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Palm Sunday             Why did Jesus enter in Jerusalem on a donkey? He could have come on a horse or on a camel, more elegant animals, sitting higher to be able to be seen and have a better view. But he wanted to fulfill the Scriptures. They said that the Messiah had to come riding on a donkey. Why did the Scriptures prophesied on a donkey and not another animal? Because the donkey is a humble, docile and hardworking beast, more suitable as an example for us, unlike a horse who prefers showing off and pretending. They say a donkey is a symbol of peace, humility and the simple life. A horse is a symbol of war, pride and luxury.             One of the Psalms says that we are like a donkey before God. Jesus has decided to ride on us. We are just a donkey. Many times we think that we are a horse and we become silly, proud and rebellious. We cannot forget that even though we are carrying Jesus, we are just a donkey. When we pretend that we are a horse, the ride becomes bumpy, and Jesus finds it difficult to stay on top. Don’t be a stubborn, grumpy old donkey, only thinking how to find revenge with a kick. Be a young one, with long ears ready for the Master’s command, a quick step ready to work in his service. The Lord wants to ride us, to reach heaven together. The best way for us to enter into heaven is being docile to his call.             Eventually you allow him to ride on you and you experience the shouts of the multitude and the cries of joy to the prophet who is coming to the holy city. People lay their garments for you to walk softly. You enjoy treading on people’s clothes. You feel important, thinking that people are welcoming you. You look around, acknowledging people’s praises and almost crash against a pole in the middle of the road. A simple gesture from Jesus makes your head bow low and fix your eyes on the way. No more frivolous thoughts or wandering looks. All around you is not for you; just for Jesus.             Jesus is a good rider. He lets you ride at your pace, he doesn’t kick with his legs. He brings peace with himself. His yoke is easy and his burden light. But you need to cooperate. All he wants from you is to follow his path. It looks easy but it is not. Common experience tells us that it is one of the most difficult things. It is all right when both our path and his path coincide. But when his path differs from ours, when begins to climb up hill, when the path gets bumpy and rough, we prefer to go down hill. When are we going to be convinced that his way is the best way?             When Jesus sees Jerusalem he begins to cry. You don’t know what to do. You never have seen him crying. He is weeping because of what is going to happen to the holy city, its future destruction at the hands of the Romans. It is amazing, Jesus just sad for a heap of stones. He is like us; we humans worry about things and gadgets. Jesus is a man and has good memories of the temple. And all because it didn’t follow the paths of the Lord. You want to apply the lesson to your own life. You don’t want Jesus to weep for you and for your children. josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 5 A Lazarus              “Lord, him whom you love is ill.” The same can be said of us. We are sick to death by sin, and we need Jesus to either cure us or resurrect us from death. He loves us with divine love and he is ready to come to help us at very short notice. But, can it be said the other way around? Can others say to Jesus: your friend, the one who thinks about you, who wants to spend time with you, who visits you and likes to receive you frequently, is in need of you? Jesus loved to stop over at Bethany, the house of his friends, to spend time with Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Saint Josemaria used to call the tabernacle, Bethany. Do we like to stop over at a church and spend time with our friend? Can we tell Jesus: Lord, I love you and I am ill?             “If you have been here my brother would have not died.” It is a very strong statement. It is like saying: you are responsible for the death of our loved one. How many times we blame God for our sufferings, our illnesses, our accidents? We ask, where was God then? Martha and Mary could talk to Jesus in this way, because they were very close to him. If we could see their faces at the time, they would have shown a smile among their tears. It was not blaming him, but showing their pain for the death of their brother. Do I have the same confidence in Jesus, to tell him what is in my heart? Jesus, I am sick of everything.             “Take away the stone.” But Jesus, he’s been there for four days already; he is really dead. For the Jews four days was the sign of real death. “Take away the stone.” But Jesus, his body is corrupt and he stinks. “Take away the stone.” I have been in that cave for many years now and it is impossible for me to move. Trust me, take away what separates you from me, a stone, a wall, a barrier, whatever it is. Jesus is telling us to take away what is between us and him. We are slow to follow his command and we have many excuses not to remove the obstacle from our path. If you don’t remove it, you cannot come out.             “Lazarus, come out!” It was a strong voice, loud enough for the dead ears of Lazarus to hear from inside the tomb. It goes through the rock. It is the voice of Jesus, manly, well balanced, deep and harmonious, a voice impossible to resist. It is the word of God. The same one that still resounds from the beginning of time. The voice we hear at Mass: this is my body, a body that died for us and rose from the dead. Lazarus came out like a robot, a zombie, an automatic response, against his will. He was sleeping peacefully, more in the other life than here, and didn’t want to come back. An imperative command to come out. His voice is irresistible: Come out of yourself!             “Unbind him and let him go.” It must have been an amazing scene. They were all paralysed and terrified. Nobody could move, not even run away. They were all tied to the ground looking at him like a ghost, like a mummy. When we take away the stone, he lets us free. There is always something that enslaves us, either a little thread or a chain. Something that doesn’t allow us to fly, to follow the path God wants us to walk. Unbind the ropes that tie you to earth and go, run towards eternity. josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 4 A The blind man              Last Sunday we looked at one of the four natural elements, water, indispensable for human life. It is very much part of the beginning of our Christian life, when we are baptised. Without water there can be neither natural nor supernatural life. This Sunday we consider another crucial element, light, without which life cannot grow either. It is part of the rite of Baptism, when we bring to the newly baptised person a lighted candle, symbolising a cleaned soul, full of light. Christ is the light who came to dispel darkness. On the Easter vigil we are reminded of this reality, when we bring the Easter candle into the darkness of the church, and little by little, by lighting the candles people are carrying in their hands, the whole church becomes illuminated.             Today in the Gospel we come across a man blind from birth. It is hard for us to realise what it is to be blind. Try to close your eyes and keep them closed for a lengthy period of time; you won’t last too long. Blindness from the beginning is a harder reality: you cannot dream with images. Once they tried to explain to a blind man what the colour red was; and after much explanation, trying to compare it with a hot instrument, he said that it must be similar to the sound of a trumpet. Colours don’t have much to do with sounds; imagine spiritual things. We are blind from birth to them, because of original sin, and we need Jesus to cure our blindness, to be able to see him.             Jesus made clay with his saliva, placed mud on the blind man’s eyes and told him to wash himself in the pool of Siloam. Why did he do that? He could have touched his eyes and cured him straight away. It is a reminder that we are made of clay, that our feet can easily break. The pool of Siloam was outside the walls of the city. He could have gone to the nearby fountain and washed his eyes, but it wouldn’t had worked. Jesus wanted him to walk with faith and show others his trust in God. He could go with mud on his eyes because he was blind and knew the way by heart. We also need to show others that we trust in Jesus. God’s saliva cured him, but it had to be mixed with our clay, with our humanity.             We miss something when we don’t have it. We don’t normally realise that we are blind to the spiritual world. Once we cannot see, we notice our eyes, as when they hurt or we need glasses. We have two of them because they are very important. We have also two ears, to listen better; but only one mouth not to speak too much. We know we are blind because we realise that the saints can see things we don’t see. We would like to see what they see. Better, we would like to see with Jesus eyes. Saint Teresa of Avila wanted to know the colour of Jesus’ eyes when he appeared to her; she says that when she tried, the apparition disappeared altogether.             Today we ask Jesus to cure our spiritual blindness. First we need to acknowledge that our soul has eyes and that they are closed. Then we have to allow him to put mud in them, and walk with a dirty face for a while, showing others our blindness, till we reach the waters of the Sacrament of Confession. And we need to do this not once, or twice, but a thousand times. Slowly we are going to start seeing; first some shadows, then some sparks of light. The more we clean them, the more light we are going to see. We cannot see the full light from the beginning: it would destroy our eyes completely. And slowly we are going to discover the wonders of the spiritual life. josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 3 A Samaritan woman             Today we meet a different Jesus, less attractive, more human, more like us. After two days journey from Jerusalem, he is tired, dirty and thirsty. He is all alone, sitting at the edge of Jacob’s well. His disciples had gone to the nearby village to get some food and water. Nobody stayed with him; they were too hungry or too thirsty to keep him company. Jesus couldn’t go on and had to sit down to rest. Or may be he was there waiting for the Samaritan woman and for each one of us. How many times we leave Jesus alone, entertaining ourselves, or giving in our silly little pleasures. And we forget about others.             It is noon, the sun is up in the sky, the time of the day when everything is quiet and silent, but for the sound of the cicadas. Jesus looks at the fresh water at the bottom of the well with an impossible desire. And a woman comes alone carrying a jar on her head, moving her body in a provocative way. She comes at this hour to avoid other women who didn’t like her, because she stole their husbands. She is beautiful and Jesus is full of dust. Two different attitudes in life: a frivolous woman with a bucket, and a dirty, thirsty God. We are more inclined to notice her than to look at Jesus.             She ignores Jesus; Jews and Samaritans didn’t talk to each other. And a woman alone didn’t talk to a man. Her situation in life was very messy. But Jesus overcoming his tiredness and her messiness, begins to talk to her. We are all represented in this woman, in her sinfulness, in her desire to draw water and find happiness. Jesus gives us an example of how to reach souls, even the ones that are far away from him. He begins to talk to her about what is important to her, about the water she comes to draw from the well. We normally talk about what is important to us and we find it difficult to know what is important to others.             Jesus asks her: “Give me a drink.” God thirsty and without a bucket to draw water. He says the same from the cross: “I thirst.” You can find these words in every chapel of Mother Teresa’s nuns. Even though he doesn’t need anything, God always begins asking for things. He is thirsty for our love; he expects us to give ourselves to him, to place him at the centre of our lives. Better: he is telling us what is really happening to us, that we are thirsty of him. We are like the deer in the Psalm that is longing for streams of pure, clear water. And we keep coming back every day to draw water from an earthly well, that will never fill us up. Our heart is a bucket full of cracks, impossible to contain the muddy water we are trying to get from the pot holes in the road.             Only God can give us this clean, fresh water. This is what he tells the Samaritan woman: “I am the only one who can give you a living water, a water that when you drink it, you’ll never be thirsty again.” A living water, alive, full of energy, with enough nourishment that leads to eternal life. Then, you won’t have to come back again to this well; you won’t have to look for impossible ways to quench yours thirst. It is the water that flew from his side on the cross, when the centurion pierced his heart. It is the grace that flows from the Mass every time we come to drink from his open wound. If only you knew the gift of God! josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 2 The Transfiguration of Jesus              Last Sunday we went with Jesus down to the desert. This week he is asking us to accompany him up Mount Thabor. We went down through penance and repentance; now, purified and cleansed, we climb up to the heights of the spiritual life, with the new wings sacrifice and mortification have given to us. Even though it is only 300 metres above the plain, it looks higher than it is, because it stands alone surrounded by flat terrain. There is a magnificent view and a beautiful church on top. It is only an hour of climbing, but the road goes straight up. The higher you go the more you see.             You feel closer to God when you reach the summit. It is part of our Lenten exercise, to climb up the mountain of our sinfulness, towards God, leaving material things behind. You cannot carry much weight if you want to follow Jesus and keep his pace. The closer you become to the top, the more light you find yourself surrounded by. Saints love going up to the mountains to meet their creator. They have received many graces up there. The air is thinner, the light is purer, solitude welcomes you, silence envelops you, and here you feel that God is listening to you. Above the sounds and distractions of society, you find a better connection with God.             Jesus took with him his three beloved apostles, Peter, John and James, to accompany him; the first Pope, the first apostle martyred and the last to die. He took them on other special occasions. But especially they witnessed both his transfiguration and the agony in the garden. The highs and the lows of his earthly existence. Both in beautiful natural surroundings, a mountain and a garden. They were the only ones to attend both amazing events. Would Jesus take us with him? Are we part of the group of his close friends? Are we ready to withstand the highs and the lows of the Christian life?             Why did Jesus transfigure himself in front of them? To show them his divinity, just before he was going to show them his horrible passion and death. He does the same with us. If he takes us with him high on the spiritual life, he is going to asks us also to go through suffering and penance. It is the story of every saint. That’s is why there are only few saints; we like the mystical experiences, but we run away from the cross. In both events the three beloved disciples fell sleep; they let Jesus down. We too fall asleep when Jesus asks us to accompany him. But if three of Jesus’ best apostles couldn’t keep their eyes open, we mustn’t feel too bad when we do the same.             When they arrived at the summit Jesus began to pray. This scene in the Gospel has been depicted traditionally as an icon of contemplation. Before we discover Jesus’ divinity, we need to spend time in prayer, contemplating his humanity. Only when we manage to be in deep concentration, detached from any earthly attachment, sitting above our miseries, can we discover the true face of Christ. It must have been an amazing experience, when they woke up and found themselves in front of the real Jesus. They never forgot that vision. Jesus does the same with us. When he asks us to share the sufferings of his cross, he also sends to us a bit of honey, a spark of heaven, a glimpse of his beautiful face. josephpich@gmail.com

