​​‘The skies are brass and the plains are bare,
Death and ruin are everywhere;
And all that is left of the last year’s flood
Is a sickly stream on the grey-black mud;
The salt-springs bubble and the quagmires quiver,
And this is the dirge of the Darling River.’
            We can relate to these words of Henry Lawson written in 1891, can’t we? Last week when I was doing Mass at Menindee I saw the green toxic liquid filling the Darling River, which has caused devastation to the fish. The extent of the disaster has triggered some fresh discussions and analyses. Among the voices contributing to the discussion on the condition and the future of the Darling River, which is the third largest river in Australia, there is the voice of the Barkindji people who have lived on the Darling for millennia. They have called the Darling Barka which in their language means simply River. The anthropologists call them the ‘Darling River folk’ while they call themselves simply ‘people of the river.’ During a community march in Wilcannia to draw attention to the situation the aboriginal children sang: ‘Oh, the Darling River. We are the people of the river. The Barkindji people of the river. The river is our home.’ One of the elders said: ‘We don’t want the government’s billions of dollars poured into our community. We want our water flowing because that gives people hope and it brings people together.’
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! I hope and pray that this voice is not ignored. It is a different insight. It is not based on economy or politics but it reveals the profound connection of the Barkindji people to the Darling. The river makes them who they are. However I hope and pray also that we, Catholics, can listen to this insight as a prophetic message for us. This Sunday, which concludes the much loved Christmastide, the Church takes us to the Jordan River where Christ allowed John the Baptist to immerse him. His Baptism was not to clean him of his sins. His Baptism was like the rains in Queensland which send the water down the Darling River.
St Ignatius of Antioch, who was a disciple of St John the Apostle, meditating on Jesus’ Baptism wrote: ‘For our God, Jesus Christ was conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit. He was born and baptized, that by His passion He might purify the water.’ That’s why the Eastern Church Fathers saw the water of our baptism as a miniature of the Jordan.
St Paul wrote in the Letter to Titus that out of ‘his own compassion God saved us, by means of the cleansing water of rebirth and by renewing us with the Holy Spirit which he has so generously poured over us through Jesus Christ our Saviour.’ We who have been baptised are the people of the Baptism River.
St Paulinus of Nola asked for the following words to be written on the baptismal font in his cathedral:  ‘From this font, which gives life to souls in need of salvation, flows a living river of divine light. The Holy Spirit comes down from heaven upon this river and joins the sacred waters with the heavenly source; the stream teems with God and from the eternal seed gives birth to holy offspring by its fruitful waters.’
My Dear Fellow believers! The Baptism River is not on the maps like the Darling River, though even the Darling may soon be erased from the maps as it becomes a story of the past. The Baptism River can be detected by the presence of Christian communities. It is determined not by geography but by the power of the Risen Lord. If there is a Christian community striving to live by the Gospel it means that they live on the banks of the Baptism River. Like you here. Even if the maps don’t show any river flowing through your town remember that there is the River here made of the sacraments we receive, the Word of God we listen to, acts of charity, forgiveness and unity, all these are filled with the power of our God.
We can apply to ourselves the words of the Barkindji people: ‘The Baptism River is our home…  It gives people hope and it brings people together.’ This River doesn’t dry up; only people can cease drawing from it.

            Did you ever play the game of hide and seek when you were children? Some players are so good at hiding that it is impossible to find them. Every now and then there is also someone who simply wants to be found. A number of times I have heard that our God plays a hide and seek game with us. This Sunday, as we observe the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, we can say that God is like those friends from our childhood who wanted to be found when we played a hide and seek game with them. If God wanted to hide himself from us he wouldn’t have sent the angels with trumpets to the shepherds. If God wanted to hide himself from us he wouldn’t have sent a star to lead the Wise Men. If God wanted to hide himself from us he wouldn’t have left information about his whereabouts in the prophetic writings quoted by the advisors of King Herod: ‘And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, you are by no means least among the leaders of Judah, for out of you will come a leader who will shepherd my people Israel.’
