What do I want for Christmas and the New Year? What present would make me really happy?

What do I want for Christmas and the New Year?

What present would make me really happy?

After being in this world for 38 years, living as a Catholic for 21 years and serving in the parish for 2 years, I find that what is most important in life is peace in relationships.

What gives me most joy is to see relationships working well and all parties trying their utmost to maintain, if not improve, communications and to be honest with their feelings. And when the opposite happens... well... it can be quite heart-breaking for me.

Be it in our families, or among friends, or within our church communities, relationships have their ups and downs. We are all different and unique and sometimes our personalities or ideas just don’t fit together nicely. And that’s very challenging indeed.

The Christ child came amidst tensions between the Jews and their Roman conquerors; tensions between different Jewish sects; tensions between the rich and the poor. Jesus is called the Prince of Peace because he comes to reconcile. Reconcile man to God, reconcile between man and man, reconcile between man and creation. But peace and reconciliation is easier said than done. It takes hard work and heart-work, it takes commitment and prayer.

How can we begin this heart-work? I look to the Christ Child in the crib, born on Christmas Day (25 Dec), born within a family – the Holy Family (whose feast we celebrated on 30 Dec), born of a woman – Mary, Mother of God (whose feast we celebrate this weekend).

This week is a week of feasts and commemorations. But the centre of these feasts is the Christ Child – innocent, humble and vulnerable.

Perhaps we are asked to be like the Christ Child - to be innocent and pure with no guile, no lies, no hidden agenda nor selfish intentions.

Perhaps we are asked to be humble – to put aside pride and arrogance, to put down our façade of superiority and righteousness, to be able to acknowledge that we have a part to play in the breakdown of communication, to be able to say sorry even though we think we are not the one at fault.

Perhaps we are asked to be vulnerable – to take risks in starting afresh with the possibility of failure and further hurts, to bare our souls in an attempt to be honest with one another, to acknowledge that sometimes we are not in control.

Mary was aware that she was not in control and pondered many things in her heart. But her faith in God assured that God is in control and she trusted in him completely, praising God every step of the way.

Let us then entrust ourselves to God like Mary did, and following in the Christ Child’s example, strive to build relationships through peace and reconciliation.

God’s peace be always with you. That’s the gift that would make all of us happy. Have a blessed 2012.