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Reflections for Christmas and Advent


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Reflections for Advent and the Christmas Season

Reflections

About the Reflections' Author


Reflections for Advent and the Christmas Season

Miriam Therese Winter

Introduction

Traditionally Advent is a time of waiting. In a flurry focused on family and friends, we wait for Christmas to unwrap our gifts and wrap our lives with meaning. In our churches and in our spiritual lives, we wait for Christ to come again to fulfill the hopes that remain unfulfilled from that initial coming. Spiritually, we are waiting. Well, it seems to me, as I look around, that we have waited long enough.

It is our responsibility to attend to all that was left undone by the One who was sent to prepare a way of justice and compassion. We, as disciples of Jesus, are not only his followers. We are leaders charged with a mission, believers filled with his spirit, messengers sent, as he was sent, to do the will of God.

Jesus come and gone and coming again does not mean that we are alone in our struggle to make the world a better place in memory of him. The spirit of Jesus is with us, and wonder of wonders, within us. The spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, is God's abiding presence forever incarnate in human flesh as gift to all the ages.

This Advent let us pause to give thanks for this gift that lives within us, and let us recommit ourselves to live in the spirit of Jesus and to do as Jesus did. May every gift we give and receive during this Christmas season remind us of all that we have been given and all that we ourselves have to give throughout the coming year. 

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Using These Reflections

The resources provided here offer individuals, families and other small groups a way to remember the reason we celebrate this holy season. The reflections begin the first week of Advent and follow through the Feast of Epiphany.

Before Advent begins, make an Advent wreath. Find a book with instructions or follow these simple directions. Take a large, flat shallow bowl (at least 9 inches in diameter) and fill it with sand or coarse salt. Place four purple candles securely around the edge of the bowl. Place a large white candle in the center. Make a circle of evergreens and place them around the bowl.

You will also need a manger scene, a Bible and matches. Light one purple candle the week of Advent I; two the week of Advent II, etc. Light all five beginning on Christmas Eve.

Set aside time each week to worship, perhaps before or after a meal on Sundays. Invite those who may be alone to join in your worship.

Mark the family calendar to remember the Holy Innocents on December 28th by using the service in this booklet.

Depending on the ages of those in your group, adults may want to read the biblical reflections beforehand. The "Carols with Justice" could be read or sung several times. Incorporate parts or all of the Advent-Christmas calendar into worship time, especially as a discussion starter.

Gather around the Advent wreath. Take turns reading, lighting the candles, praying, singing and sharing feelings and ideas.

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Reflections

Miriam Therese Winter

First Sunday of Advent

It had been a difficult day. Not your typical July high noon, although it was hot and humid and the children were sprawled and listless. Then again, these were not typical times nor was this my usual setting. I was in a makeshift shelter attending to emaciated children in a village south of Addis Ababa in Ethiopia in Africa.

The famine had raged unabated throughout this devastated country before I arrived as a volunteer for emergency relief service. The two tiny rooms, a haven of refuge, were filled with the sprawl of human lives hungering for survival.

Daily, we shared the bread of life. This day, we prayed for a multiplication of famine biscuits, for supplies had hit rock bottom and replacements had not come. Outside the walls a clamoring crowd pleaded for a handout. Save the last for the children, we said - a nasty but necessary rule. The hardest thing I have ever done was to turn my back on the hungry and tearfully walk away.

Rules are made to be broken. The crippled man with his outstretched hand and the wild, agonizing look in his eye who had been a daily visitor put me to the test. "You turn him away," the young aide said, because she knew I wouldn't. "Give him a biscuit, but only one." I know I shouldn't have done it, but was, oh, so glad I did.

The next day word spread swiftly. There had been a death during the night. The body was by the river. Come quickly, they said, for the sun is hot and the body must be buried. I followed them down an isolated path to a place along the river at a distance from our compound. There was our wild-eyed visitor lying lifeless in the sun. An angry crowd had gathered. They were saying the young man had starved to death and that we were responsible because we had turned him away. For a moment, but only a moment, I felt a flicker of fear.

I approached the body and knelt to pray. The raucous crowd fell silent. Then I reached for a pulse, paused, and announced: "Yes, this man is dead, but he did not die of hunger. See, there is still a bit of biscuit in his hand." A fragment of life-saving biscuit, for him and now for me, was clutched in the dead man's fingers. The crowd murmured its approval with relief and with respect. They washed the body and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, the ritual for a Muslim burial.