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Originally Epiphany meant ‘manifestation’ or ‘revelation’ of Divine and that was the spirit of the celebration of Jesus’ Nativity by the first Christians. They expressed their joy at Jesus being born and at being revealed to the world. How powerfully the gifts of the Wise Men capture this. By the way a few weeks ago I saw in a magazine a cartoon depicting the Wise Men. One of them was saying: ‘I decided to be safe. That’s why I’ve got him gift cards.’ I think that the cartoon speaks more about our modern attitude ‘get-me-what-I-want’ or ‘give-me-the-money-I-could-get-what-I-want’ then the story of the Wise Men. The gifts the Wise Men brought to the newborn Jesus indicated the transformation which had occurred in them. Church Fathers, like St Irenaeus who was born in the Second Century, taught that the Wise Men offered gold because they professed Jesus as King. They offered frankincense because they professed Jesus as God. They offered myrrh because they professed Jesus as Priest who was to sacrifice himself for people’s salvation. Myrrh was perfume used to anoint the bodies of the deceased. Think of Mary Magdalen running to Jesus’ tomb on Easter Sunday with perfumes.
            We may focus on those gifts and their value that we may overlook the conversion which had happened in the Wise Men. Before they found the Baby Jesus in Bethlehem they had found him as their King, God and Priest. A few centuries earlier God spoke through the Prophet Jeremiah: ‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’ It is not God who hides himself from us. It is our heart that makes God obscure to us. You may have seen this commercial of the Free TV. A man thinks loudly which button to press on his remote-control to get the Free TV. Then his dog starts bringing all sorts of green things but the man doesn’t make a connection. King Herod and his people were given all clues needed to find Jesus but because their hearts were selfish and ambitious they failed to find him as their Lord and Savior. It reminds us of Adam and Eve after they sinned. What did they do next? They hid themselves from God.
‘You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’ My Dear fellow believers! I wish I knew the conversations the Wise Men had on the way to Bethlehem. Why? Because I see in those men what the Church should be like. The Church is a community of disciples of Jesus, where we support each other to find the Lord Jesus in our daily life, as our King, God and Priest. St Matthew didn’t however give us details of their conversations. What he has given us though is this image of the Wise Men travelling together to Jesus. Maybe that was the secret that they had found the Lord. On my own it is easy to get confused, lost, discouraged or fascinated by other things. But if I have a fellow believer I can trust there is a hope that if I miss the Lord my sister or brother in faith will point him out to me.
Happy Epiphany.

            The first day of the New Year the Church dedicates to our Blessed Mother. We, the disciples of Jesus have many reasons to be grateful to Mary. We can recall the many graces she has obtained for us. We appreciate her constant intercession for us. There are shrines where the memory of the miracles performed through the intercession of Mary is still vivid, in fact the miracles continue.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! As we begin the New Year the Gospel for this Mass invites us back to Bethlehem. St Luke, who eight days ago, at the Christmas Midnight Mass told us about the birth of Christ and how the angles of God announced it to the shepherds, shows us today how ‘the shepherds hurried away to Bethlehem and found Mary and Joseph and the Baby lying in the manger.’ With the shepherds we discover that the reason for us to be most grateful to Mary is that she has given us Jesus. We ask her for many things. We believe that for us asking her for various things is as natural as for children asking their mother. Our confidence is based on the role she played in Jesus coming into our world and into our lives. If she has given us her son Jesus would she refuse interceding before the throne of God to obtain the good things we seek? That’s why the first day of the year for us Catholics is called the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. This title is the most beautiful and the most important of all titles ever given to Mary: Mother of God.
O Blessed Virgin we turn our hearts and minds to your motherhood. The motherhood you embraced was bigger than your life. Your motherhood was the gate for God to enter our poor world. This little Babyboy was your joy. He has been our joy too. This little Babyboy gave meaning to your life. He has given meaning to our lives too.
            Mother of God is a beautiful expression but it is also a hope filled expression. As we begin the New Year we do so nurturing hope that it will be a good one. We can have this hope because we look into the coming 365 days through the lenses of this Luke’s Gospel in which Mary holds the Baby Jesus. I firmly believe that she extends her arms with her tiny Treasure towards us. Contemplating this Gospel passage I can’t help thinking of that moment from the Mass when the priest takes a host and moving it towards the congregation he says: ‘Take it all of you.’ Bethlehem means the house of bread. Before Jesus spoke of himself as the Bread of Life, the place of his birth already indicated it. The little town of Bethlehem had waited a long time to be the house of bread not just by name but by the presence of the Bread which came down from heaven. Similarly we desire to be Christians not just by name but because Jesus Christ lives in us.
