Fr John’s reflection for Sunday 29 Dec 2024
As we approach a new year, we can start to reflect on how we want to enter into 2025. There seem to be many things that can grab our attention about becoming our best self. When we seek to make intentions, we can focus on things that will produce that best self whether it is exercising more, seeking to lose weight, studying a new language, or focusing on a particular project. This can cause us to set goals that may be achieved. However, the question is who will we become as we seek the benefits of these activities? I think what motivates us to achieve these goals is probably more fundamental to whom we become.
The Holy Family helps us to reflect on the importance of how we build relationships with each other. This helps us to notice how we build up a community that can be sustained against the uncertainties of life. We seek to notice how we are called to become people who act justly, love tenderly and walk humbly with our God. The gifts that we produce in each relationship allows us to give praise to God and bring hope to others.
As we enter into the new year, we seek to live in a way that daily reviews how we become a people who seek God together. This is by seeking what builds each other up rather than tear each other down. We can witness too easily how easy it is to destroy life rather than seeking to build that which builds life. We are called to be people who seek the good of God in which every person is considered as a child of God.
DE COLORES!
Fr. John Armstrong
“The intellectual quest is exquisite, like pearls and coral. But it is not the same as the spiritual quest. The spiritual quest is on another level altogether. Spiritual wine has a subtler taste. The intellect and the senses investigate cause and effect. The spiritual seeker surrenders to wonder.” (Rumi Wisdom; trans. Timothy Freke)