Silent Meditation and the Gospels: A Weekly Practice with the Sunday Readings

First published in Australia in 2024

by Quiet Communion

Website www.quietcommunion.org

© Michelle Wood and Paul Wood 2024

The right of Michelle Wood and Paul Wood to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them under the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the copy right owner and publisher.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN 978-0-646-70330-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-0-646-70331-2 (ebook)

Cover design by Nada Backovic

Cover images: Olga Thelavart/Unsplash and Shutterstock

Typeset by Nada Backovic

Foreword

by Laurence Freeman OSB,

Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation

Christianity is awaiting a new reformation. Better to say, perhaps, it is awakening to a radical liberation from the past and empowerment for the future that has been underway for some time. It is significant that of the many prophets of this evolution, two of the most influential—I am thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Simone Weil—died before the age of forty, in a time of catastrophe for Western civilisation. They delivered their message from a profound mystical vision interwoven with the signs of their time and from the margins of the institutional church.

They preceded and influenced major internal eruptions of the Holy Spirit in Christianity during the twentieth century. Not least was the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, which was the twenty-first of its kind. Among its many fruits was a recovery of much that had been repressed or forbidden in the Christian tradition. Included in these essential components of the Christian calling were the universal call to holiness, the spiritual equality of clerical and marital-life vocations, the bridge of faith between contemplation and action as exemplified in the Martha and Mary episode in Luke and the life-giving experience of the Scriptures. For long, holiness seemed restricted to an elite, celibacy was regarded as higher than conjugality and contemplatives were cloistered. Regarding access to the word of God, two thirteenth-century councils forbade lay people from reading the Bible in their own language.

Go figure, as a young person of our time might say.

I refer to this aspect of Christian history, sadly often covered by the shadow of institutional egotism and an abuse of power, to show what a wonderful affirmation of the radical change of direction in Christian life and spirituality is witnessed by this book you are reading. It is a sign of the renewal of Christian wisdom in our time.

Significantly, too, Michelle and Paul are both contemplative priests. They suggest that theology, which has largely been written over the past two millennia by celibate males, is putting out new and necessary branches. Their calling to ministry has given them the opportunity to study the tradition more than might be possible for others. They have put this opportunity to great use in the accessible, yet informed, short commentaries they have written together for the annual liturgical cycle.

Very importantly, they write from their own experience of the powerful connection between lectio (spiritual reading) and what the early Christian teachers often called oratio pura. Pure prayer, or the prayer of the heart or meditation understood in its original sense, is nourished by all dimensions and expressions of prayer. These are not hierarchically or even sequentially organised. By this, I mean that one form is not in itself better than another and you don’t have to master one level before moving to another. The long-dominant theory was that you were not ready for contemplative prayer until you had endured the arid complexities (as many found them) of over-cerebral ‘discursive meditation’. As this was the formula for most seminary training, it had a disastrous effect on the level of spirituality of the clergy, who were seen as requiring a higher level of knowledge and practice and, by contagion, on the congregations they served. Some churches are still stuck in this spiritual Catch-22, and others are still extricating themselves from its long-lasting effects.

Christian theology, as it took shape in the first centuries, was the product of the fission and fusion of contemplative prayer, taught by Jesus and practised in the ‘inner room’, and the reading of the Scriptures, the ‘living and active word of God’. There is a distinction between these two aspects of prayer but also a union in the silence, stillness and simplicity of contemplation in which thoughts, words and images are surrendered and transcended. In his reflection on the vision of St Francis, The Journey of the Mind to God, St Bonaventure speaks of prayer as leading to the suspension of all the operations of the mind, both rational and imaginative. Cassian—Benedict’s teacher—similarly speaks of the mantra that leads into the ‘grand poverty’ of the spirit, a long-lost practice of Western Christianity that John Main powerfully helped to recover.

Michelle and Paul have learned what this practice means on the journey of meditation through their experience and by sharing the teaching with others. This book guides us through the readings of the Sunday liturgy in the light of this inner journey. It is a fruit and a sharing of the journey of the mind and heart to God.