O Holy Mother of God, we will take Jesus into our own life and thus our life will become a new Bethlehem, a new house of bread. We ask you to help us to be generous sharers of Jesus with the people who will cross our path in the coming twelve months.
Happy New Year.
​

            One of the classic Christmas movies is Die Hard starred by Bruce Wills as a police officer John McClane who arrives in Los Angeles to seek reconciliation with his estranged wife. Last year the movie was selected for National Film Registry. It is a US institution responsible for preservation of some movies which have been classified as ‘culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant films.’
A priest had a conversation which can bring a new appreciation to the movie. After Christmas he had a visitor, a middle aged man, who wanted to go to confession after watching Die Hard. Before the confession happened they had a yarn as the priest doubted that watching Die Hard was so bad that one had to go to confession. The man explained that he planned to abandon his family. However when he watched the movie, in which the main character fights so hard to save his wife and ultimately his family; something broke in him. There was a voice in his head saying: ‘Why can’t you fight for your family too?’
            Maybe there are more stories like this one. Maybe Die Hard should be classified as a Christian movie. It captures what St Paul once wrote to the Romans: ‘However great the number of sins committed, grace was even greater.’
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! St Luke recorded most of the events which make our Christmas. This Sunday as we honour the Holy Family of Nazareth, the Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, we hear of the last recorded event from Jesus’ childhood. It happened the when Our Blessed Lord was 12 years old. Before we focus on the Gospel passage about the visit of the Holy Family to Jerusalem I would like to recall a passage from the Gospel of St Matthew. It tells us that when Joseph learnt that his wife Mary was pregnant he wanted to send her away discreetly. Then ‘Die Hard’ according to the Bible starts. First it is God the Father who sends his angel to Joseph. By the way, we tend to think that angels are cute winged creatures. Some of them may be but there are angels who are great warriors. Such an angelic warrior was sent to Joseph. What was the purpose of his visit? Fighting for a marriage which was about to break down. Joseph joined the combat. He didn’t say anything in the Bible but his actions to fight for his marriage and his family speak volumes.
Let us return to the Gospel for this Sunday. I will not speak long volumes but I would like to extract from the passage written by St Luke two insights.
Firstly we learn that Joseph was a warrior for his marriage because had allowed himself to become very close to Mary. Mary gives us a hint when she says to Jesus after finding him in the Temple: ‘See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you?’ Mary and Joseph shared the same feelings and vision. The worry of one person was the worry of another. Similarly the joy of one person was the joy of the other. We can see it further in their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. St Luke tells us that ‘every year the parents of Jesus used to go to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover.’ Only men were obliged to do that. Women didn’t have to undertake the difficult and dangerous journey. They could stay home. If we see them going together every year to Jerusalem we see that they were united in their way they lived their marriage covenant. They were truly one in their marriage.
Secondly we see Mary and Joseph determined to have Jesus back. Of course it can be explained by saying that Jesus was their child but He was also their God and Saviour. Their fighting to have Jesus in their life, and to have him in the centre of their marriage life, is the secret of the happy and lasting marriage.
I would like to finish with a powerful acknowledgment we find in the Catechism of the Catholic Church regarding the family. In the Catechism, in the section on the Sacrament of Matrimony, the Church reflects on the early days of Christian Faith when the ‘core of the Church was often constituted by those who became believers ‘together with all their household… These families who became believers were islands of Christian life in an unbelieving world.’
My Dear Fellow believers! At the time the Christians were prohibited from building their churches but their shrines, their places of worship were homes of people who converted to the Faith. When believers were coming to Mass they didn’t see paintings or statues of Jesus, Mary or saints. What they saw were living images of the family members who hosted them. Watching those family members living their Christian life beautifully the others were inspired and strengthen in their faith.
