And the greatest of these is Love...

It seems so simple. 

Christ was born in a humble stable to show us what kind of love we are called to share

We are not invited to only love those close to us or only the loveable. This is not Love that requires reciprocity, or a gift that is given with obligation. 

This is the Love that calls some people to leave their homes – their extended families – the financial security of a medical practice in the US, to provide care for people who can never give back to them in equal measure.  

This is the Love that makes sacrifice, takes risks, reaches out, and can see Christ in others.

Pope Francis has said “This Christmas may we be consistent in living the Gospel, welcoming Jesus into the centre of our lives.”

For me it can be challenging among the work, the baking, and even the modest shopping, to remember that welcoming Jesus, inviting the Love, just as Mary and Joseph did, is what I am called to do at Christmas and every day.  

Perhaps it is really that simple after all.  Wishing everyone a blessed Christmas, and opportunities to welcome this Love in the center of our lives.

We wait in joyful hope…

As Catholics in the US it can be quite a contrast between being in Church on Sundays and the rest of our lives at this time of year.

In Mass we are making our way to Christmas - through the path of Advent - Sunday being reminded that we must repent of our sin - not a popular topic at any time of year.

Yet everywhere else, everyone is playing Christmas music; the decorations went up right after Thanksgiving; the focus is quite commercialized; buy, buy, buy.

One great advantage to being in the missions is the complete lack of this phenomenon.  Advent is  Advent / Christmas is Christmas.   I am grateful for the three Advents and Christmas we enjoyed in Udon Thani, Thailand.   We missed our family at this time of year more deeply, yet this experience now over 30 years ago, remains with me and calls me to celebrate both Advent and Christmas for their unique roll in our lives.

When we are preparing missionaries to serve long-term I find myself feeling like those on the hill in Thornton Wilder's play Our Town.   If they are able to make a trip home during their three years, I always recommend doing it at some regular time of year, not at a holiday - just a regular day.    Grover’s Corners, or any home town, our families and friends, can be appreciated anew when we have been away - yet coming home during a holiday may be overwhelming for some.  Please keep all our Mission Doctors in your prayers as they miss their families – and remember also the families here, missing them.

Matthew’s Gospel (4: 16) that  “the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.”

As each candle is lit- they  draw us closer to the celebration of the humble Incarnation of our God, - may we pause, and wait in joyful hope!
 

Reason for the Season

Tom and I served in Thailand with our children for three years and had the opportunity to go to the beautiful midnight mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Udon Thani  for Christmas during our time there.

The joy of being in the missions for Christmas for us was  that the emphasis is on the celebration within the Church and little else – and the luxury of time.  With few distractions it was easier to just spend time together.  Of course being in the missions at the holidays,  it is also a time when everyone more acutely misses family and friends being so far from home.

Trying to bring the mission joy forward to me means working to keep the emphasis on ‘the reason for the season’ and letting go of the pressure that exists for so many of us in our culture regarding spending, gifts, rushing around and the lack of time for what really matters.

Today our Mission Doctors who are serving in Africa and Latin America will celebrate a Christmas where the emphasis will be on the birth of Jesus.  They will however, also be missing family and friends during the special time of year.   Please keep them and all missionaries in your prayers this Christmas and always.

Its that time again.

Time to wait in joyful anticipation.

While we wait, we struggle to wrestle back the meaning of the Holidays from the commercial trappings that encircle us.

Of course, it is wonderful to find gifts that make our family andloved ones smile, feel loved, and know how much we appreciate them each day of the year. Yet all too easily the gift giving can become a task, a reciprocal duty that looses any meaning. It is wonderful to deck the halls, but too easy to get so busy that the days just pass without time for reflection and prayer.

So as we wait this very blessed season of Advent - we light a candle each week on the Advent wreath, the growing light increasing to banish the darkness.

Sometimes for me it can feel like I have one foot in the holy – the true reasons and meaning of this season, and the other foot deeply and busily emerged in the preparations, decorations, baking, shopping, wrapping, and preparing. What I want to try to do this year is not see these as separate things but pull all the seemingly busy work into the holy – prepare with joy; decorate with gladness; bake and shop with the true intention of making my friends and family happy; wrap and prepare with a peaceful heart intent on preparing myself too for Christ to come.
Wishing you joy this Advent.

Let us light the candles together and keep both feet exactly where they should be!