Lent 1 Temptations Jesus goes to the desert led by the spirit to be tempted. He allows himself to be tested, to share our normal ordinary existence. By doing this, Jesus has entered the drama of human experience. We accompany him, to learn from him, to share his strength. Jesus fought and defended himself as a man, with the same weapons we have. We go to the desert with Jesus, like the desert fathers, to become stronger and be ready to fight the evil one. In the desert there are no distractions, no virtual reality, no place to hide. We can see the devil coming with all his false devices, and we can defeat him more easily. We draw him out from the city and we bring him to our home turf. Here we are just the three of us, and our enemy is outnumbered: we are two against one. This Lent we are going to spend 40 days with Jesus praying and fasting. The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert. Moses and Elijah spent 40 days of penance and prayer before they met God. 40 is the number of testing, discovering of who you are and prayer in the Bible. We need time to get to know ourselves and get ready. After 40 days of prayer and fasting, Jesus is weak, and the devil takes advantage of this moment to tempt him with strong temptations. Traditionally we call our three enemies, the devil, the world and the flesh. The world are others and the flesh is ours. They could attack us one, two or three together. The worst one is us. We are our biggest enemy. Why was Jesus tempted?  It is a mystery. Maybe the devil wanted to know who Jesus was, how strong he was, a bit of a testing match. We witness a battle between God and the devil. We are not in the middle. We can choose sides. Hopefully we are in God's side, in the right one, the winning one. In the history of humanity at the end God always wins, even though many times it looks like the devil has the upper hand. God uses the attacks and machinations of the evil one to bring his plans to completion. It must be frustrating for him to see all his work undone. He becomes more experienced with time, but he can never defeat God. In the crucifixion, Satan thinking that killing Jesus was going to win, served God’s plan for our redemption. Why God allows us to be tempted? Temptations in themselves are indifferent; they are good if we win, they are bad if we lose. Sometimes we win, other times we lose. They help us to grow in love and virtue. We ask God to get rid of them because we don’t want trouble. To become stronger:  difficulties help us to grow. To show him that we love Him: we put Him first. To become more humble: we need his help. We realise how weak we are. They help us to increase our merits. Get to know ourselves. We normally get tempted the same way. Be sincere. Oscar Wilde was running away from temptation very slowly, for it to catch him. I know that if I go to bed late... Once I begin to speak about this topic... If I go out with this person... Once I start eating peanuts I cannot stop. We know that we will never tempted above our strength. We have all the weapons to fight temptations. We need to use the right ones, like in computer games. The Bible: Jesus uses it against the devil. Pope Francis says that we should use the Bible as we use our cell phone: carry it with us, read it frequently, go back home to pick it up. The best weapon against the devil is Our Lady. josephpich@gmail.com

