We are still some days before the celebration of Christmas, and Advent invites us not to rush. But in our journey with St Luke we reach Bethlehem.

We can easily sentimentalise Christmas, but the Scripture scholar Raymond Brown invited us to seek 'an Adult Christ at Christmas.' We look a little deeper at what St Luke is saying, at how the manger and the tomb are two ends of the same story.

I wish you a blessed Advent and when it comes a very happy Christmas.

Fr Brendan 

About suffering they were never wrong,

The Old Masters: how well they understood

Its human position; how it takes place

While someone else is eating or opening a window or just

walking dully along;

How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting

For the miraculous birth, there always must be

Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating

On a pond at the edge of the wood:

They never forgot

That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course

Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot

Where the dogs go on with their doggy

life and the torturer’s horse

Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away

Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

If you want,

the Virgin will come walking down the road

pregnant with the holy,

and say…

“I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart,

My time is so close.”

Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime

intimacy, the divine, the Christ

taking birth forever,

as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us

is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yes, there, under the dome of your being does Creation

come into existence eternally, through your woman, dear pilgrim –

the sacred womb of your soul,

As God grasps our arm for help’ for each of us is

His beloved servant

never far.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking

Down the street pregnant

With light and …sing.

St. John of the Cross from Love Poems to God translated by Daniel Ladinsky

"But let us remember that Christ became a person of his people, of his time; he lived as a Jew, he laboured as a worker in Nazareth and ever since he is made flesh in all people.  If many have moved away from the Church it is precisely because the Church has been a little alienated from humanity.  But a Church that would feel as its own all that is human, and would wish to incarnate within itself the sorrow, hope and anguish of all who suffer and rejoice, that Church would be Christ loved and awaited. Christ present and that depends on us."

After the very bright light, 

And the talking bird, 

And the singing, 

And the sky filled up wi’ wings, 

And then the silence, 

Our lads sez 

‘We’d better go, then. 

Stay, Shep. Good dog, stay.’ 

So I stayed wi’ t’ sheep. 

After they cum back, 

It sounded grand, what they’d seen: 

Camels, and kings, and such, 

Wi’ presents — human sort, 

Not the kind you eat — 

And a baby. Presents wes for him. 

Our lads took him a lamb. 

I had to stay behind wi’ sheep. 

Pity they didn’t tek me along, too. 

I’m good wi’ sheep, 

And the baby might have liked a dog 

After all that myrrh and such.

Thank you for joining our online retreat. Please keep the Belmont Community in your prayers, as you will in ours this Christmas. 

May you and all your loved ones be filled with joy!

May you be filled with the wonder of Mary, 

the obedience of Joseph, 

the joy of the angels, 

the eagerness of the shepherds, 

the determination of the magi, 

and the peace of the Christ child. 

Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit 

bless you now and forever.

Amen