Just as I was turning to go, a large, bright orange butterfly settled on that part of the cloth covering the young man's face. Silently, an "alleluia" filled my grateful heart as his resurrected spirit made its way home to God. God had given a sign to the crowd and a second sign to me, signs that I knew were gifts of love, gifts of tender mercy.

I rejoiced in the giving of God.

The signs are all around us, not only in the heavens, but everywhere on earth. We see signs of a world in distress, signs of destruction and discrimination, but there are other signs. Signs of God's loving presence, signs of God-with-us to deliver us from evil and inspire us to do good. Look up and see the signs. Better yet, be a sign of God's justice and compassion, so that all who see the good we do might give glory and praise to God.

 

Prayer

O spirit of the living God among us and within us, inspire us to live our lives in ways that are life-giving for ourselves and for everyone.

 

Discussion Questions

  1. What are some of the signs that point to God's presence here among us?
  2. What are some gifts we might give this Christmas that would reflect the true spirit of this gift-giving season?
  3. What are some ways we might give of ourselves
  4. during the holidays so that we end this Jubilee year doing what Jesus would have done?

 

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Second Sunday of Advent

Recently I received a letter from a student I hadn't seen in years. I'm involved in adult education and this woman is now retired. She told me how much I had influenced her journey in the Spirit, and I was amazed to learn what it was that had touched her life so profoundly.

She quoted back to me verbatim several thoughts I had shared in a seminar a long, long time ago. How important it had been to her to hear that Christians in the early church were filled with fire and passion when they felt led by the Spirit, and how we must turn to the Spirit within us and come to know what that means. What a comforting word that was for me as I faced an uncertain future. Although I and my classes have changed dramatically during the intervening years, here was written testimony that the essentials have not changed.

I had felt like a voice in the wilderness then among voices increasingly strident. The world around was awakening to the political and theological place of women in religion and society. The authoritative voice was decisively male with no intent of changing. What chance was there for the still small voice to impact immovable structures? Yet I've learned as the years go bustling by that the whispered word finds resonance as sounding board for the Spirit when the message is one that prepares the way for essential systemic change.

For far too long too many voices have remained persistently silent as the marginated in our prosperous world remain powerless and oppressed. Who am I, we are tempted to say, to take on the massive forces of distribution, consumption, greed? We wait for the proper prophet, someone like John the Baptist, but then we remember what happened to him for preparing the way for Jesus and decide that's not for us.

Yet not all prophets lose their heads as they venture into the wilderness to proclaim the ways of God. Not all prophets bellow the word. There are prophetic voices that are not recognized as such. The Spirit speaks in many tongues, verbally and often silently through ordinary people, even through the likes of us. When we live our lives with integrity in a spirit of compassion, believing that the simplest gesture can contribute to justice and peace, we walk the path of the Spirit and prepare the way for a better world for all God's many children.

As we reflect on how we might be more attuned to the spirit of Christ this Christmas, let us remember this. It is we who are God's messengers. We are the good news God has spoken. We are love incarnate. What we're called to do is proclaim that word by the way we live our lives.

 

Prayer

O spirit of the living God, go before us and prepare the way as we follow you into the wilderness of the world we now inhabit, so we might witness to Your mercy and Your unconditional love.

 

Discussion Questions

  1. What are some wilderness places in the world of your experience that cry out for transformation?
  2. Have you ever felt like a voice in the wilderness, and if so, what was the message that you felt called to proclaim?
  3. What are some aspects of your everyday life that you might intentionally utilize to prepare the way for God?

 

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Third Sunday of Advent

I have met many women of spirit, their focus fixed on a future fashioned by the impossible dream. A fire burns within them. You can see it in their eyes.

Anna Dengel was one of those women, a pioneer of medical missions to the women of India, with a special concern for Muslims. She was, she said, all fire and flame, her passionate concern a lifeline to those traditionally beyond the reach of life's necessities. She founded my community, the Medical Mission Sisters. Now in our 75th jubilee year, the fire still burns bright.

On a visit to India, the student nurses at our Patna hospital gave me a royal welcome at an evening of song and dance. Hindu, Muslim, and Christian women, side by side together, sang and danced together, served the sick together, were radiant together with a light that shone from within. In a world that is so divided by race, religion, culture, how blessed was I to witness this sign that all God's precious children can work together as one.

