Perhaps we could capture this year as a waiting game! Where once statesmanship, decency and care for the common good could be relied upon as rules of the game, the rules keep changing in this global game. While young people gathered to enjoy a youth concert in Israel their lives were traumatised and violated in an act of violence. As the world held its breath waiting to see what would happen in Gaza, thousands were massacred. Waiting. And what good did it do us? The madness of posturing on world stages seemingly is the new world order now. To belittle someone and call them out publicly and humiliate them bolsters the power position of the victor. Reflecting on this past year, the waiting game has much anxiety and uncertainty about it.

Recently I had the privilege of listening to a brother who had spent a significant part of his life in Bethlehem. Those who have visited that city are struck by the contrast of living conditions after emerging from the scrutiny check point of Jerusalem. This is a city that brims with the hustle and bustle of life. Street vendors and the enticing smells of Palestinian foods provide comfort to its people who go about their daily lives. The contrast between the tales of two cities that sit side by side is palpable. Watching people from Bethlehem go through the daily inspection at the check point was humiliating. There was no doubt who the victor was in this game of life.

As we talked, he spoke passionately of his experiences among the young people there and how he grew in admiration of them. Their zeal for life had inspired him to remain among them even despite the desperation that clouded their lives. What was it that kept that brother believing in them when the situation that engulfed them seemed hopeless? Why would you keep turning up for university each day knowing that it would not change anything in their world? He had clung to the immortal words of Václav Havel, "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well. It is the certainty that something is worth doing, no matter how it turns out”. Havel himself knew oppression growing in the communist system of what was then Czechoslovakia. Yet clinging to that faint thread of hope, his party played a major role in the Velvet Revolution in 1989 that toppled the communist system, and he assumed the role of president of that country. He was re-elected in a landslide victory the following year.

Havel's political philosophy was one of anti-consumerism. Aware of the human dignity of his people he empowered them with a democratic system that focused on the political, economic and environmental issues that impacted people’s lives as central to government’s priorities and policies.

As consecrated religious this mantra rings true for us too. Bring to mind the religious sisters, brothers and priests currently present in regions of our global community where the tragedy of war, violence and extremism permeates the lives of those they live amongst who are the victims. Our sisters and brothers continue to be present knowing their lives make it worthwhile. In so many ways they are living and discovering the Christmas event amid the suffering.

The Christmas story we await presents us with many images captured in cribs and stores around the world. The story appeals for it has its own simplicity about it. Yet to depth its meaning reveals hidden treasures and disturbing messages. The eminent scripture scholar Raymond E. Brown explores the deeper meaning of these stories, revealing the themes that will shape the life of this ‘little babe of Bethlehem.’ These gospel stories of Christmas are set in the context of the ancient scriptures of the Old Testament. Grounded in the Judaic traditions that shaped the life of Jesus, there is evidence that the writers of their infancy narratives were using these ancient texts to prepare the reader for what was to come in the life of this child born of Mary in Bethlehem.

Indeed, to read the opening lines of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is clearly placed among all the great figures who shaped this great history of salvation. These stories constructed to explain the birth of Jesus are “a vehicle of the good news of salvation and they reveal the later insights of an adult Christ who died and rose.[1]” There is no escaping the harsh reality of what awaits the life of that little babe of Bethlehem. It is going to be a journey that will lead to his death because of what he preached and what he stood for: a new world order where those who were outsiders would be welcomed and embraced, where a new consciousness of God would be revealed.

Ilia Delio in reflecting on this waiting time of advent reminds us that we too are called to awaken to what’s already in our midst. Amid the struggles that cry out to us each day from humanity and our own common home Earth, can we see that something is worth doing without knowing what the outcome will be !

T.S Eliot captured the meaning of Christmas in the opening lines of the Journey of the Magi

‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’

If we choose to enter into this advent time, be prepared for the harsh reality that awaits us as we see the world as it is. While the story of this little babe’s birth can be covered in tinsel and nicety, there is the harsh reality to his life that paradoxically ended in Jerusalem, the city just through the check point of life.

Advent opens the doorway of coming to a new consciousness of God already present in our midst amid the suffering and pain, not despite it. That city of Bethlehem holds the sacred story of the birth of the child who kept pointing beyond to a new heaven and a new earth.

May the way you and your communities live out your prophetic mission in the world keep uncovering the richness of this Christmas time of our lives in the certainty that something is worth doing, no matter how it turns out…

[1] Raymond E. Brown, an Adult Christ at Christmas, Liturgical Press, Collegeville Minnesota, 1978 pp12-13