Laurence Freeman OSB

Bonnevaux

October 2023

How to Use This Book

This book is to help you learn and practise silent meditation in the Christian contemplative tradition, ideally within a supportive group context. Although meditation is a rhythmic withdrawal into solitude and silence, it is also beneficial that we belong to a community because:

meditating with a group of others holds one to the task; like the banks of a river, it contains the discipline

it enables us to narrate our experience and understandings

it keeps us in relationship with the Church Universal.

The format we suggest is to begin with the short talk, then practise twenty minutes of silent meditation, followed by the sacred story from the forthcoming Sunday gospel. Silent meditation before the gospel, rather than after, enables a deeper receptivity to the gospel.

The following words or similar may be used to prepare for meditation.

Let us prepare for our practice of twenty minutes of silent meditation. A bell will be rung at the beginning of the meditation period and at the end to close the meditation.

If you already have a meditation practice, please continue to use it and join with us. If you are new to meditation, read some simple instructions on how to meditate from the World Community for Christian Meditation.¹

Sit still with your back straight. Close your eyes lightly. Then, interiorly, silently begin to recite a single word—a prayer word. We recommend the ancient Christian prayer word maranatha. Say it as four equal syllables: Ma-ra-na-tha.

Breathe normally and give your full attention to the word as you say it, silently, gently, faithfully and—above all—simply.

Ma-ra-na-tha.

Stay with the same word during the whole meditation. The essence of meditation is simplicity.

About the Authors

Michelle is an Anglican priest and narrative therapist with thirty years of experience counselling individuals and families. She is a registered professional supervisor with the Australian Counselling Association and provides supervision and consultation to professionals in the counselling, health, legal, religious, government, business, community and education sectors.

Michelle completed postgraduate studies in Zen Buddhism and creative writing. In 2017, she was awarded a PhD from the University of Kent, Canterbury. Her doctorate explored how to narrate the transformative effects of silent meditation, walking in nature and reading literature. She obtained her theological qualifications in biblical studies from Trinity College, Melbourne. In 2018, she was awarded The Catherine Laufer Award for Excellence in Systematic Theology. She has served in parishes as priest-in-charge and honorary associate.

Paul was ordained an Anglican priest in 1988 and has served as priest-in-charge in several parishes in Australia and the United Kingdom. He worked as a counsellor for eight years in a community health setting. He is a keen student of C. G. Jung. He walks, writes and paints.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the members of Quiet Communion, who have meditated and reflected in open discussion with these talks over the last four years: Anamaya Milner, Beth Page, Philip Huggins, Bryn Jones, Denise Thamrin, Eden Libby Nicholls, Emily Payne, Ethne Green, Gabrielle Seaton, Helen Bensley, Jan White, Jean Henderson, Jennifer Jones, Judith Moore, Justine Shelton, Kaaren Smethurst, Kate Neal, Ian Thompson, Kristy Thompson, Kylie Webster-Percival, Sandra Halford, Marion Bennett, Marita Pille, Meredith Ure, Michelle Walker, Patricia Hendricks, Rhonda Holden, Richard Merton, Rod Bensley, Rosalind Brown, Sheila Brennan and Suzie Don Leonard.

List of Figures

Figure 1: Entry into Jerusalem 120

Figure 2: The Bridegroom 121

Figure 3: Maundy Thursday. The Washing of Feet 122

Figure 4. The Mystical Supper 123

Figure 5: The Crucifixion 124

Figure 6: Holy Saturday 125

Figure 7: The Resurrection 126

Introduction: Silent Meditation and the Lectionary

Silent meditation in the Christian contemplative tradition is a prayer practice of learning the art of listening. To listen, one must do three things: be still, put self aside and be attentive. If one can do these three things, one will discover a depth of listening. Stillness and silence allow space for receiving. This book will focus on how these enable one to receive the gospels.

This book was conceived by a twofold practice of silent meditation and listening to the gospels. We initially asked ourselves three questions: What, if anything, do the gospels teach about the prayer of silence? How could the prayer of silence help us hear the gospel of love? Does the prayer practice of silent meditation expand the mind and heart to receive the word of the gospel as Benedictine monk John Main expounded? According to him, ‘What we do in meditation and in the lifelong process of meditation is to refine our perception down to the single focal point, which is Christ. Christ is our way, our goal, our guide. But he is our goal only in the sense that once we are wholly with him, wholly at one with him, we pass with him to the Father … It is through Jesus that we pass over from everything that is dead, from everything that is restricted, mortal, finite, into the infinite expansion of God which is the infinite expansion of love.’²

We explored these questions by following the lectionary cycle and writing a thematic homily each week for three years.³ We shared these reflections at our silent meditation practice group Quiet Communion. We crafted each homiletic reflection with exegetical awareness but remained faithful to the questions: How can stillness and silence influence our reception of the gospels, and what can the gospels teach about the prayer of silence? We have also interwoven the reflections with writings from the canon of contemplative Christian literature.