This week's Gospel reminds us that we who have passed through the baptismal waters of initiation will not fulfill our mission until we have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. What will it take to ignite the spark already latent within us? What cause could fan that spark to a flame that devours our inhibitions and burns away our fears, so that we might be all fire and flame about things that really matter? What good do we long to accomplish, if only we could pull our lamp of love out of its place of concealment and let our light shine?

Advent is a season of light, a time of year when many religions celebrate a feast of light. Diwali lights. Hanukkah lights. The light of the winter solstice. The anticipatory lights of Christmas. Advent candles commemorate the hope and fervent expectation that awaited the Light coming into the world. Christmas candles announce that the Light of the World is already here.

When diverse sources of fire converge, their flame burns as one. It is impossible to determine each separate source or which flame burns the brighter. It really doesn't matter, for fire and flame are one. If each of us felt a passionate concern for one small facet of justice and did something about it, the world would be a brighter place. We could see our way into a future of peace by the light of all the flames from the fire burning in our hearts.

 

Prayer

O spirit of the living God, be fire and flame within us, igniting a passion to live Your word in ways that reflect Your transforming presence in these tense and troublesome times.

 

Discussion Questions

  1. Have you ever felt on fire about something in life, and if so, what was it?
  2. If you had a passion for justice, what particular issue would you most likely focus upon?
  3. What injustices in your locale merit the passionate concern of the civic and religious sectors and of persons like yourself?

 

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Fourth Sunday of Advent

The women's state prison in Connecticut is filled with the Spirit. I mean really filled with the Spirit. Sunday after Sunday, soul-stirring, life-changing, future-building spirit bubbles up and spills over into joyous expressions of praise from a conglomerate of busted lives and broken promises. "God is good!" the leader shouts. "All the time!" the crowd responds. Good news from the Spirit receives a resounding, unqualified "Yes!"

How can this be, the skeptic asks? These women have known too many men, broken the law again and again, sinned outrageously. Their rap sheets tell the story. Murder. Arson. Solicitation. Theft. The public reads it differently. Murderers. Arsonists. Prostitutes. Thieves. Why on earth would the Spirit of God have anything to do with these? On the other hand, God whose Spirit resides within incarcerated women and men as well as the best and the brightest sees Her beloved children, lost in the mire of their misdeeds and longing to be found.

Most of the women institutionalized here know what it means to be pregnant. The hardest part of life in prison is leaving your kids behind. A cycle of birth and abandonment is a crucifying consequence of the drug induced fantasy world in which an addicted women lives and far too often dies. Prison is no bed of roses, but it is in one sense a sanctuary where, free for a time from addiction, one can see things more clearly and rediscover the Spirit within.

There are moments, transforming moments, when a woman whose life has gone terribly wrong is suddenly filled with the Spirit, and therefore, full of grace. Yes, it can really happen, for nothing is impossible to God. For many the very thought of this borders on blasphemy. We like to keep things separate in the world we have reordered, Mary on a pedestal, street women behind bars, forgetting that the very purpose of Jesus was to build a bridge between.

We need to be reminded of this as we reflect on the pregnancy of Mary and prepare to celebrate her child's birth again. We need to remember that Jesus said, when you visit someone in prison, you are reaching out to me. Such a radical redefinition of what it means to be human and at the same time blessed with the divine is something we will never comprehend. Thanks be to God, faith does not depend on understanding. We only have to trust that God knows a whole lot more than we do about life and the lives that come from God and therefore, to God, are sacred.

I know the times in my life when I have felt filled with the Spirit. It can happen to anyone, for the Spirit is in us all. For one transfiguring moment, we see the world through different eyes, transcend our limitations. That is the meaning of Christmas. Christ has come into the world for moments such as these.

 

Prayer

O spirit of the living God, we thank You and we praise You for being here among us as hope for those on the brink of despair, peace for victims of violence, love for all who turn to You and find their meaning in You.

 

Discussion Questions

  1. Have you ever visited someone in prison?
  2. Would you consider doing so, and if not, why?
  3. Have you ever felt filled with the Spirit or felt the Spirit stirring within you or in some way directing your life?
  4. So often we are imprisoned by our prejudices or assumptions. What prevents you from judging others objectively and with compassion?