Ash Wednesday             “Return to me”, the Lord is telling us on the first reading of today’s Mass. It means that we have been wandering off, we have lost our direction and we need to stop and come back. We have been going rather in the opposite direction, towards our own ego, our selfishness and our pride. Return to me, turn around, do a “u” turn. It is hard to do it; it demands a small conversion, to recognise that we have been wrong and we need to put God back at the centre of our lives. Return “to me”, abandon the desires of your heart, that don’t make you happy, and return to your God, to your Creator, your Father, to what constitutes the meaning of your life.             When the priest today places the ashes on our forehead, he will remind us of the famous words of the Scripture: “Remember man that you are dust, and unto dust you shall return.” It is a reminder that without God we are nothing; without God all that remains is this pile of dirt that we see in this little dish. The wind is going to blow away the dust of our bodies. We shall return to the earth where we came from. We get the ashes on our forehead, to make sure our thoughts are in the right place. The Church wants to inscribe on our minds what it is important in life. Memento mori. Remember, we come from God and we are going back to him.             In the book The Alchemist the boy asks him: “Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” And the old man answers: “Because, wherever our heart is, there is also our treasure.” Ubi thesaurus cor; your heart is in your treasure. If we want to know what our treasure is, we should listen to the beating of our hearts. It is not familiar music, because we don’t normally listen to it. It is normally hidden from our senses. We need to listen carefully. Pope Francis says that “our heart always points in some direction: it is like a compass seeking its bearings. We can also compare it to a magnet: it needs to attach itself to something.” It is always seeking something and it is good for us to know what it is.             Pope Francis in one of his homilies for Ash Wednesday, proposes three steps for Lent: “Almsgiving, prayer, fasting. What are they for? Almsgiving, prayer and fasting bring us back to the three realities that do not fade away. Prayer reunites us to God; charity, to our neighbour; fasting, to ourselves. God, my neighbour, my life: these are the realities that do not fade away and in which we must invest. Lent, therefore, invites us to focus, first of all on the Almighty, in prayer, which frees us from that horizontal and mundane life where we find time for self but forget God. It then invites us to focus on others, with the charity that frees us from the vanity of acquiring and of thinking that things are only good if they are good for me. Finally, Lent invites us to look inside our hearts, with fasting, which frees us from attachment to things and from the worldliness that numbs the heart. Prayer, charity, fasting: three investments for a treasure that endures.”             In this journey through Lent, where do we fix our eyes, our gaze? What should we focus on? The Church has the answer: on Christ crucified. It is very simple: Jesus is on the cross and if we want to find him, we need to climb up to the cross. josephpich@gmail.com

Love your enemies              An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This was the old law. It is a bit harsh for us: if you steal something, you loose your hand; if you kill, you are killed. It was good then, to stop successive acts of revenge. Justice was made, the deed repaid; no need to further action. They say that an eye for an eye eventually would leave the whole world blind. But Jesus came to lift the level of charity; he asked us to turn the other cheek, to love our enemies. It was a big change. How can we do that? We shouldn’t have enemies, but we all have people that annoy us. What did Jesus do? Even though he was innocent, he died for all of us. There is no offence that we can’t forgive and forget.             This is the true Christian spirit: we are all brothers and sisters. We should love everybody without exception. This is the heart of the Gospel. We need to look at others as Jesus sees them. Have a big heart that includes everyone. Look at the saints, how they treated others; people were attracted to their way of life. When somebody cuts in on us driving on the road, we get upset; if we recognise the person, we smile instead and we wave to him or her. If we know the person jumping the queue, we are more lenient. We need to ask Jesus to help us to change our glasses, or to see things through his eyes.             There was an Abbot in a monastery who was worried about the lack of charity among his brothers. He went to see a holy man to find a solution. The holy man told him: “You have Jesus among your brothers.” He responded that it was impossible. The holy man reassured him. Going back to the monastery he began to think: “The cook? No, he is too fat, always eating. The librarian? He doesn’t stop reading books. The porter? He is always gossiping about the news. The bell ringer? He is never on time to mark the hours. The gardener? He forgets to water the flowers. The tailor? He can hardly get the size right. The organist? He falls asleep on the keyboard.” And he went through all the friars to see who could be Jesus. When he arrived at the monastery, he got together all the brothers and told them about the holy man: “He says that one of you is Jesus. I don’t think so, but I tell you this just in case.” They all began to think about who could Jesus be. Then the whole atmosphere of the monastery changed. They treated each other differently. Saint Paul says that some of the people around us could be angels. Sometimes Jesus appeared to saints in a different human form, a leper to Saint Francis, a poor man to Saint Martin, a little boy to Saint Christopher.             The Italians say that when someone does something against you tie a thread on your finger: not to forget, to have it always in your face. We cannot keep bearing all our grudges throughout our life. It is a dead weight. Eventually they will stop us from living. We need to learn how to forgive, forget and let them go.             We all have things that upset us. It is part of human life. We should bring those things to our prayer, to our conversation with God and deal with them. Otherwise when we get upset all the things inside of us come out and we hurt people. Why do they upset us? How can we change our attitude? A young couple used to get upset using the same toothpaste. Instead of uniting them, it was the opposite. One liked to roll it up and the other just to press it. Eventually they bought two different tubes. The argument was over. Deep down, it is our pride that causes the upset. We need to recognise this and move on. josephpich@gmail.com

