Have yourself a merry little Christ-mas Ep1/O come all ye Faithful!

This is part of a 4-part series "Have yourself a merry little Christ-mas" leading up to Advent.

As December begins, I wonder what sort of Christmas this will be. There are so many questions on our minds. This may be one of the first Christmases where we do not gather as we usually do, as one church on Christmas eve, heralding the birth of the Saviour. As I recall all of the things that we have had to do without, I realised we may have formed unhealthy attachments to them. Yes, a choir singing for Heaven would be something we miss. Yes, packing ourselves into our churches for Vigil mass would be something we miss. I went back to one of the classic Christmas hymns that we hear in Advent and was struck by the lines:

O come, all ye faithful Joyful and triumphant O come ye, o come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of Angels!

Nowhere in the hymn does it say WHERE we will gather, it does not even mean an actual physical space, like in years before, the church building where we gather in. Instead, we are invited to "come", the faithful. We are invited to return not to the building itself, but to return to Him. I find it beautiful that in many instances in the Bible, we are called to a faith that lies more in the unseen than what we can see and touch. How many times has Jesus invited us to go deeper, for "blessed are those who do not see and yet believe"? In these times, maintaining our faith is our personal choice. We can choose to skip online mass, we can choose not to jio our friends and family to mass even if they protest. It is easy for us to NOT do a lot of things. It is more difficult to make a conscious decision to keep the fire of faith burning alive. In this Advent season, the visual reminder may be absent, we may feel a lack of closeness with the people we love, as the pandemic has wrought distance between us. If we look at it that way, it seems we are divided and alone. Yet, the hymn invites us all to "come" and to "behold" Him.

O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him O come, let us adore Him Christ the Lord

What does it mean then to "behold" Him? It means to slow down and be. He is not inviting us to come and "do". We are invited to put aside the many worries on our mind and to "adore" Him. I have an interesting history with Adoration, not having been familiar with this beautiful tradition in our faith for a long time in my life. I recall the first time someone asked me to go down for adoration in the chaplaincy chapel, I was a little stunned. I was thinking of the word itself - to adore - it has 2 meanings.

1. To love and respect deeply

2. To worship and venerate

At a head level, I had a slightly clearer idea of what it all meant and there I was, sitting in front of the Blessed Sacrament, but not really getting to the heart of it all. I felt nothing. It was only years later, in a retreat, that I experienced an overwhelming sense of love pour forth that I realised what it means to "adore" Him. There I was, sitting at His feet, right at the front, smiling to myself. There was a joy I felt that day, that I find it hard to explain or even describe it, even now. The second aspect of "adore" was also lost on me for some time. I looked at the people around me in the retreat and realised everyone was bowing down before Him and yet something in me had not clicked into place. I kneeled but I was not venerating. I was approaching faith in too "human" a way. The Lord drew me out though of my hiding place and over the next few days, my posture progressed from kneeling to bowing prostrate before Him. I had finally recognised Him for who He was and what a sweet joy it was!

Oh, sing, choirs of angels Sing in exultation Oh, come, oh come ye to Bethlehem Come and behold Him Born the King of Angels

Nothing can take away our joy this Advent season. It may indeed be a challenge to "sing in exultation" as we feel we have been silenced, we feel someone has stolen our song. But no, the King of Angels is ready for us, lying in a stable in Bethlehem. It reminds me that faith is not dependent on our circumstance, it does not fade away just because we cannot celebrate as one congregation. Instead, it is in these difficult circumstances of discomfort, that we bear witness of true faith. We see beyond the consumerism of this season, we see beyond the "nice to have" and go straight to the "essentials". So perhaps we will realise that faith is made of something deeper - it is our faith that draws us to the manger. We place our faith in a tiny hapless baby and declare Him the King of Angels!