I would like to thank the families who die hard every day to their selfishness and ambitions in order to protect their domestic church as we call families. Remember you are ‘islands of Christian life in an unbelieving world.’
​

Do you see what I see?
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite,
With a tail as big as a kite.
            This dearly loved Christmas Carol sounds like a lullaby, doesn’t it? It contains so much peace and trust. Its author Noel Regney was a Frenchman who lived through the darkness of WWII. After the war he left France for US seeking new life free from danger of war. A few years later the world however faced something more sinister during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The nuclear conflict was filling people with fear. One October day in 1962 Noel Regney was walking in New York. A sense of despair was evident. No one was smiling. As he kept walking he saw two mothers with babies in prams. The little things were smiling to each other. This scene brought back to his mind the story of Christmas. Although the events of 1962 are a distant history now, on the big stage of the world and in our own lives we still face fear and despair. I presume that when the carol was written a star in the sky would make people think about a nuclear missile coming to destroy. That’s how much the atmosphere in the society had darkened the minds and hopes of people. We could apply the words of the Prophet Isaiah to the situation: ‘The people that walked in darkness, those who live in a land of deep shadow.’
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! What darkens your mind and your hopes these days? In the midst of that…
Do you hear what I hear?
A song, a song high above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea,
With a voice as big as the sea.
            This carol is not a lullaby. Rather it is Good News to help us see things in us and around us differently. It is the power of the Good News announced to the shepherds on the Holy Night of the Lord’s Nativity: ‘Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news of great joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you, he is Christ the Lord.’ In 1962 when the world trembled while at the verge of nuclear destruction Noel Regney found hope not in the influential and powerful leaders of this world but in the vulnerability of the New Born Jesus whom the babies in New York reminded him.
            My Dear Fellow believers! Receive the message of the angels which the generations of Christians have been passing from age to age. It will bring you a divine promise and a much desired dawn breaking the darkness. Isaiah said that those in darkness ‘have seen a great light’ and for those in a land of deep shadow ‘a light has shone.’
Do you know what I know?
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold,
Let us bring him silver and gold."
            Have you seen the commercial of Ferrero Rocher? It teases us with what they call ‘gods’ divine secret’ which gods had for their pleasure. How did it ended up on earth? Well, according to the commercial it slipped through the fingers of a god. There is an African saying: ‘The heart can make a gift. The fingers can only let it go.’ My Dear Friends! What we celebrate on this Christmas Day is not an accident; it is not something slipping through God’s fingers. Today we celebrate a conscious gift of God to us in the person of his Son Jesus Christ. If you want to check what your value in God’s eyes is make your way to the Nativity Scene and look at the Baby there. St Paul announced it to the Christians in Rome in this way: ‘He sacrificed himself for us in order to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his very own.’
Listen to what I say!
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light,
He will bring us goodness and light.
            Another African proverb says: ‘If you want to go fast go on your own. If you want to go far find yourself a companion.’ When Mary ‘wrapped the Baby in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger’ God has committed himself to accompany us from our very beginning until we reach our home in heaven. Sometimes we may think that he is with us when we deserve him but the Good News is that he is with us because we need him. In him ‘God’s grace has been revealed and has made salvation possible for the whole human race.’
            He is the hope of all nations. He is my hope. Is he your hope? If he is you will understand what I mean when I say: ‘Merry Christmas.

​There is a 1992 movie ‘Leap of faith.’ It is the fictional story of Jonas Nightengale travelling US as a Christian faith healer. However his mission is not about healing but about getting money from vulnerable people. When he and his team get stranded in a small country town suffering from a severe drought he decides to utilize the opportunity to milk money the folks. During one of the meetings to his surprise a disable boy does get healed. The movie, which is kind of forgotten these days, has left us however a song. It is called ‘Are you ready for a miracle.’ It refrain goes like this:
Are you ready for a miracle?
As ready as I can be
Are you ready for a miracle?
The spirit will set you free
Are you ready, ready, ready, ready?