Yes mean Yes              “Let your Yes mean Yes, and your No mean No.” This was the motto of a boys’ school, to teach the kids to be sincere. They used to ask me, why do we have to say the truth, if with a lie we can get away with things. I used to tell them that Jesus is the Truth and if we want to be closer to Jesus, we need to be truthful. Let what you say reflect what you think. Let your mind express itself. Gulliver in one of his travels comes across an island populated by horses, and tries to explain to them what human beings are. The horses cannot understand creatures that are able to lie: How can they think one thing and say a different one? Scientists say that the difference between computers and human beings is that computers cannot lie; they are programmed to come out with what is right. The day they learn how to deceive others, they will be like us; then we will be in trouble, completely at their mercy.             Society needs the truth to function properly. We live in a relativistic world where people are not interested in the truth. They are only interested in their truth. As long as I am happy in the way I live, I change the truth to suit my life. The internet is full of fake news. We like to access web sites that say things we agree with. The protagonist of the movie “A Few Good Men” has a famous line: “You cannot handle the truth”. It is true: we don’t want to handle it, to live by it, to live our lives according to the Truth, with a capital T. Martyrs used to lay down their lives for what they believed in. We are not ready to do so. We are only ready to die for what give us most pleasure, money, drugs, sex, alcohol or food.             First we need to be sincere with God. It is silly to try to deceive God, because He knows everything. But we don’t want to face him, to acknowledge his presence. We live ignoring him, as if he doesn’t exist; we only go to Him when we are in trouble. How can we love Him if we are afraid of him? Maybe we contact Him once a day, out of duty, just in case, when we pray before going to bed. We need to force ourselves to spend time with Him in silent prayer, to try to see things through His eyes, to look at Him with loving eyes. Somebody said that we should look at Jesus’ eyes at least once a day. Sooner or later we are going to face Him.             In the temple of Apollo at Delphi there was a famous inscription: Nosce te ipsum; know yourself. One of the most difficult things in life is to know ourselves. Because we live inside of ourselves, because we don’t like how we are, we create a different image of ourselves. I’d like to have another inscription: Ama te ipsum: love yourself; love yourself in the way God created you. God doesn’t love a virtual you; he loves you in the way you are. Unless we accept ourselves in the way we are we cannot be sincere with ourselves. How can we love ourselves? How can we get to know ourselves? Open your interior to somebody you love, to somebody who can help you, like in spiritual direction; we all need a sounding board to check who we are and how we are.             Lastly, sincerity with others. It is very important in human relations. If people know that we are not sincere, they cannot trust us. It is not easy to live with a person who is constantly lying to you. Once we start lying, it is not easy to stop. The truth is harder, but will set you free. How can we stop lying? Try to catch the lie before it goes out; bite it. Slowly you can win the battle. josephpich@gmail.com

Salt and Light              Jesus reminds us today in the Gospel that we Christians are salt and light; salt of the earth and light of the world. Both are related to two senses, seeing and tasting. Without light we cannot see. Without salt the food becomes insipid. Jesus doesn’t say what we should be, but what we are; we are because of our Baptism. Not because we are better, or because we have done well, but because of his will, because he wants it. Christopher West always reminds us: You are a gift, be what you are.             We are precious in the eyes of God, like Gollum with his ring. In the old world salt was very valuable. The Jews made their offerings to God seasoned with salt, to make it pleasant for him. The Greeks considered salt to be divine. The Roman soldiers were some times paid with salt. In the times where there were no fridges, to make the food last, it had to be covered with salt. The human body contains almost a kilo of salt. Comparing us with salt, Jesus is telling us how valuable we are in his eyes.             What does it mean to be salt? It is white and pure; we should live a clean life, different from other people’s tasteless lives. It gives flavour to the food; we should make the world more pleasant, more lovable. It sterilises the wounds, stopping infections; we should preserve society from the effects of sin. It melts the ice when the roads are covered with it; we should melt the coldness of humanity with the warmth of the love of God. It preserves the food from decay; we should be like preservatives, to stop society from disintegrating, keeping things fresh and healthy. It produces thirst, the desire to drink; we should foster our thirst for God, that only his love can quench. But if the salt becomes tasteless what can you do with it? Throw it away. If it becomes contaminated, it becomes useless. When the salt in the underground water comes to the surface, the field becomes barren. It is possible for us to lose our way, our truth and our light.             Light is very important for us. Without the light of the sun it is impossible to live. Our eyes are our most valuable sense. The same happens in the spiritual life: God is the light. The first thing he did when he created the world was to separate light from darkness. When we see God, we see light. The devil is the prince of darkness. Hell is pitch black. When we baptise a baby we light a candle, to signify that his soul is full of light. Jesus came to dispel darkness.             We are the light of the world, not our light, but his light. We need to let his light to shine on us. We need to learn how to reflect his light, not ours. Like the moon, that reflects the light of the sun. We compare Mary with the moon. We should be like a lighthouse: to show people where the rocks are, where the danger is. Jesus is the beacon; we are the lighthouse. We can be a beautiful lighthouse, close to the sea, on the forefront, but if our beacon is out, we are useless. To give light we have to have it. Many times instead of salt we are vinegar; instead of giving light, we give darkness. We ask Mary our mother to remind us what we are: children of the light, pure mineral salt.   josephpich@gmail.com

