Pilgrim progress- a disciple on a journey!

  "The family: we were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing chickenpox and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together."  ~Erma Bombeck If this past year has taught us one thing, it is  that family is important! The ordinariness of visiting families, giving and receiving hugs, of being able to say goodbye to loved one when they passed, all became rarer because of the inability to travel, to meet, to gather in numbers. During these days of the Christmas season, with the restrictions of COVID-19, not everyone has been able to spend a  little time with families. For some it is simply not safe to gather, there are travel restrictions or curfews, others are on the front line of fighting the pandemic and cannot put family a

When restrictions for Level 5 were announced in Ireland at the end of October, headlines in the newspapers the next day carried phrases like: “6 weeks to save Christmas” or   “ Ireland has six weeks to save Christmas in order to have December joy”, or ‘Will Christmas be cancelled?” It sounded like a plotline from Dr. Seuss’ ‘The Grinch Stole Christmas.” As I reflected, I thought, “We cannot save Christmas”, rather it is ‘Christmas that saves us”. If we go back to the reason for the season, it is Jesus. Jesus, the Emmanuel, Jesus our Saviour, Jesus the Child of Bethlehem. This year, we are being called to celebrate a simple Christmas, one which this year for many reasons, resembles the first one 2000 years ago. And that’s okay- our faith, our family, our friends, gratitude for life,   memories of those who are not around the Christmas table this year, for different reasons- in the sacred space of the Word made Flesh, we are grateful. We are called to live simply this Christmas, s