Advent, Opening The Door Of Faith
| Print |Monday, 17 December 2012 15:58 Last Updated on Monday, 17 December 2012 16:02
‘Away in a manger, no crib for His bed, The little Lord Jesus lay down his sweet head.’
What we make of this ‘Little Lord Jesus’ will decide to what extent we are convinced and committed Christians. Of course, Jesus was as adorable as is every newly-born babe. We Christians believe thathe was adorable as only God is adorable. This infant, Jesus, was, indeed, truly God and truly man – though a very, very little man!
We Catholics would like to believe that Almighty God has inspired the Church to proclaim a YEAR OF FAITH, and that this is meant to be seen as a God-given opening, or gateway, towards a deeper understanding and more committed practice of our Christian Faith.
This Year of Faith is meant to provide us with THE DOOR OF FAITH -PORTA FIDEI - an opportunity to grow in the faith and to share the faith with others. Excitedly the apostles Paul and Barnabas described to the community in Antioch“all that Godhad done with them, and how he had opened the door of faithto the gentiles, ”ACTS 14.27
God had created favourable conditions to dispose the Gentiles to welcome and embrace the Good News about Jesus Christ, and to see Jesus Himself as a door giving access to God the Father. In the words of Jesus, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.’And ‘No one can come to the Father except through me’ (John 14).
During Advent we prepare to celebrate the birth of Mary’s child, given the name Jesus ‘because He was to be the one who is to save his people from their sins,' (Mtt.1.21). We can describe Jesus as the Door to our Salvation because He has healed that breach between God and man caused by sin.
Amidst our excitement over the birth of Jesus we would do well to remember that around the innocent wonder of the Bethlehem Crib, lurked the shadow of Herod who was hell-bent on destroying Jesus – our God-given Door, our God-given Window of Opportunity. Herod was set on preventing Jesus ever surviving to have any followers or supporters.
We live in an age in which modern Herods strive to strangle every public expression of Christianity and to stifle any attempt to live according to traditional Christian values. They have gone a long way in turning a one-time Christian society into a secular society.
This YEAR OF FAITH is meant to rouse us into ensuring that our own personal faith in Jesus, our faith in all He stood for and our faith achieved, is opened up, enlarged, and enriched, with a result that we are impelled, even propelled, to share Jesus with the whole of our society….WHILE THERE IS STILL TIME!
EACH ONE OF US IS CALLED TO BE A PORTA FIDEI, A DOOR TO FAITH, TO OTHER PEOPLE.