I’m ready; I am ready for a miracle.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Some centuries prior to the Birth of Christ the prophet Micah delivered God’s message that the inconspicuous town of Bethlehem, where once the great king David was born, would see a miracle, would see again a royal birth: ‘Out of you will be born for me the one who is to rule over Israel, his origin goes back to the distant past, to the days of old.’ It was indeed a mysterious prophesy. How could a new born baby be older than the king who died a few centuries earlier?
Are you ready for a miracle? Are you ready for God stepping into the course of human history? That’s what happened on the day when Joseph and his wife Mary came to Bethlehem for the census. Tomorrow night we will fall to our knees at the words of the Profession of Faith: ‘For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit he was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.’ Before we say these words we will also say something Micah and his contemporaries couldn’t fully comprehend. Filled with the faith we will profess: ‘I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages.’ The Son of God already existed when King David ruled. He existed when Abraham was travelling to the Holy Land. He existed when Adam and Eve were called to life. He existed when the universe was created. In fact ‘through him all things were made.’ His footprints are all over the world. They have been there from the time of creation. If people missed them in the Old Testament it was because they didn’t know to whom those footprints belonged.
In the Letter to the Hebrews we mediate today on Jesus’ words addressed to his Heavenly Father: ‘You who wanted no sacrifice or oblation, prepared a body for me.’ The Son of God who existed as Spirit two thousand years ago was given flesh like ours at the moment we call the Annunciation. In the Gospel for this last Sunday of Advent we are given one of the first moments after Jesus was conceived in the Virgin Mary. Where do we find Mary carrying the most precious treasure in the whole Universe? Is she in the magnificent Jerusalem Temple which was built as God’s dwelling on earth? It would be a fitting place for the precious Baby. Is she in the most sacred room of the Temple where only the High Priest was allowed to enter and only once a year? It would be the best place, not only the most sacred place but also the most secure place. She and her Divine Child would be safe there, very safe. No, she is not there. She who is now the new tabernacle of God’s presence on Earth is found in ‘the hill country of Judah.’ Did she go there because it was the safest place for her and her Child? No, it wasn’t the reason. She, who while conversing with the Archangel Gabriel described herself as ‘a lowly handmaid of the Lord’ proved that it wasn’t just words. Upon hearing that her aged cousin Elizabeth was pregnant Mary went to the elderly expectant mother, not to check it out, not to verify whether it was possible for Elizabeth to be pregnant, but to serve the old woman in her time of need. Mary was ready for a miracle. She was ready for God stepping into the course of the human history.
My Dear Fellow believers! Our time of waiting for Christmas is nearly over. Tomorrow we, the disciples of Jesus Christ, will gather in magnificent cathedrals and obscure mission chapels to celebrate his Birth. Before we do that I ask you: Are you ready for a miracle? Are you ready to make room for Christ in your life? Ask Our Blessed Mother to intercede for you. Pray often the words first prayed by Elisabeth: ‘Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb, JESUS.’

​How often after Church do you ask yourself the question which occurred like a refrain in today's Gospel: 'What must we do?'? Let us pay attention to the plural form of this question. It is not a question of a single person but a question of people identifying themselves with others. Today the Word of God comes to us like it came to the crowds who went to the wilderness to hear John the Baptist. Not just to me or you but to us as a Church, as the Body of Christ. It is the same Word of God calling us to conversion - metanoia. It is the same Word calling us to change first our thinking in order to have our actions changed.
As we could see in the Gospel for this Sunday the people who heard the Word of God announced by the Baptist were cut to the heart. The Word of God aroused in them a desire to do what would be pleasing to God. 'What must we do?' was an articulation of the growing desire to live according to God's ways. The conversion which was happening in them began creating of them a community of believers.
Sin always divides people. Sin is never private, even if apart of God and me no one knows my sin. It still brings a deep division to communities. Last week I spoke of the great abyss the first people fixed between them and God when they went against God, when they believed Satan's word rather than the Word of God. However the Book of Genesis reveals that it wasn't the only gulf they had created. There was a gulf between them as well. They started blaming each other. The loving and trusting relationship they enjoyed with God was the origin of the loving and trusting relationship with each other. When they compromised their relationship with God it shattered their relationship with each other.
When the Word of God comes to us it brings about conversion but it also brings about unity and reconciliation. First between the sinner and God.