 

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Christmas Eve

The women who are in prison will not be home for Christmas. That is a realization that hangs heavy on their hearts. The hardest part is telling their children they will not be coming home.

Years ago the prison chaplain made a personal decision to do something for these kids. I joined her in a ministry that collects toys and other gifts and mails them to the children. Each package is meticulously wrapped and arrives with a tag that reads, "Love, mom." The next best thing to being there is getting a gift from your mother. A whole lot of people that I know believe this with a passion and they have given generously to ensure that this is so. The prison population has tripled since the project first began, yet the gift-giving continues in the true spirit of Christmas, with no expectation of return.

This ministry to children has changed me in quite surprising ways. While I'm accustomed to rising before the dawn, who would have thought the reason would be to catch the pre-Christmas sales? I'm ultra-conservative in what I spend throughout the rest of the year, but fill shopping carts to the brim when I'm out there for the kids. For me, putting Christ back into Christmas no longer means avoiding the consumer driven hoopla cascading all around us. It means sailing into the midst of it all and making sense of it.

Looking for Christ in the marketplace has led to a sea change in thinking, and sometimes, a spiritual high. Nearly every time I am out there, I encounter the Christ-spirit time and again in ways that warm my heart. I have added another dimension to life after all these many years. My prayerful preparation for Christmas now includes a lot of going out as well as going in. While mystics and monastics savor their reflections in silence and solitude, moms and dads pray other ways and in vastly different places. One of these is the mall. I have tasted life from both sides now, and during the Advent season, choose to integrate the two.

Because I have made some adjustments, that does not mean I have been co-opted by consumer economics, which is another name for greed. We have far too much and this excess is the cause of another's deprivation. As I struggle to simplify my own life and advocate for wider systemic change, I am clear about one thing. Let those who have not, have some of it, before we change the rules.

There are people all around us whose need will prevent them from experiencing Christmas as a time of joy and peace. Lonely people. Hungry people. Homeless people. Incarcerated people. Shut-ins and people in nursing homes and the economically disadvantaged. We will have caught the Christmas spirit in the manner Christ intended when we reach beyond our privileged circle and invite another in.

 

Prayer

O spirit of the living God, fill us with the spirit of Jesus - a spirit of justice, a spirit of compassion, a spirit of joy and peace - that we might share Your presence among us in ways that reflect Your care and concern for the unloved and the oppressed.

 

Discussion Questions

  1. How do you feel about our preparations for Christmas? Is anything missing? Should anything change?
  2. Should you choose to give a gift to a stranger in memory of Jesus, to whom would you give it and what would it be?
  3. Have you ever spent Christmas away from home, and if so, what was it like?

 

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Christmas 1

I followed my physician friend along the twisting jungle path across the Thai-Cambodia border into Kampuchea, as it was known at the time. We had worked the border camps together on two distinct tours of service, but this was decidedly different. We were heading into enemy territory. She was authorized to be where we were, but I was just tagging along. She had asked me to accompany her. The chance to experience something that remained closed to the rest of the world was just too good to miss.

The genocide had ended five years earlier when the Khmer Rouge were routed, but the animosity remained. The victims, our patients in the hospital camp, lived daily with the terror that had seeped into their very bones and stalked them in their sleep. Pol Pot's troops, proponents of death camps and widespread destruction, were scattered throughout the jungle and still dangerous in defeat.

As a humanitarian gesture, my friend had been assigned to cross the border monthly to tend to the medical needs of the dissipated forces. Because she was expected, a number of soldiers were waiting for her in a designated clearing. They had come out of hiding, and a look of distrust and suspicion was etched upon each face. One by one they came up to her. She dispensed medications and advice. When she was done, we continued on, moving deeper into the jungle. She wanted to show me a fortified camp along the banks of a river where many peasants had been killed. I followed her, I know not why. Perhaps to offer a silent prayer or to shed tears of sorrow, tears for a decimated people and their desecrated land.

I was standing along the river, mesmerized by ghosts of the living dead that I somehow sensed were present, when I saw someone approaching. My friend whispered in my ear: "Here comes a former leader who was responsible for the massacre of 80,000 people." I looked up and into the eyes of a middle-aged woman. So this is the look of evil, I thought, and I was thoroughly shaken, for she looked a lot like us.