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Of course I do have two commercial messages for Mission Doctors

– for those of you who like me shop online – you can just shop as you would, but go through iGive.com and support Mission Doctors.

And – if you would like to make a gift to Mission Doctors Association in someone’s name this holiday, we have prepared beautiful full color cards for you to let them know of your kindness.

We Wait Together

Advent is the time of waiting and preparing- but the word Advent is from the Latin word 'coming".

We are waiting, we are preparing for Christ’s coming – as the world waited more than 2000 years ago – but we know that in Advent our focus needs to be, not on the waiting but on who we are waiting for. We are waiting for Christ to come, waiting to celebrate once again the dawn of the new day when nothing would be the same.

Children may anticipate with joy the coming of Santa Clause.

Adults may prepare for families coming together at the holidays.

There are others in Guatemala that are also awaiting with joyful anticipation the coming of Dr. Brent Burket and Dr. Jennifer Thoene who will begin a three year assignment to Hospitalito in January.

In Uganda, the hospital awaits the coming of Dr. Ron and Mrs. Barbara Wick in January.

In Cameroon, Sr. Xaveria is awaiting the coming of Dr. James and Mrs. Terry Hake.

These doctors and others serve because Christ has already been born in their hearts and they can’t wait to share their skills and their faith with others.

Please keep all mission doctors and their families in your prayers this Holy Season.

We wait together. We know who we are waiting for, and we know that once again we can strive to be the one others are waiting for.

Keeping Christmas Well

“….and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!”

I love this closing of Dickens’ Christmas Carol.

When we served in Thailand it was easy for me to keep the focus on ‘the reason for the season’ – partly because we were in the very small minority there celebrating Christmas, and then the focus was the celebration at Church, preparations for this with little focus on gifts, shopping and decorations.

After returning to California it became more difficult to keep that focus, and I find that it is so easy to become distracted with baking, shopping, wrapping and all the preparations – not that I become a Scrooge – but rather that the incarnation of God 2000 years ago in Bethlehem becomes secondary to all these trappings.

When lay missionaries are preparing to serve in the missions those of us who have served always try to share this experience with them, and encourage them to enjoy this opportunity to ‘keep Christmas’ in the missions. Many of us are distracted this year with concerns about finances, uncertainty about the future. Hopefully we will pause and remember what we are celebrating, “For God so loved the World” and this knowledge will deepen in us our awareness of God’s love.

One doctor and his wife will be in my prayers in a very special way this Christmas. Dr. Richard and Mrs. Loretta Stoughton are serving God’s children in Zimbabwe – despite, no because of, the difficulties the people are facing. Babies are born at St. Theresa’s people receive anti-retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS, and this oasis of care in a country facing huge problems. Please keep them and all the people of Zimbabwe in your prayers this Christmas – If you want to give a gift in support of their work, you can go to our web site (Donate On-line using a check or credit card on our secure site.) You can designate that the gift is to support the work of the Stoughtons in Zimbabwe if you like.

“...he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!” May we all keep Christmas well – remembering what we are celebrating, honoring and comforted by the knowledge of God’s great love for us.

And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!”

Preparing

I think it is surprising that Advent is one of my favorite times of year, because like so many of us in the US, I am not one who likes to wait.

It has been my experience that people in many other cultures are often better at this. They don’t seem to be so impatient, or hurried. People I’ve met in my travels seem more comfortable in that vast stretching time that can exist when one is waiting. Maybe that is an illusion; maybe they too feel the same frustration that I experience, and just don’t seem to show it.

But the waiting that is the anticipation of Advent is my time to reflect on how God comes to me. How God comes to me in the form of a child born more than 2000 years ago and how he comes to me today in my family members, in the person with the cardboard sign at the end of the freeway off ramp, or the patient in the rural hospital in Uganda or clinic in Guatemala.

If I close my eyes I can easily see the brightly dressed women who waited to serve a meal after a makeshift clinic had been set up in their small village church in Guatemala. I can see the mothers with children in their laps lined up, waiting to see the doctor at St. Theresa’s in Zimbabwe. They wait, but greet the stranger among them with a smile and shy giggle.

The waiting that is Advent is for me this connected waiting. I am waiting with the women in Guatemala, the children in Zimbabwe. We are all waiting. We are anticipating Christ. We are awaiting his birth into the world again so that all people will care about and care for all people.

We are the body of Christ.

We wait for Jesus to be reborn in us this advent, that we can be his hands in the world.