Secondly between sinners. It is not solidarity in sinning but solidarity in a humble common perception of our sinful condition and in appreciation and celebration of our identity as sons and daughters of God which puts our sinfulness in the perspective which is the merciful love of God.  It assures us that God, as our Father, is committed and determined to raise us up from sin and death like he did with Jesus Christ when our Blessed Lord took upon himself our sins with all their deadly consequences. God raised him up.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! The Third Sunday of Advent is called the Sunday of Joy. What would you identify today as a reason for you to be joyful? What would be behind your 'crying out with joy and gladness' ? ... Let me put it this way? Does your rejoicing come from things that happen to you or from good things that happen to others? Look at the prophet of this Sunday of Joy, St John the Baptist, who didn’t get thrilled because he had attracted so many people. His joy was triggered because, as he said: ‘someone is coming, someone who is powerful that I am, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals.’ One of the disciples of the Baptist, St John the Apostle, who prompted by the testimony of his first mentor followed Jesus Christ, wrote what he heard from the Prophet from the Jordan: ‘The bride is for the bridegroom; and yet the bridegroom’s friend is glad when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. This same joy I feel now it is complete. He must grow greater, I must grow smaller.’
John preached repentance because he had been repented. His ego didn’t search for appreciation and validation. To be joyful he didn’t look into the mirror but he looked at the people who came to him. His teaching invited people to do the same. The urging he gave to the tax collectors and soldiers was about getting those people out of their self-absorbed, and thus destructive, pursuit of their needs. The Baptist, whose life was a gift to others, was inviting those who approaching him to do the same.
‘What must we do?’ we may ask today. We are not tax collectors. We are not soldiers. It is true we may not be these people but still there are people around us to whom God wants to give us as a permanent Christmas gift. Have faith and courage my fellow believers to be a gift to others and then you will be filled with joy of the Holy Spirit, who is happy to be the gift of the Father to the Son and the gift of the Son to the Father. He is also their gift to us. He is happy to be a gift that inspires our gratitude for the Father and the Son. He is a selfless person. That a secret of joy and happiness.

​When you drive through our Aussie Outback you are immersed in the vastness of this beautiful but also harsh land. I remember driving from Sydney to Adelaide via Broken Hill. At some stage the landscape became just flat. A different kind of wilderness you face when you go to the Holy Land. When St Luke in the Gospel for this Second Sunday of Advent recalled the words of Prophet Isaiah about wilderness it wasn’t a vast and flat Australian Outback. Similarity of the both environments will be their harshness but what the travelers come across in Israel is not a flat terrain. It is rather a place carved by gorges. They can be very deep which means that there is no way one can take a straight path. The people of the Bible had to travel winding roads.
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! The landscape of the wilderness in Israel has been created by seasonal streams appearing and disappearing over millennia. However both Isaiah and St Luke, inspired by the Spirit of God, saw the similarity of our human existence and the landscape of the Judean Desert. Our life has been carved into hills and valleys too. It is not good news, even if it may look exciting. I would like to use two Scriptural images to reflect on it. Both of them come from the beginning of the Bible, from the Book of Genesis.
            The first image is from the chapter 3 which tells us about the Fall and its consequences. When our first parents disobeyed God’s commandment, when they sinned, they ‘hid themselves from God among the trees of the garden.’ By their sin they had created a bottomless canyon which had separated them from God. Before they were told to leave the Garden of Eden they had already drifted from the intimate relationship with God they enjoyed from the moment to creation. They had fixed an abyss between them and God. Over the history of humankind men and women by their own sins, by their own disobedience to God, have continued carving the many abysses which separate us from God. It is the sense of guilt and despair which looks bottomless.
            The second image is from Genesis too. It comes from the chapter 11 where we find the story of the tower of Babel. The sinful people had grown in their self-absorption and selfishness. They wanted to build for themselves ‘a town and a tower with its top reaching heaven.’ Although we don’t see Satan as clearly as he was in the story of the Fall the people’s aspirations in the story of the tower of Babel echoed his temptations: ‘You will be like gods.’ People fell for it again. We have been falling for it again and again over millennia when our selfishness inspires us to create the hills of pride and independence from God, when we attempt to substitute our own products and achievements for God.