Five years earlier, in the first of many border camps that gave refuge to survivors, I came face to face with the consequences of raw, inordinate power. Children screamed in their sleep at night. Woman wept for their loved ones, because they were no more. Men, the life force gone from their eyes, stared at their broken bodies and withdrew from the world. The slaughter of the innocent had meant the loss of innocence, for none of that generation would ever go home again to a life as it had been before.

I was tempted by that experience among the Khmer Rouge to put a wide chasm between them and us, but life is not that simple. As Pogo said in the sixties, "I have seen the enemy and they are us."

Wholesale slaughter on a global scale is, in the end, the summation of individual acts of viciousness by folk like you and me. Violence - all manifestations of abuse - must be eradicated by the forces of love and shalom. This is not impossible, for we have the Spirit within us all to do what must be done.

 

Prayer

O spirit of the living God, see to it that we do no harm to any of your cherished children or our beloved planet earth.

 

Discussion Questions

  1. What are the circumstances that trigger within you feelings of anger or rage, and what do you do to prevent those feelings from spilling over onto others?
  2. What are some ways of cultivating a more peaceful inner attitude to sustain you when you are in the midst of chaos and stress?
  3. What might be one new year resolution that could contribute to a decrease in violence in your workplace or neighborhood?

  

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Epiphany

There are more than three wise men who have gifted me with wisdom. I know a number of sages to whom I can turn for support or advice or emotional sustenance. Some are respected colleagues. Nearly all are friends.

Once when I was conflicted, undecided about whether to do this or that, to remain in an ambivalent context or pull up stakes and move on, I met a man, a total stranger, who opened the way for me. We were in a hospitality lounge somewhere up in Canada, both of us part of a program that was finished for the night. We greeted one another and spent some moments engaging in casual conversation. He retreated to a newspaper. I sat staring into space.

I don't know why I did it, blurted out what was troubling me, my distress at my indecisiveness, my inability to discern what the Spirit had in mind for me. Maybe because he was a priest, a gentle man, an elder, something in me opened up and out it came in a rush. Suddenly, I stopped and said to myself, why am I doing this, dumping on a stranger?

The priest, I don't recall his name, listened attentively without interruption. Then he said to me, "Have you seen 'The Sting?'" He was referring to the movie. Yes, I had, but for the life of me could not see the relevance of that. 'Watch it again. It's on television tonight." That was all he said.

It took time to make sense of his advice. When I did, I was blown away. He had spoken to me in metaphor, had pointed me toward a metaphor, knowing on some deep level that I learn best that way. Taking his words literally, I might have concluded that life is a scam. Play the game. Pretend. Beneath the surface, however, lay the liberating word. Things are not always what they seem. There are worlds unknown within our world, meanings not immediately apparent, reasons for being and doing something that elude our understanding but reveal themselves in time. It was the word I needed to hear. This wise man's word was a gift to me that I shall always cherish. Wisdom is something to be shared. I intend to pass it on.

Don't take life too literally. That is the epiphany message. It is far wiser to seek a star than to aspire to be one.

Don't just go for the gold or stockpile acquisitions. Look for it in the exemplary lives of ordinary, everyday saints.

Don't burn incense before idols, no matter how enticing. The gods of greed, the gods of war, can do nothing but destroy us.

Don't fall under the spell of myrrh and submit to its anointing. Suffer for that which is worthwhile and you will find a blessing.

We must all look for another way to continue into the future. The long way home is a safer path. We will know it by its name. Peace. Salaam. Shalom.

 

Prayer

O spirit of the living God, speak to us and through us the word You would have us speak to others, and let Your peace and justice shine through all of Your creation.

 

Discussion Questions

  1. What are some simple initiatives for peace you might carry out during the coming year?
  2. What are some epiphany moments when you came to see things a different way?
  3. What wisdom have you learned from those epiphany moments that you might share with others?  

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About the Reflections'Author

Miriam Therese Winter is professor of liturgy, worship and spirituality at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut. A Medical Mission Sister who has served on four continents, she has recorded 15 albums of her songs, including the classic "Joy Is Like the Rain." She is the author of several award-winning books. In great demand as a speaker, she gives workshops throughout the U.S., Canada and Australia.

 

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This page last updated 20 October 2012

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