Beatitudes             One of the most beautiful places in the Holy Land is where the church of the Beatitudes is located. It is built on a grassy hill with an amazing view of the lake of Gennesaret. It is one of those places that hasn’t changed much. It is situated on the north west side of the lake, three kilometres from Capernaum. The area is callled Tabgha, meaning seven springs, still flowing down towards the lake. There are two other churches in proximity, on the site of the multiplication of the loaves and the fish, and the primacy of Peter. The church is built in an octagon, in remembrance of the eight beatitudes. You can walk around the outside of the church on a covered veranda, contemplating the lake and the surrounding countryside. You are tempted to keep circling the church watching the panorama and praying about the Beatitudes.             The prophets of old used to preach from the top of the hill for people to be able to hearthem. We see here a classic depiction of Jesus inscribed in our minds, preaching the Gospel to the crowds, sitting down while people remain at his feet, listening to him, completely absorbed in his words. Pope Francis stresses the importance of “how the proclamation of this message happened: Jesus, seeing the crowds that followed Him, climbs up the gentle slope that surrounds the Lake of Galilee; He sits down and, addressing His disciples, proclaims the Beatitudes. Therefore, the message is directed to the disciples, however, the crowds are on the horizons, namely, the whole of humanity. It’s a message for the whole of humanity.” It is the attitude we must have for entering the kingdom of heaven.             It is not easy to preach about the Beatitudes, to give a meaningful commentary about them. We priests try to avoid them. Why? Maybe because you need to be very close to Jesus to be able to explain them well. Thank God they speak for themselves. You only need to read them and pray about them, listen to their voice. Once they left Jesus lips, they have a life of their own. Their sound keeps moving through time, amplifying their waves among the history of men.             They are simple and profound. They speak to us in many different ways. They are very practical, proposing ideas for our own lives. We can try to live them now, today, during the course of the day. They push us to make small resolutions that will bring us closer to God and to others. This is why it is so difficult and so easy to talk about them: they become very personal, suggesting down to earth ideas, like bubbles of soap, popping out from the tube, that resonate specifically to each one of us. This is why we don’t like to read them very often; too many desires come to our minds, with dangerous changes in our way of life. We prefer to close the book and leave it for tomorrow.             Maybe I have been a bit negative in my outlook today. The Beatitudes are very demanding and I am getting old. Time makes things more difficult. It is easy to become discouraged. We tried them and we failed. We didn’t find them wanting, but we found ourselves failing. We need to keep trying, hoping that one day God will lift us up, whenever He wants to.   josephpich@gmail.com

Follow me             Jesus begins what we call his public life calling twelve men to follow him, to accompany him, to share his life. We call them apostles, the one who is sent out. They are going to hear his message and to be entrusted with the task of passing it on to others. Most of them were fishermen, rough guys, not very smart; one of them betrayed him and the leader of them denied him three times. At the end, all of them but John ran away from his passion at Calvary. Their weaknesses give us hope. We too begin a new year in our lives and we have an opportunity to make a renewed commitment to follow Jesus a bit closer. Last year we ran away from the cross. Hopefully this year we can keep him company.             ”Follow me.” This is what Jesus told them, how he called them. He is asking them to follow him, to walk behind him, to try to place their feet in his footprints. This means to imitate him, to become more like him, to keep his pace. To follow a perfect man. It was love at first sight. They were all attracted to him. There is nobody like Jesus. We can try to find the perfect person, but we will never find him. Only Jesus can fill all our expectations; he is the one we have been looking for. And this is what he is reminding us today: “You have been created to love me; only in me can you find happiness; that’s why I am asking you to follow me.” Every year, every day, every hour, he is telling us the same. Because we don’t listen, because we stray from the path, because we get distracted, because we follow him from a distance, he is never tired of repeating the same: “Follow me.” It is the best for us.             “Follow me.” Follow my footsteps, follow my direction, follow my pace. It is not easy. We go either too fast or too slow. We can be doing too many things, with plenty of activity, but we are not concentrating on what’s important. We don’t have our priorities right. Saint Augustine says: bene curris, sed extra viam; you run well, but off the path. Or maybe our laziness is in command, we procrastinate, we become indifferent, and we are going at a tortoise pace. Jesus’ pace is the right one for us. He knows us well. If we go too fast, we overtake him; if we go too slowly, we miss him. For us to know the way is to follow him. We all would like to know what is ahead of us and plan accordingly. But God wants us to fix our eyes on Him and not to worry about what lies ahead of us. We should trust Him as a good loving father. We only need to look at Him to know we are on the right path.             Is it a command or a request? It is a gift. It is a hidden treasure, a pearl of great value, a bright diamond, a big star shining in the night sky. If we know where we are coming from and where we are going to, it is easier to recognise the value of our treasure. It is a big grace, an amazing offering, that God presents to us. Many are called but only few are chosen. Here we are. And we follow him dragging our feet.             We are chosen for two tasks: to be with him and to be sent to others. To get to know Jesus Christ and to introduce him to others. The more we know him the better we can present him to our friends and relatives. We need to discover him, to recognise who he is to be able to show him to others. A treasure cannot be hidden. A great treasure becomes greater when it is shared. josephpich@gmail.com

Lamb of God             John the Baptist, when he saw Jesus passing by, he pointed him out to his disciples with these words: “Behold the Lamb of God.” This second time John recognized Jesus. The first time was when Our Lady met her cousin Elizabeth; he didn’t remember it. This time John wanted to show his disciples who the Messiah was. He wanted his two best men to follow Jesus, to offer them to him. John and Andrew took the hint, followed Jesus and became his apostles. Do I point Jesus to others? Do I give Jesus the best of me?             Why did John use this expression? It is a representation foreign to us. It doesn’t make sense to us to see God as a lamb. But for the Jews it was something very familiar, coming from their own tradition. Isaiah had compared the sufferings of the Messiah with a lamb going to the slaughter. The blood of the paschal lamb was painted on the door of the Israelites to protect their firstborn against the angel passing by. It became a promise and a figure of Christ, the true Lamb. Every year the Paschal Lamb was sacrificed in the Temple recalling their liberation from the Egyptians and their covenant with God. In the book of Revelation Jesus appears victorious and glorious as the slain lamb, surrounded by angels and saints.             Three characteristics of the lamb can be applied to Jesus. First, the humble and meek condition of a lamb, who goes about in a simple and trusting way. In the same way a lamb goes to the slaughter without saying anything, as a gentle animal going to its fate, Jesus during his Passion kept silence; he let them do whatever they wanted, without rebelling against the will of his Father God. Second, the spotless whiteness, and the soft and pleasant touch of the wool of a lamb. It reminds us of the purity and innocence of Jesus in front of his accusers, who with amazing violence and force, expressed their hatred in their treatment of Jesus. Third, the offering and satisfaction produced by the lambs sacrificed in the temple of Jerusalem. It is fulfilled in the person of Jesus, who came to give himself up for each one of us. Now no more lambs have to die anymore. Jesus died once and for all.             Every time the priest during Mass lifts the host in front of us before Communion saying “Behold the Lamb of God”, we are reminded of this reality. The priest presents Jesus to us in a very graphical way; he shows him to us, he points him out, like John the Baptist. Once a priest told me that sometimes he felt like Pontius Pilate, introducing Christ to the crowd: “Here is the man.” Ecce Homo. He feared that the crowd could answer again: “Crucify him.” We don’t want him to rule over us, we don’t want his kingdom. The priest should try to hide his face behind the host, to disappear, and let Jesus shine: he is the one; what are you going to do with him? It is a good moment to make an act of faith. Do I believe that behind the appearances of bread is hidden the Son of God? If I believe that, my life has to change accordingly.             “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” He is the only one who can take all our iniquities, imperfections, shortcomings, frustrations, away. We can leave them behind for ever. He’s got the power. All we need to do is to believe in him and let his mercy rain on us; apply his forgiveness through Confession to that baggage all human beings carry with us. Today is a good moment to unload the weight of that rubbish that makes us bent over, weighed down, unhappy. josephpich@gmail.com