While there is a long tradition of contemplative prayer within the Christian tradition, there is no modern systematic theology that links the lectionary cycle—that is, the Great Prayer of Christian Churches (Anglican, Orthodox and Roman)—to the practice of silent meditation. It is paramount that this link is made so that the prayer of silence is anchored to, participates in and is a unique expression of the Church Universal.

Former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Pope Francis gave some cautionary and wise advice in relation to spiritual practices that reflect a type of contemporary personalised mysticism. Pope Francis wrote that Gnosticism and neo-Pelagianism, both of which feed into ‘spiritual worldliness’, have the following effects: ‘The first shrinks Christian faith into a subjectivism that ultimately keeps one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings …. The second cancels out the role of grace and leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyses and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying.’⁴

While Pope Francis highlighted what we should avoid, Williams offered a way forward in his writing Participating in Divinity, Entering Emptiness: The Shape of Transformation. He suggested, ‘we need to reconceive encounter with God as something beyond a confrontation of selves (that) relativizes what I say, sense or believe about myself and its supposed needs and wellbeing’.⁵

It is in the cautionary and wise spirit of these two contemporary leaders of the Christian faith that we encourage the Christian meditator, beginner to experienced, to receive our reflections. The Christian practitioner of silent meditation is invited to both let go of their worldly constructed personal subjectivity and conjoin with the Spirit of Christ. From this solidarity in Christ, one is led deeper and deeper into union with God, people and the whole of Creation. Just as the Indigenous people of this land have songlines that tell great sacred stories, Christian sacred stories are found in the texts of the Hebrew Old Testament and the New Testament, particularly in the gospels.

Whether you are an Indigenous person, a Buddhist, Jewish, Islamic or Christian, your spiritual wisdom is embedded in history, landscape and people. It is communicated through dance, text, song, story and ritual. There is no reality to individualised Christianity, just like there is no reality to a tree cut off from its roots. There is only an authentic expression of a received living tradition, revealed in communion across time present, time past and time eternal. The revelation is always the same: love. God loves God’s people and all of Creation. Love is God’s transformative language.

It is imperative that Christianity be a living tradition that engages with the wide breadth and depth of humanity. Our homiletic reflections thereby seek to learn from and create dialogue with other religious and artistic traditions. A Christian theology in dialogue and transformed by other wisdoms is not one that is watered down. Far from it, it is rather illuminative of the power and inclusiveness of the heart of Christ.

YEAR A. THE YEAR OF ST MATTHEW

Advent (Year A)

First Sunday of Advent (Year A)

Matthew 24:36–44

Nepsis (Watchfulness)

by Michelle Wood

I had a new insight into the gospel reading this week. It is a reading that I have not really liked in the past. At a surface level of reading, it seemingly creates a dichotomy of the chosen and the left-behinds. However, I believe there is a deeper depiction of internal psychological and cosmic transformation in the symbolic arc of this gospel.

The text calls us to be awake and watchful of the divine presence that is on the edges, coming. It asks us to be attentive, ready to receive the love and mystery that is breaking into our ordinary life. It could happen at any time, like bumping into the one with whom you fall in love. You cannot orchestrate or predict it, but you can be alert to when it appears. To respond to a big love story, even at the human level, there is a leaving behind of the mechanistic, purely material and superficial ways of participating in life to enter a more sacred reality.

I notice that the more time I spend in my meditation cell, so to speak, the more I am changed. I am more watchful. I notice the tiniest things in nature, from the beginning blooming of billy buttons to the scent of a ripe apricot in late summer. I can touch the edges of small joys and experience bliss in ways that I was not able to before. Being alert, watchful and awake changes us.

