I feel squeamish when I see those paintings of Jesus, with Mary and Joseph, which depict this trio as the ideal family!  In reality, no one in the Middle East, either now or 2000 years ago, would consider a mother+father+child as a family unit.

The account in Luke’s gospel of Mary going to visit her cousin Elizabeth tells us that Our Lady “arose and went with haste” to share the joy she carried in her heart and in her womb, reflected Pope Francis in last Sunday’s Angelus address.

“She arose and went. In the last stretch of the journey of Advent, let us be guided by these two verbs. To arise and to go in haste: these are the two movements that Mary made and that she invites us also to make as Christmas approaches.”

Well, here we are, at the end of the Advent season and about to approach the crib of the Christ-child with awe and wonder.

How are these days for you? Are they hectic and frantic as you finalise preparations for Christmas gatherings and buy those final gifts for the tree? Or will you be able to carve out even a small amount of time to ponder quietly the miracle that we celebrate.

A Christmas quip goes: “Don’t get so preoccupied in what the world has to sell that you miss what God has to give”.

Bula from Fiji, where I am at home, visiting my family, especially my mother who is struggling health-wise. What a gift it is to have our travel borders beginning to open up again.

The pandemic lockdown period gave us missionaries and many others, a taste of what it must have been like for our first missionaries, including St Joseph Freinademetz, who left their home and family knowing they would most likely never return.

In Australia and New Zealand, we are  familiar with the presence of people on TV using sign language. When an important announcement is made, the speaker is accompanied by an interpreter who uses sign language to speak to the deaf audience.

We are coming to the end of the Liturgical Year and the readings of this Sunday speak to us of the end of the world, the end of time, the final coming of Jesus to take all peoples and all creation to himself.

The readings this Sunday talk about the need for generosity of heart. The two widows represented in today’s first reading and the Gospel are the unlikely people who could be generous.

We now live in a world that is becoming more complicated. Just look at the internet. I listen to parishioners who are complaining of their difficulty in keeping up with technology.

Isn’t this a wonderful expression? It conjures-up images of happiness and excitement that all of us have experienced at some time in our lives.