the prophet Isaiah busts out in that beautiful song “Comfort, O comfort my people …” Good times are coming when “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed”. God will show himself as the shepherd who feeds his flock and carries his lambs in his bosom. Jesus is the incarnation of our God, a God who loves and who cares. This is, indeed, good news.

​As we prepare ourselves for Christmas, let us, too, prepare the way for the Lord to really come into our lives. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to show us what needs to be changed or improved in our lives, and to give us the strength to do it. 

Like so many other things throughout 2020, this Advent is not going to be like any other before it. We’re entering it while we are in lockdown. We’ll be missing out on the special Advent liturgies, the Advent hymns speaking to us about waiting and gently guiding us into an atmosphere of eager expectation ... together with the candle on the Advent wreath, and the colour purple. And yet, in a few weeks’ time we shall still celebrate Christmas. Again, it will be a different one than the ones before it – no big parties or large family gatherings. Our children won’t be doing their Christmas plays to the delight of a packed hall or church. We’ll only have the essential and, probably, that won’t be a bad thing! The prayer-cry of the prophet in our first reading for this Sunday echoes in the silence of our homes: “Return, for the sake of your servants ... Oh, that you would tear the heavens open and come down!”

The prophet’s prayer will surely be answered. On Christmas Day we shall be celebrating the fact that our God is the Emmanuel, the “God-is-with-us”. Rather than reminding God to come to us, the prophet’s cry is a reminder to each one of us the our God is always with us. Our God never deserts us.

The gospel of today invites us to get ready, to be prepared, to “stay awake”. Let us not allow the fact that we are not going to church lead us into a spiritual slumber. During Advent we are reminded of the beautiful fact that God is always with us. Sometimes we tend to forget this reality. God is with us in so many different ways in our lives. He is with us in the sacraments – even though we cannot celebrate Mass, we can still pay the occasional visit and spend some time with Him in church. It helps! He is with us through His word, which we can read any time during the day. He is with us in the silence of our homes whenever we decide to take some time off from our normal routine and use it for a short prayer-break.

Then He comes to visit us in other ways too. Remembering the gospel when he told us “whatever you do for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me”, he comes to visit us in the face of the other person: the relative who is in trouble (whether it’s his fault or not, it doesn’t matter!), the beggar on the street, the neighbour who needs some help, the sick or lonely person who is longing for a visit or a phone call. Indeed, our God is never too far from us!

​Whether our churches will open again or not during this Advent, let us make sure that we are prepared to meet Him whenever He decides to pay us a visit. May this Advent lead us to a true encounter with our God, whose name is “God-is-with-us”.