Silent meditation is a practice of developing the muscles of watchfulness (nepsis). By being attentive to our breath or prayer word for twenty minutes, we observe what our mind does when directed to focus. We watch its cunning ways of disrupting and distracting our focus. Like a shepherd guarding her sheep from a fox, we watchfully guard our attention. Through this process of watchfulness, we learn to pay attention.

In his book, Looking East in Winter: Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition, Rowan Williams wrote a theology of why the practice of contemplative prayer and silent meditation are crucial to our development as humans. He bases much of his thought on the Philokalia, a collection of the early writings of the desert fathers and mothers from the third and fourth centuries.

A touchstone in all the Philokalia writings is the practice of nepsis, which means watchfulness. Inner watchfulness and self-awareness are the two eyes of the contemplative, and they are underscored in our reading this week.

Drawing on the work of Evagrius, Williams describes nepsis as a state of angelic awareness. He wrote that the practice of nepsis teaches us to ask of each impression or sensation how far we are turning it into something other than itself by applying its significance to our needs and projections.⁶

Being watchful of our thoughts and looking towards the edge of our consciousness, we wait, ready to receive new realities with angelic awareness.

Second Sunday of Advent (Year A)

Matthew 3:1–12

In the Wilderness of the Self

by Paul Wood

John the Baptist was a wild man. He wore camelhair with a leather belt about his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. As a wilderness man, he was not bound by the conventions and expectations of culture and polite society. He was a man close to nature and close to God.

So, what has John the Baptist to do with meditation? Well, two things. First, many meditators seeking solitude are close to nature. They often feel they are like John the Baptist: ‘the voice of one crying out in the wilderness’.⁷

Second, John the Baptist is not the main event, for the main event is the coming of Christ. John is simply the forerunner, and he occupies that primal and empty space before the event. He stands in the tradition of prophets of the Old Testament and points beyond himself ‘to One who is coming’.

There is a sense in which by meditation we also stand in that place within ourselves that is before the event, before we display our behaviour, before we speak our words and before we act—a place that is a little like the wilderness in that it is unbound by the whims of others, a place within ourselves where the wind blows free and that has not yet been brought to heel by the conventions of society and the external world. This is a place where our minds might roam freely in the great wilderness of the inner self. This is the wilderness place all meditators come to know.

When we are in the wilderness of the self, we are in the place of raw experience. We are a little closer to our primal and primitive being, for it is a place that reveals our secret thoughts to ourselves. It is a place where our intentions are displayed before our very eyes. It is a place that confronts us with the truth of ourselves, as we really are, before the truth of God, as God really is. So, we need a shepherd, a guide and a protector if we are to roam in the wilderness of the self.

In the Old Testament, Moses and the ‘pillar of cloud and fire’ led the children of Israel through the wilderness to the Promised Land. In the New Testament, Jesus and the Holy Spirit lead us through the wilderness of our soul and into resurrection. That is the journey!

When we meditate, we close our eyes and so we close the door of our cell. Rather than fumbling about in our inner selves going everywhere—and going nowhere—we instead bring our minds to focus with single intent on our prayer word or phrase. This keeps one’s mind attentive in one place, and this is like the pillar of fire, leading the children of Israel out of slavery into freedom.

For example, one prayer phrase we might use is maranatha, which in Aramaic, the language that Jesus spoke, means ‘Come Lord’. John Main, the Benedictine monk behind the World Community for Christian Meditation, said it is the earliest Christian prayer and has the right phonic qualities to keep our minds attentive in one place.

Alternatively, we may use the greatly loved Jesus Prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ The prayer phrase keeps us from wandering about in the wilderness in no particular direction, going everywhere/nowhere. It keeps us facing east, as it were, towards the Promised Land. It also keeps us in right relation to ‘the Shepherd and guardian of our souls’.⁸

Just as John the Baptist was a wilderness man, close to nature and close to God, we as meditators also belong to that wilderness spiritual tradition. So, let us leave for a moment the busy streets of the world, and for twenty minutes withdraw into the windswept expanse of the wilderness within ourselves. Remember, as Kenneth Leech so clearly demonstrated in his study of ‘The God of the Desert’, the wilderness is the primary source for knowing God.⁹

Third Sunday of Advent (Year A)

Matthew 11:2–11

Are You the One?

by Michelle Wood

In this week’s sacred story, a question is put to Jesus by John the Baptist. Are you the One? The One for whom we have been waiting? The One of whom Isaiah wrote to the people:

He will come and save you.

