St Theresa Parish holds BEC Advent Recollection

Dec 24, 2014

By Christine Ong
Sr Elizabeth Wong, IJS led a BEC Advent Recollection at the parish of St Theresa. It began at 9.00am with a song asking the Holy Spirit to lead us in this time of expecting, waiting, and preparing for the coming of the Lord Jesus. A question we asked ourselves — Am I growing nearer to or further from God?

There was a video presentation on Chapter 2 of The Joy of the Gospel by Pope Francis: Amid Crisis of Communal Commitment. The video was presented by Fr Michael Renniger of St. Mary Catholic Church, Richmond who said that Pope Francis reads ‘the signs of the times’ and presents to us what is going on in our world today and what is happening in the lives of ordinary men and women. Evangelical discernment is real, honest self-knowledge — who we really are and what is going on in our lives. Many things in our society today dehumanize people. Our economic system excludes/ discards people, and meaningful time with children is sacrificed because money becomes the idol; technology has replaced human communication.

Reality on the ground, the faith community in the sprawling urban world, has become a real challenge in our Church. Some barriers include preoccupation with self, financial security, position, hesitation to be involved, and prayers. We can undertake activities and be busy in the church for the wrong reasons, possibly running away from something we don’t want to face.

On the contrary, our involvements must lead us to encounter Jesus. Joy found in encountering Christ cannot be taken away from us. People can be obstacles in experiencing joy when we give them power over us. So we need to be alert, not to let anyone steal our joy. Take time to read, play, create and relate.

We can be preoccupied with what to buy, what to cook… Take time to ask ourselves, “Lord, where do you want me to be? Lord, what do you want me to do? Lord, how can I encounter you?” We need to slow down and listen.

To prepare our hearts so that we don’t miss the way, there are some things we need to guard against: eg disunity created by our speech, spirituality of Gnosticism in our daily lives in the church, passing judgment on others, cultivating secret truths, a self-centred approach to life, spiritual pride, arrogance. All these are destructive. How can we come out of this trap? We need to overcome these challenges and create something new.

We each brought a cup/mug for the recollection. The cup represents myself and my life. We were given 1 hour to meditate. In our meditation we asked ourselves these questions:

--Is my cup filled with busyness/activities but in reality is empty?
--What do I want to remove and what are some things I want to put inside?
--In my daily life, am I aware of God’s presence?
--How do I nourish my relationship with God?

We shared and prayed in small groups. We prayed for each person in our group and later prayed for ourselves and imagined God embracing us while the song Everyday God was played.

We truly felt enriched and refreshed by the Lord. We hope to slow down, to continue to reflect, to wait and long for Christ to be reborn in our homes and in our daily lives.