Epiphany             The three wise men saw the star and followed it. This is the story of their lives, of their encounter with God, of their place in history. It is an amazing one; by following a star, they met a baby, and they discovered the Messiah. Humanly speaking it was crazy. Why did a passing star provoke that reaction on the Magi? How do you follow a star? Where or when is it going to stop? These are questions that belong to our lives. We too discovered a star, we are following it, and hopefully it will lead us to Jesus. It is crazy, but it is a divine adventure.             How do we discover the star? Good question. It is not easy. The three wise men dedicated their lives to astronomy, to the study of the sky, looking for clues to their own existence. Man has always looked at space to try to understand where we come from and where we are going to. We too need to spend time discerning the signs, the sparks, the footprints, God has placed in our way, to discover his will for us, to find our path, to hoist our sails towards the right wind. It is a work of prayer, contemplation, silence and reflection.             It is not enough to discover the star, but we need to follow it. Many people see the star but they don’t do anything about it. Others begin to walk, but they get discouraged; they stop and they go back. It is not easy to persevere on an unknown quest. We don’t know how long it is going to take, where it is going to finish, if it is really the right path, or we lost our way; perhaps we even missed an important crossroads. Sometimes the road goes through a desert, through a rough terrain, across wild plains, deep gorges, dense jungles. Other times there are robbers waiting for us, to attack us when we are distracted; there are beasts ready to devour us, unexpected rivers in flood, precipices that stop us from going ahead, fires raging from the bush threatening our path, sand storms, plagues of locusts and lightning strikes. From time to time, the star disappears behind the clouds and we think she is not there anymore.             As Pope Francis says, “Jesus allows himself to be found by those who seek him.” We know that we are not alone, that he travels with us, even though we don’t see him. To seek him we need to leave behind whatever slows us down; to travel light, we cannot carry much weight, to be able to keep pace with the star; and to keep our eyes fixed on the horizon, without getting distracted with the marvellous things we come across in our way. The devil is trying to slow us down, to get us stuck in the mud, to deviate us from the right direction, to turn us back to where we came from. If we persevere, we will find him. Whatever happens, the star is always up there.             We arrive at the crib empty handed. We came naked from our mother’s womb and we leave without anything. Pope Francis’ grandmother used to say that the shroud we are going to be buried in won’t have any pockets. What can we give to baby Jesus when we arrive in his presence? We haven’t got much. All we can do is to offer ourselves. It is easy; a baby brings out the best in us. josephpich@gmail.com

Holy Family A              Once we have a baby, we have a family. The Church uses three different Gospels for this feast day, the presentation and finding of the child Jesus in the temple, and today the flight to Egypt. In them we see the Holy Family together in three very different settings, today flying away from Herod who wants to kill the baby. We see Joseph sleeping peacefully, after the coming of the three wise men. Pope Francis has a lot of devotion to the sleeping Joseph. He’s got a statue of him on his desk. Joseph is peacefully dreaming about what to do with the gold left by the Magi, either to buy a faster donkey or to refurbish the old kitchen at home. It wasn’t to be; the gold is for the trip. He can still do with the old donkey.             We are getting used to the angel appearing to Joseph in his dreams. We are also normally used to seeing Joseph getting up in the middle of the night, taking the mother and the child and running away from Herod’s soldiers. But let us take for one moment the place of Joseph. If an angel of the Lord appears to me in a dream and asks me the same as Joseph, my first reaction when I wake up would be of rebellion: that was a nightmare! Or maybe it is the devil. My second reaction would be to challenge God: Why do we have to move? Can you get rid of Herod? Is this baby truly the Son of God? But of course, Joseph is not me, and did what God wanted him to do, without complaining, without asking questions, waking up straight away, without waiting for the morning to say good bye to the people in Nazareth, just in case Herod’s soldiers were at the door.             The Holy Family went to Egypt to fulfill the Scripture. But it could have been written differently. There are places in Egypt that today still hold the tradition of the passing of Jesus through their land. Joseph gives us an example of docility and trusting in God’s will. We all have the experience of many things that happen to us that we don’t like, that we don’t understand, that we complain about. We rebel and we ask: Why me? The question should be: Why not me? Some things we’ll understand later on; other things we need to wait till eternity. We should be patient. Eventually everything will make sense.             Again we are used to seeing the flight to Egypt in traditional paintings as something beautiful and romantic. It wasn’t like that. They didn’t book a flight on the internet. It was hard, in the middle of the night, looking back to see if they were followed, going to a new country with a different language, with hieroglyphic handwriting, as refugees. Joseph had to begin again, find a job, build a new house, make new friends. They even didn’t know how long they had to be there.             After few years of hard work, the Holy Family were settled. They built a beautiful house, Joseph had plenty of work and Mary made good friends. Jesus began to talk with an Egyptian accent. Joseph was again dreaming about a well deserved holiday at the beach, at the mouth of the Nile, when again an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and told him to go back home. And he went back without complaining. Then he spent his years surrounded by the most amazing treasures you can have in your life: Jesus and Mary. God’s plans for us are always the best for us. When we get older we realise that he knows best. And the opposite; when we do our own thing, things go wrong and we get frustrated. Joseph died accompanied by his two greatest loves. Let us follow in Joseph footsteps. josephpich@gmail.com