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then the lame shall leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,

and streams in the desert.¹⁰

John had been locked in a cell in the fortress palace of Machaerus, overlooking the Dead Sea for twelve months when he uttered the question: ‘Are you the One?’ I wonder with what tone of voice he asked this question.

Perhaps in that dark stone cell he felt alone, vulnerable, with doubts creeping in. Perhaps he had had enough of everything and had come to the end of himself. Perhaps he was questioning his life’s meaning. A meaning that hangs on an answer to that question, ‘Are you the One?’

Folk singer Leonard Cohen also grappled with this question in his last album, You Want it Darker. In a song called ‘It Seemed a Better Way’, he wrote:

I wonder what it was

I wonder what it meant

First he touched on love

Then he touched on death

Sounded like the truth

Seemed the better way

Sounded like the truth

But it’s not that truth today

I wonder what it was

I wonder what it meant.¹¹

At the time of writing, Cohen was facing death, darkness and doubt. Cohen, brought up Jewish, asks with curiosity, ‘Was Jesus the Messiah?’ He does not have the answers but, like John the Baptist, is willing to ask the question: ‘Are you the One?’

To grapple with questions is to open oneself. To receive the answer to this question has huge consequences. Former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams wrote, ‘To the extent that any praying Christian becomes truly open to the act of God in Christ, they become a sign and foretaste of the end things: they signify what happens when the materiality of this world is given over to Christ.’¹²

Another way of explaining this is that by opening to the act of God in Christ, one meets the end of things as they appear in a consumerist, scientific, rationalistic world. Things are not material objects for our narcissistic exploits. Instead, all is divine, exuding a sacredness.

This opening to the act of God in Christ is utterly transformative and psychologically apocalyptic. Apocalyptic, in the literal sense of the Greek word, means ‘uncovering’. It not only transforms how we view the world, but also who we are. As St Paul wrote in his letter to the Galatians, ‘It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.’¹³

When John the Baptist opened himself to the act of God in Christ, he became the fullest expression of whom he was created to be: the messenger to prepare the way. In silent meditation, we practise opening to God. At times, it is an act of doubt, questioning and vulnerability.

This giving over to God involves, in part, ending entertaining our thoughts and mental constructions and returning to a simple prayer word or breath practice. Evagrius, a desert father, explained it this way: ‘If … you wish to behold and commune with God who is beyond sense-perception and beyond conception, you must free yourself from every impassioned thought.’¹⁴

By quietening our thoughts, we can come to feel the living stream in the wilderness of ourselves. It is not always easy to sit and pray in this way. Perhaps, like John the Baptist, we sometimes come to the end of self, where doubts lay bare and anxieties heighten, where we ask questions such as, ‘Has all my churchgoing, studies, meditation practice and prayers amounted to naught?’

When our silence has us facing uncomfortable uncertainties and the hypocrisies both inside us and in the world, we can take some solace in the words of St Benedict: ‘Prayer is not just quiet time; it is an invitation to grow. It breaks us open to the designs of God for life.’¹⁵

So, let us in this time of silent meditation give ourselves over to the mystery of the One, who says, ‘Listen, and see the good news.’

Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year A)

Matthew 1:18–25

Dreams and Visions

by Paul Wood

An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’

This is a rich reading with many themes, such as the cultural ethics around marriage, the vulnerability of women and the judgements of society. We could also talk about St Joseph, an example to all men to ‘do the honourable thing’ and protect their woman. However, what shines out for me is Joseph’s dream in solving his complex dilemma.

Our biblical tradition has an exceptionally long history of dreams being a way through which God reveals things to us, insights about the nature of things or warnings and directions about the future. A basic search of the Bible will reveal over three hundred references to dreams, some that refer to normal night dreams but others that refer to waking dreams called visions. For example, we all know the story of Jacob’s ladder, his dream of a ‘ladder set up between earth and heaven with angels ascending and descending upon it’.¹⁶ We have all heard the story of Joseph the dreamer and his coat of many colours and how Joseph became the prime minister of Egypt because he could interpret dreams.¹⁷

Prophets throughout the Old Testament had dreams and interpreted dreams, like the great dreams throughout the Book of Daniel, which tell of the rise and fall of kingdoms. Other prophets had visions of the glory of the Lord, such as Isaiah’s vision in the temple¹⁸ or Ezekiel’s on the banks of River Chebar¹⁹ and his amazing vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.²⁰ We all know that the Book of Revelation is a vision, a vision that John had on the island of Patmos that tells of the close of the age and the coming of the Kingdom of Christ.