            In this rugged human existence, our existence, a voice cries: ‘Prepare the way for the Lord. Every valley will be filled in, every mountain and hill be laid low.’  Some may ask what would be the new altitude of this new spiritual landscape of new humankind. The altitude altitude is defined by what the first people enjoyed before the Fall. The inspired author wrote that they hid when ‘they heard the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.’ God was coming to them as their creator, father and friend. However the first parents’ attitude towards God had changed. They had lost their sense of being dearly loved children of God.
The voice of the Baptist announces to us Good News that God who by his word created everything has sent us the Word, his only begotten Son Jesus Christ. By accepting in faith and trust his Gospel we will undergo this conversion – metanoia. It is the change of thinking which is promised to us.
That bottomless gulf of guilt and despair which we experience when we sin, when we fail God, other people and ourselves is now filled in to the level where we hear the most uplifting voice from heaven: ‘You are my beloved daughter. You are my beloved son.’ This is the level for a happy life for us, the level where we live as children of God. And to this level the hills of our pride and selfishness will be brought down too. We don’t need to make ourselves like gods. It will not fulfill our aspirations. What will fulfill them is our belief that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has come down to us so that we could live as sons and daughters of God. Such life is a straight path. Such life is seeing the salvation of God.

​When in 1849 Pope Pius IX sent a letter to all bishops asking them about the devotion and expectation regarding the Immaculate Conception St Eugene de Mazenod was one of the first to write back. He wrote as Bishop of Marseilles but he wrote also as the Founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He sent back to the Pope the Book of Oblate Constitutions and Rules as prove that the belief in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary had been treasured in the Church. He also pointed out that the title of the Missionary Oblates of Marry Immaculate given to the community of his missionaries in 1826 by Pope Leo XII was a very testimony that the People of God loved and venerated Mary in her Immaculate Conception even before the Dogma was pronounced in 1854. This is what St Eugene wrote to the Pope: ‘Happy, yes, happy is the day when God through the Spirit of his Divine Son inspired the heart of his Vicar on earth to bestow this crowning honor upon the Virgin Mary! Happy and holy is the day when, amidst the bitter anxieties of his heart and the painful trials to the Holy Church, the sovereign pastor and doctor of the sheep and the lambs has raised his thought to Mary Immaculate of the unblemished Lamb and directed his eyes towards the shining star set by God in the sky like the rainbow of the covenant and the pledge of victory! Let it come, let it come, this hour so deeply desired when the entire universe will be able to assert with certainty that the most Holy Mother of God has crushed the head of the venomous serpent and hold as revealed that the Blessed Virgin Mary, through a wonderful and unique privilege due to the superabundant grace of her Son has truly been preserved from all trace of original sin!’
            Reading Eugene’s words we can hear an echo of the Easter Exultet:
‘Exult, let them exult, the hosts of heaven,
exult, let Angel ministers of God exult,
let the trumpet of salvation
sound aloud our mighty King's triumph!
Be glad, let earth be glad, as glory floods her,
ablaze with light from her eternal King,
let all corners of the earth be glad,
knowing an end to gloom and darkness.’
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Would you agree with me that the dawn is a beautiful moment of the day? When the rays of the sun begin to dispel the darkness of the night you can appreciate light as there is still some darkness in some places. However what gives you a happy mood is that you know that no one can stop the sun; no one can prevent its light to penetrate the world. Jesus’ Resurrection has shed light into people’s lives. The first to receive it, the first to be penetrated by it, the first to be fully filled with it was Mary.
            This Saturday as we honour Mary in the mystery of her Immaculate Conception we hear God in what Gabriel said to Mary. Angels always speak God’s mind. What do we hear then? ‘Hail Mary, full of grace the Lord is with you.’ We need to be grateful for this message which made Mary pause and contemplate it but which also makes us pause and contemplate it. We are given a Divine insight into what has been happening in us and in the world we inhabit. In the midst of people striving to live by God’s word Mary appears as the person whose whole life is about receiving God’s grace and putting it into practice. We know from our experience that it is not easy to live Godly life but in Mary we find hope that choosing God in our ups and downs is worth living and believing.