Christmas             During this Advent, in our quest for Jesus, we have been following the example of John the Baptist, Joseph and Mary. They have led us to him. We have arrived at our destination. We have reached the center of our lives and the focus is a baby. Now we realise that baby Jesus is all that matters. These days of Christmas are days of calm and serene contemplation of baby Jesus. All we need to do is to look at him, to plunge into the mystery of God becoming man, admiring the mingling of humanity and divinity. Just that, to look at him, and nothing else. Trying to enter deeper and deeper, into the infinite abyss of God’s love for us, a bottomless pit of his majesty and power. And all this is concentrated in a little tiny baby.             Why did he have to come to us? He didn’t. But he wanted not only to live with us, but to become one of us, and go through the same things we are going through, except sin. And he is now as we were when we were born, just a baby. A baby that cannot open his eyes, doesn’t have teeth, he cannot utter a word, and he’s got his little hands closed. All he does is eat, sleep, cry and dirty nappies. He is completely useless, a hundred percent dependent on his mother. All he can take is his mother’s milk. A God so defenceless, that if you leave him alone, he would die. At this moment he cannot even smile. His face is red and he doesn’t have much hair. If we could open his eyelids, we would see his beautiful brown eyes.             And this baby is what we need to contemplate, even though he cannot look back at us; he is sleeping. It is a one way gaze, trying to learn from his professorial chair, from his cathedra, from his open book, the book of his life, his first lessons of his life on earth. He could have come to us as a grown up man, but he wanted to start from the beginning, because we are slow learners. We need hours of patient contemplation in front of the statue or a painting of him in the manger, suffering cold, or in his mother’s arms, sleeping peacefully. Two simple, important lessons we learn straight away: poverty and humility. He came like us, with nothing, and when he goes, his only possession is going to be the wood of the cross. And what about humility? Can you find a better example than God coming to us as a baby?             And now in front of this baby, what do we do? We don’t need to do much. What do mother’s do with their babies? They look after them, giving them attention, love, tenderness. Many of us we don’t know how to look after a baby, but we can give him plenty of love. Some people don’t know how to love. This baby can teach us how to do it, just hold him in your arms, being careful not to drop him. We drop him many times a day. We can also offer ourselves to him. A baby brings out the best in us. In front of him we cannot say no. We need to be ourselves. The first thing he tells us when we get closer to him: get rid of your fancy clothes; be yourself. We cannot pretend, show off or try to deceive him.             But maybe the best thing we can do is to sit down in a corner of the cave, out of the way, hidden in the shadows, and contemplate how Mary looks after Jesus. It is an amazingly beautiful scene. She tends him knowing that he is God and man. She teaches us how to deal with his humanity and his divinity. You cannot become tired of looking at the mother and the child. Many artists tried to catch a glimpse of it. It is all in our imagination. josephpich@gmail.com

Fourth Sunday of Advent A              What happened to Saint Joseph? He was the last one to find out about the good news. They came to congratulate him and he was puzzled. He was supposed to know as a husband and a father, but he was left confused and bewildered. Mary kept silent. She looked at his worried face. A few times he tried to ask her a question, but she didn’t answer. God normally allows his loved ones to experience trials.             Joseph didn’t judge her, he couldn’t; she is so good and so pure. And now that she is expecting, she looks more beautiful, more feminine; she is glowing. She looks so innocent and full of God. But why did she keep the secret to herself? Why is she not talking to him, about such an important matter that concern them both? She must have her reasons.             What can he do? He cannot blame her, he knows it is not her fault. For sure, she must be doing what God wants her to do. Then, he must take the blame; he has to get out of the way, leaving God in command. He can assume the responsibility for the pregnancy, he can take the blame, look in the eyes of the world as the guilty one. But, he doesn’t want to leave her; he can’t. That’s the hardest thing for him. He can take the blame, but he cannot abandon her. He loves her so much! He has put his heart in her hands. They had decided to live a life of consecration to God and he was very happy to be with her and look after her. He was over the moon and was looking forward to bring her to his home. And now this unexpected pregnancy. This has thrown overboard all his plans. And she is acting as if nothing has happened.             Joseph gives us a great example of how not to judge. Qui iudicat Dominus est. Who judges? He is the Lord. It is not our task to do it. We don’t have all the facts, we don’t know all the circumstances. Even though we think we know, because it has happened before, because it is very clear, because there is no other explanation; but Joseph gives us an example of how sometimes we can make mistakes, and we can assume things that are not true. All of us, we have made erroneous judgments in the past. Whenever we want to judge, whenever we think we know all the facts, we should think about Joseph.             Joseph goes to bed without having solved the problem. It doesn’t allow him to sleep. He keeps going over and over it in his mind, but eventually he gets tired and falls asleep. And an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream, most likely Saint Gabriel, who is very involved in this business, and tells him the whole truth. Imagine Joseph’s joy on hearing this news. He woke up straight away and went to Mary’s house. She looked at him, at his radiant face, and realised immediately that he was now in the loop. We need to dream big. The devil wants us to get discouraged, to drag our feet through the mud, to paralyse us, to drug us with little compensations. He knows that God’s plans for us have big consequences, and he tries to play them down. Like Joseph, he confuses us and tries to get us to blame others. All we need to do, like Joseph, is to be faithful to God’s plans for us, even though many times we do not know where they are taking us. We need to be patient and sleep well. josephpich@gmail.com

Third Sunday of Advent             Today we can use rose vestments. Why? To express our joy because the Lord is coming. Today’s Sunday it is called Domenica Gaudete, because this is how its entrance antiphon begins in Latin: Gaudete, rejoice. It comes from Saint Paul’s letter to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. The Lord is near.” After two weeks of penance for preparation for Christmas, we take a break, a rest, and we look at the beautiful panorama that the ascent of mount Advent shows us: Jesus is almost upon us. When we climb higher, the air becomes fresher and we can see things more clearly. Today also we light the third candle, the rose candle on the Advent wreath. The first light of sun rise is rose. We try to see everything with rose colored spectacles, a more cheerful way of looking at things. You could almost say that God has this colour on his eyes.             What is the reason of our joy? The Lord is very near. He is closer than we think. We don’t need to walk far away to find him. We are waiting for him, he is walking towards us. If we don’t see him, we need to examine our conscience to see what are the obstacles between us and him. These are normally caused by our own pride and selfishness, two relics of original sin that grow into big bushes and trees, that hide Jesus from us. We need to prune them or cut them down; at least clear the undergrowth. Maybe a bushfire will do. But we need to be sincere and point out what separates us from God. It is not easy because we get attached to this vegetation; some of it has been there for a long time, and we think it is immovable, set in stone. But the presence of God can destroy any castle, crumble any fortification or melt down the most powerful iceberg. The love of God is so powerful, so hot, that nothing, but our will can resist.             Patrick Murphy, an Irish guy, died and went to his judgment. Because of a tsunami, there was a long queue of people to be judged.  He could hear what Jesus was telling others. “I was hungry and you fed me; come inside. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink; come inside. I was sick and you visited me; come inside. I was naked and you clothed me; come inside.” He realised that he never did these things: “I was always in the pub drinking Guinness and cracking jokes.” He was afraid when he faced Jesus. Jesus looked at the computer and said: Patrick, I was sad and you told me jokes, I was down and you made me laugh; come inside.             They say that the quotation in the Bible people search most is “Be not afraid!” You can find it in more than three hundred verses. This is what Jesus told the apostles, what angels say when they appear to men. These are the first words John Paul II said when he was elected Pope. We are afraid of ourselves, afraid of the future, of the unknown, afraid of failing, of something bad that could happen to us. Fear takes our joy out of us, paralyses us, it doesn’t allow us to trust God, to abandon things in his hands.             The closer we are to God, the more interior joy we have. It is a natural reaction of our make up: we are created for him. Therefore it is a logical conclusion of our search for happiness. We are constantly looking for him in the wrong places, and we find difficult to recognise our mistake. Why is that? Because those things are means or results of happiness, not the real thing. And because we are very earthly, and spiritual things normally don’t attract us. Today is a day to place our heart in the right place, close to Mary our Mother, cause of our joy, who is carrying the creator of the universe, the maker of all the things we like, the one who knows what we like and loves us with divine love. josephpich@gmail.com