So, it is little wonder that among all these narratives is the Christmas Nativity story, full of dreams, angels, stars and prophecies. Our Christian tradition takes both dreams and visions very seriously, and so, one might ask oneself, ‘How is my dream life? Is it rich? Is it fruitful? Is it healing?’

Psychoanalysts such as Freud and Jung believed that dreams reveal to us what is happening in our unconscious minds. Both spent many hours interpreting dreams as a healing cure and recommended listening to dreams for psychological growth.

What really attracts me about dreams is that they come from the inside; they are very private and personal. They come from that same mysterious place from which thoughts originate, that mysterious place from which creativity arises, that mysterious place hidden somewhere within each person from which life begins.

Dreams are like the intertidal zone between our consciousness and the immense ocean of God. When we pray, we consciously and intentionally enter this intertidal zone. However, when we dream, the intertidal zone comes to us. In the ebb and flow of waking and dreaming, many bits and pieces and strange things can be found in and recovered from this intertidal zone. An extremely significant part of prayer life is paddling about in that intertidal zone, just on the edge of everyday consciousness and just on the edge of the great mystery of God.

There are many ways one can do this: Bible reading, verbal prayer, liturgy and creative activities such as journalling, painting, playing music or writing poetry or fiction. Something that I have practised for over thirty years now is writing and developing a dream story, a process Jung called ‘active imagination’, which has become a rich source of personal revelation to me.

To be a contemplative is to sit on the edge of one’s conscious mind, in the intertidal zone as it were. Perhaps ‘beachcombing’ is a good metaphor to describe what we are doing. Perhaps ‘fishing’ is another, waiting for a dream, an idea or a new insight.

When we practise meditation, we are doing two things. First, we are becoming absolutely still and silent within ourselves. This involves getting rid of the clutter and fluster of the world, bringing us to the water’s edge as it were. Second, we are learning to become attentive and receptive before the great mysterious ocean. By reciting our prayer word, we become focused, attentive and receptive.

The Birth of Our Lord (Year A)

Titus 3:4–8a

Silently, How Silently, the Wondrous Gift is Given

by Michelle Wood

Who do you really love? Picture them. If you could give them anything, what would you give them?

I really love my husband, and if I could give him anything I would give him the health of his twenty-year-old former self, buckets of energy and a long life with me (I am a fair bit younger and fear life without him). I really love my children. What would I give them if I could give anything?

Well, I have five adult children. To one, I would give freedom from anxiety. To another, I would give a workplace that allowed her to grow and work with others rather than struggle on her own. To the third, I would give the gift of courage, and to the fourth, relationship discernment. To the last, who is about to have a baby, I would give the gift of excellent health, safety in delivery and fulfilment in being a mother, plus solid love with her partner as they begin to build a family. Apart from my family, who else in my life do I really love?

Well, I really love the people that I work with in counselling. What would I give some of them? For one young woman, who had terrible abuse as a child, I would give her internal and external safety, a future in which she is never harmed again, an abundance of real love, opportunities to study, learn and use all her gifts. Abuse robbed her of so much! I would also give her one friend, a genuine friend who was her age. I think that would make her really happy.

To the beautiful young couple with two small children who are questioning their early marriage because of infidelities, I would give the gift of forgiveness, healing and faithfulness. To the older man who has been recently dumped in love and who is quite lonely, I would give a new companion who would love and adore him back to good health.

It is interesting to think about what we would give and what difference that would make. It strikes me that these gifts of love also give life. For what blocks life are loneliness, anxiety, isolation, fear, confusion, violence, dishonesty and lack of care when vulnerable. However, love unblocks a person, enabling life to flourish.

In our reading from Titus today, we are told that ‘when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us … according to his mercy’.²¹ God’s mercy is a constant and generous flow of love and goodness, like sunlight. In the birth of Jesus, God came to feed the whole of humanity with goodness and loving kindness, to feed us with these treasures like a mother feeds her baby.

Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is a Hebrew word that