            Not far from Nazareth, where Mary lived and where the scene from today’s Gospel took place, there was a city of Sephorris being built for the Romans and for the wealthy Jews. Today only ruins tell the story of big dreams of its architects, builders and residents. Some years ago in one of the houses a mosaic was found. It is called Mona Lisa of Galilee as it portrays a beautiful woman. It is a must see for the visitors these days. However for us Christians no one can compete with the beauty of the Virgin Mary. What we find so attractive in her beauty is that it is catching. It not only inspires us but it gives us hope to grow in God’s grace in the midst of the people God has placed us and in the midst of the situations we need to deal with every day. The People of God has learnt to turn their sight to Mary when they fall into sin, when they hear voices in their head saying that nothing will be changed. The dawn is upon us. Mary is filled with the life giving light. She has been the first one to benefit from Jesus' redemption. Thus she is ‘All fair.’ She is the Immaculate Conception,

            What does come to your mind when you hear about Advent? Is it Christmas, Advent wreath, the purple color, etc? What about these: ‘signs in the sun and the moon and the stars,’ ‘nations in agony,’ ‘clamour of the ocean and its waves,’ ‘people dying of fear as they await what menaces the world’? How does it make you feel? Does it trigger fear in you?
            My Dear Sisters and Brothers! Fear is well known to us. There are situations when fear is a blessing.
How many of you would go for a ride with a driver who doesn’t have any fear? In our daily life we need a dose of fear. It protects us from destruction. It protects us from engaging in situations which can cause us harm. However fear also reveals that someone or something is precious to us. It appears when, because of our actions, we are close to losing the person or the thing which are precious to us.
At the same time you wouldn’t go far with a driver who is totally fearful, would you? The Holy Bible tells us 365 times ‘Do not be afraid.’ It is a gift for every single day of the year so that we weren’t controlled by fear. However the Holy Bible (in the Book of the Proverbs) tells us once and for good: ‘The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.’ The wisdom here is not the intelligence but the godly way of living. Such wisdom inspired the author of today’s Psalm to pray: ‘Lord, make me know your ways. Lord, teach me your paths. Make me walk in your truth, and teach me for you are God my Saviour.’
            Let me recall a page from a book written by C. S. Lewis: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe which is the first book of the Chronicles of Narnia. C. S. Lewis wrote the books to bring the message of the Gospel to the people who may not be the most excited about reading the Bible. The Lion called Aslan represents Jesus Christ as we read in the Book of the Apocalypse: ‘There is no need to cry: the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed.’ The Tribe of Judah was one of the Twelve Tribes of Israel and the tribe of kings. That’s why their symbol was a lion. Jesus Christ came from the tribe of Judah too. We Christians worship him as King of Universe.
So when the children in the book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, found themselves in the world of Narnia inhabited by strange creatures and the animals which can talk they are told they will meet Aslan. One of the children, the little Lucy says: ‘Is he quite – safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion.’ That you will dearie, and no mistake,’ said Mrs. Beaver, ‘if there is anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they are either braver than most or else just silly.’ ‘Then he isn’t safe?’ said Lucy. ‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver ‘don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’
            Maybe people turn away from Christian faith because we Christians present Jesus Christ as a cute puppy following us wherever we want to go rather than the powerful Lion of the Tribe of Judah whose every step is inspired by doing the will of his Father in heaven.
            My Dear fellow Christians! Is Jesus safe for us to approach him? Well, he will show you the truth of yourself. Are you ready for that? You will be like Adam and Eve after they sinned. You will see the naked truth of yourself. But Jesus is good. He will call you to repentance and new life. He will offer to shepherd you. What do you choose?
When you choose to follow Jesus, even if the whole world collapses Jesus’ words are: ‘Stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.’
My Dear Sisters and Brothers! We begin Advent and a new Christian year this Sunday by receiving the message of God that the world which is our home will not last forever. All that is affected by sin will eventually be wiped away. However our rescue is ‘the Son of Man who will come in a cloud with power and great glory.’ Hold fast onto him today as you Lord and Saviour, the powerful Lion of Judah. Let him shepherd you along the way to eternal life.