Dear Brothers and Sisters

Will this be the busiest, best discounted shopping weekend of the year?  The shops have only been closed for a very short time and yet already people are queuing to ensure they get the best bargains of the year, spend their Christmas-present-vouchers, and exchange mismatched gifts.  Already for some, as the ritual surrounding Christmas becomes a distant memory, there is a feeling of relief – the strain of it all, the stress, frayed tempers, forced jollity, false expectations – over for another year!

And all this just as we should be settling into the warmth and light that the coming of our long-awaited Saviour brings.  This is the time when we reflect on the miraculous affects of the birth of our Redeemer, the coming among us of the Son of God who stoops down to our lowly state in order to lift us up to share in his life.  In some way this warmth and light are mirrored for us by St John in our second reading: ‘Think of the love that the Father has lavished on us, by letting us be called God’s children…but what we are to be in the future has not yet been revealed, all we know is that when it is revealed we shall be like him because we shall see him as he really is.’

‘What lovely thoughts,’ you say, ‘but what on earth have they to do with or to say to that morass of discount-bargain-hunting out there, with the sense of failure eating away, with the threatening force of emptiness and aimlessness, with the confusion reigning in the minds and hearts of so many?’

“‘My child, why have you done this to us? See how worried your father and I have been, looking for you.’  ‘Why were you looking for me?’ he replied. ‘Did you not know I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ But they did not understand what he meant…..His mother stored up all these things in her heart.”

Perhaps we can gain some encouragement from the Scriptures, which remind us that Mary and Joseph were worried about Jesus; that they spent three frantic days looking for him. And when they found him and asked him why he had caused them so much grief, he enigmatically replies, ‘Did you not know I must be busy with my Father’s affairs?’ Obviously, Mary did not fully comprehend this situation or many that were to follow as Jesus matured to manhood and began his mission of preaching and teaching; ‘His mother stored up all these things in her heart.’ There must be many things that cause you worry and concern about your families, about your lives, work, friends, our country, our government, our Church, our world – I could go on, and on. But you know what is on your mind, those things you store up in your heart and ponder on, like Mary.

Allow me to share some of my ponderings, the things that concern, worry, and confuse me.  I find it strange how we, as a society, have made personal choice a greater right than the right to life itself; abortion, euthanasia, the way we treat our sick, old and vulnerable members of society.  We want to protect our children from everything which might harm them, but at the same time we tolerate and even allow explicit and exploitative material to be promoted in the media and online without let or hindrance. Our young people are exposed to dehumanising and damaging images all day long with little said or done about it.  Marriage, which has always been accepted as the bedrock of society, is being arbitrarily and wilfully manipulated with no concern for the common good or the future consequences.  While tarring all those who are unemployed or claiming benefits with the same brush as scroungers, no one wants to understand what the real and deeper causes are.  And there are many more.

What would Jesus do?  The scriptures today gives us a hint which is very apt for this great Year of Faith; ‘I must be busy with my Father’s affairs.’  And so must I and so must you – not secretively or furtively, or apologetically, but boldly.  In our families as parents, children, brothers or sisters, we live out our lives faithful to the Gospel and the teaching of the Church, even, and, especially, when it demands sacrifice.  At work, we are first and foremost a child of God, a son or daughter of the Father, a brother or sister of Jesus Christ, we work as Christians, putting into practice all that we are taught through our Faith and Tradition. At school, as a student or teacher we are involved in building the Kingdom of God and learning to live according to the values of that Kingdom.  In all these ways we are busy with our Father’s affairs.

May the knowledge that Jesus, our Saviour was born into our world, into a life like yours and mine give us courage.  May the concern and worry of Mary and Joseph comfort us in our confusion and difficulties and help us to persevere.  And may Jesus Emmanuel, God-with-us, fill us with hope, zeal and joy so that we may continue to be busy with our Father’s affairs to the end of our days.

Yours in blessed hope

+ Terence Patrick

Bishop of Middlesbrough