The Solemnity of the Epiphany is the manifestation of the universal salvation of Christ to the whole wide world. Fundamentally, the Epiphany demonstrates to us that God is a God inclusion. God does not exclude anyone or anything from his saving grace and mercy.
There is no time more appropriate to consecrate ourselves to the patronage of Mary, Mother of God, more than the beginning of a new start of the year. Usually, the New Year start is always one that is apprehensive, tense and worrisome for all with a mixed feeling of hopes and fears for the future. These feelings are normal, natural and human. Yet, they invite us to have recourse to God and his divine plan and promise for us.
The Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph reminds us of love, peace, and unity, which are the basics of the Christian family. The Holy Family is a perfect model of family life today in our society. Especially as many have lost the sense of family through governmental and media disorientations. The instrumental tools of Satan destabilized the most fundamental nucleon of the world.
There is no doubt that Christmas is a festive celebration of peace on earth to men and women of goodwill. This is the most beautiful declaration of the angels to the humble shepherds on the night of Christmas. When heaven and the earth were united at the birth of the Saviour and the Prince of Peace. The angels sang beautifully to the whole wide world: Glory to God on High and peace on earth to men (women) of goodwill.
The joy and celebration of Christmas are in the little or insignificant things of our daily human and Christian lives. Where God comes to meet us. It means we all need the grace to be conscious of the little joys, gestures, words, actions and contacts we make with God and others during this holy season. Christmas challenges us to see great things happening in human history and around us in the most insignificant ways.
The feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe invites us to see Mary as the herald of joy and peace to the human race. The coincidence of celebrating the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on the 3rd Sunday of Advent is one of Joy. A Sunday is traditionally known as Gaudete Sunday. The word Gaudete means rejoice.
Our Christian life is a call to us to be joyous and to let our joy be communicative to our brothers and sisters around us. This third Sunday of Advent is the celebration of joy. In the Holy Mass of today, the first four words of the Entrance Antiphon begins with Gaudete in Domino Semper, which means, Rejoice in the Lord always (Philippians 4:4).
The most fundamental spiritual reality of Advent is that there is no Christmas without spiritual preparation of our hearts and reconciliation or peace with God or our brothers and sisters. Hence, Advent is a season of grace that God gives us through His Church to prepare us spiritually for the birth of Jesus Christ. This birth is not in the celebrations, traditions, decorations or symbols of Christmas but our hearts. The befitting dwelling place of God in our lives.
The Advent season of hope begins the new liturgical year of the Church. It offers us hope amid uncertainties of life and the time we are living. With the pandemic still lingering, it seems our hope of a better future is depicted.
The Solemnity of Christ Our Universal King is a celebration that implies Christ must be King of our hearts. This means his kingdom of peace, justice, love, grace, and mercy should reign in us and around us. In other words, the celebration of Christ as King, Lord, and Saviour of the world is a feast the challenge us to enthrone Christ in our hearts and lives.
Christ must also reign in our families, marriages, businesses, schools, workplaces, societies and churches. It is not enough to acclaim Him, King by words, songs, banners, symbols or rites. We must enthrone over our existence and affairs.