Second Sunday of Advent              Today the Church presents to us John the Baptist as a model to follow. He was the Precursor, the one who comes first. His mission was to open the ways of the Lord, to give witness to the light, to prepare men’s hearts so that Christ may enter. Our mission is to follow in his footsteps. He came two thousand years ago; now it is our turn. How do we do that, if we have lost our way and our life is in complete darkness? We need first find the way, and make sure our soul is full of light. This is what we need to do these days. It is our task for this Advent. John the Baptist leads the way and gives us an example.             It is not easy to be a Precursor, to open the way, to go before foretelling the coming of another, becoming a bridge between two different sides. The Pope is called Pontifex, a bridge builder. We Christians are called to build bridges between people, to be forerunners of Christ in the world, torches that shine amid the darkness of this mad society of ours. John leads us to eternity and then other people can follow our path. It is not easy to find the narrow gate that opens to paradise.             What did John do? He went into the desert, to find silence, solitude and simplicity. He ate locust and wild honey and was dressed in camel hair. We too need to seek a wilderness around ourselves, where we can speak in silence, the language of God; to find solitude, to spend time with God alone; and to live the simple life of John the Baptist. What is the desert for me? In this time of Advent we need to find that space where we can develop our spiritual life, to be able to see things with different eyes, through God’s eyes. We eat locust, things we don’t want to eat; we dress rough, with the garments of modesty; and look for honey, the sweetness of God.             John the Baptist was tough. You wouldn’t like to meet him alone in the desert. His body looked like it was made of roots of trees; his skin was hard and burnt; his hair was meshed like a wild beast; his voice had the sounds of thunder; his eyes burned with prophetic fire. You couldn’t hold his gaze. Only Jesus managed to do so, when John didn’t want to baptise him. They almost had a wrestling match. To follow him we need the gift of fortitude, not to be afraid of the elements, to be able to defend the truth, even though we can lose our head as he did. Fortitude is the only gift of the Holy Spirit that it is related to a cardinal virtue.             John the Baptist is the only saint that we celebrate twice, his birth and his martyrdom. We normally celebrate the dies natalis of the saints, the day when they were born to eternal life, when they died. But Saint John, before he was born, he was sanctified in his mother’s womb, when his mother Elizabeth met Jesus’ mother; both were pregnant at that time. This is how both babies met, and John leapt in the womb with the infusion of the Holy Spirit. We, on the contrary, were born in sin and we need to wait till we die, to enter back into the bosom of God. We are now waiting with great expectation the birth of Jesus, who is still in his mother’s womb. We should follow in his mother’s footsteps to be there at his birth. josephpich@gmail.com

First Sunday of Advent             Watch out, the Lord is coming, the Lord is very near. This is what the liturgy is reminding us these days: to be awake, to be vigilant, to be ready. In a crescendo manner, putting pressure with the passing of days, the prayers of the Mass are telling us slowly that he is coming: he is on his way, he is getting there, only a few days to go, he is almost here, he is knocking at the door, he is already opening the door. When he comes, we need to be with our mobile phones on, our camera open, ready for a selfie. He cannot finds us playing games, sending messages or surfing our favourites sites. Otherwise he will keep going, without stopping in our hearts.             We are celebrating the three comings of our Lord. He came two thousand years ago as a man. He is going to come again at the end of time as a judge. He is coming now as a baby. But he is also constantly coming to meet us personally, in our hearts and minds. Christmas is a reminder of this reality. Jesus not only will come to pick us up when our time is up, but he wants us to experience his presence now in our daily lives.             We need to tell him that we are waiting for him, that we want to be with him. People in love do this all the time. We know we need him, but we forget, we become distracted, we get side tracked. We need to be reminded of this reality. This is what advent means, “Parusia” in Greek, “Adventus” in Latin: presence, arrival, coming. “Marannatha” in Hebrew or “Veni Domini Iesu”, in Latin, meaning “Come Lord Jesus.” Maranatha is two words in Hebrew and is found only once in the New Testament, at the end of the first letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. At the very end of the Bible, in the last words of the book of Revelation, Saint John says: Come Lord Jesus. It is a cry that we all should repeat often these days, fostering a desire, waiting in expectation for his coming.             The Prophet Isaiah reminds us what we need to do: “Make straight a highway for our God! Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low.” We need to build a road, a freeway, to make it easy for us to reach him. We should flatten the mountains and fill the valleys. We need to prepare the surface of our lives to reach him better and faster. The mountains are our addictions, those things that we give too much importance to, that try to take over and easily are out of control. What are those things? Work, finances, family, entertainment, social media, hobbies, sport. What we call wealth, honour, power and pleasure. We need to put a measure on them, to restrict them, to bring them down to their proper place. We should be sincere and seek to acknowledge the lack of balance. And fill the valleys; give importance to what’s important: God and others. Look after our relationship with God and with people around us: our prayer life, spending time with our loved ones, helping people in need, reaching out to the poor and the disabled. Both, mountains and valleys, are correlated, they don’t exist one without the other. We need to fix them both at the same time. We should have our priorities right, and Advent gives us an opportunity to do so.             We tend to have two attitudes, a passive one, waiting for the Lord, or an active one which is better still: coming out to reach him. Like the sensible virgins, who came out of themselves, to greet the bridegroom, when they heard the voice that he was coming, we too, need to have our lamps ready, with plenty of oil, burning brightly, illuminating our highway that lead us to his presence. josephpich@gmail.com