The Gift

By John D. O'Brien, S.J.

Photo: Brian Nelson

This following story is written by a guest writer, who shall remain anonymous. 

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The children are lying on the living room rug, their stomachs distended with turkey and Christmas cake. Our guest, Father Brian, turns a beaming smile on them, lights his pipe, and seats himself with a sigh on the old rocking chair beside the wood-stove. He is content just to soak up the family atmosphere and listen to our children’s after-dinner banter.

“Tell us a story, Father,” they cry before long. The priest has a reputation for stories. More than that, he has all the time in the world for children.

“What kind of a story?” he asks.

“A Christmas story!”

“Well,” he says, pondering, his eyes growing thoughtful, “I think I do know a true story about a gift that was given on a Christmas day many years ago. But no, it’s too strange.”

Now they’re hooked. “Yes, yes, that one! That one!”

“It’s full of grown ups, “ he murmurs, “Nazis and war and things like that.”

“Yes, yes,” they squirm with anticipation.

His eyes go far away and his brow furrows. He rocks back and forth slowly, slowly, and the room grows quieter.

“I’m quite serious, when I tell you,” he says, “that this is a true story. I saw parts of it with my own eyes. I lived with the family to whom it happened.”

Then he begins:

Telling A Brilliant Story: Reading the Signs of the Times

By Santiago Rodriguez, S.J.

Credit: http://1.bp.blogspot.com

They knelt before Mary's babe and paid him homage. The three Wise Men who traveled from the East bore gifts for the child King: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Since I was a child, the story of the Magi seized my imagination. I used to imagine their journey from the East: the great caravan, their camels, and their lovely tents. I would visualize their faces as they knelt before Jesus - as Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar contemplated the child and finally found the peace they were seeking. Then, I would have a laugh as I imagined them flipping a coin or playing Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide who would be the first one to hold the baby.

Christmas: Time and Time Again

By Edmund Lo, S.J.

A few years ago, a fellow Jesuit introduced to me a beautiful Christmas story. It was written by Jérôme and Jean Tharaud, called La Dernière Visiteuse (The Last Visitor), and published in their work The Tales of the Virgin in 1940. Both the French original and the English translation can be found elsewhere on the interweb, but I take the liberty to include the short story here: 



It was Bethlehem, the end of a long night. The star had just disappeared, and the last pilgrim had left the stable. The Virgin arranged the straw: at last the Child could sleep. But who can sleep the night of Christmas?

Transitions

By Brother Daniel Leckman

Many things have taken place in my life during the past month that I wanted to blog about:

• The call I received one night after my Vatican II class (in the midst of all my business during the last few weeks of class no less) to begin a new blog on Pope Francis’ exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: Praying with Papal Documents. Almost two weeks later, I’ve slowly made my way through the introduction of the exhortation, taking two paragraphs every second day or so, and giving my own analysis of what I think the Pope is inviting us to with this document!

Nelson Mandela and the Embodiment a Socratic Paradox

By Adam Hincks, S.J.

(Image: biography.com)

The oppressed and the oppressor alike are robbed of their humanity. – Mandela

I was out of town at a meeting when Nelson Mandel died and learned of his passing early in the morning when I glanced at a newspaper box. Even though I knew he had been in poor health, the news surprised me and I felt the weight of a great period in history coming to an end.

I have always been inspired by Mandela. Several years of my childhood were spent in Lesotho, the small, independent nation surrounded by South Africa. Although much poorer, it was a kind of haven from the senseless and often brutal apartheid that existed in its gigantic neighbour. I remember watching on television when Mandela was released from prison and the swift changes that began happening across the border. But since Mandela died two weeks ago, my memory keeps returning to an old, abandoned house not too far from where we lived. Riddled with bullet-holes and stained by the soot of fire, it had been an African National Congress (ANC) hideout that the South African army had assaulted by helicopter a few years before we moved there. I suppose this image comes back to me as a reminder of the oppression which Mandela devoted his life to eradicate.

A New Approach to the Missions?

By Artur Suski, S.J.

On Monday of this week, I came upon a very inspiring article in the Toronto Star: “Good news from Canada's aboriginal communities” by Carol Goar. It is about a very ambitious project wherein the mission is to supply laptops to aboriginal children. It has been quite successful. “Since its founding in 2010, it has distributed 3,800 of the tough little computers,” writes Goar. But that’s not all; they’re not just on a mission to give out laptops to kids.

The Silence of Advent

By John D. O’Brien, S.J.

Northern Nativity, William Kurelek

Only when you are familiar with silence have you learned to speak; what you have to say can ripen only in silence. – Adrienne von Speyr, Lumina/New Lumina 

Have you ever had that experience when you can’t get to sleep, even though your mind and body are thoroughly exhausted? It’s frustrating, but there’s nothing you can do about it. Last night I tossed and turned, and wondered why. I hadn’t had any caffeine. Nor had I been staring at luminescent screen, which often fools the brain into extending its waking hours. I had thought that I would fall headlong into deep slumber after a long trip, for I was in a warm cabin, surrounded by peace and silence. It was not to be.

Apathetic No More: Reconciliation over a Cup of Tea

 By Santiago Rodriguez, S.J.

On the calender of the Catholic Church, the twelfth of December is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Given her importance to all native peoples around the world, some of our Ibo contributors have decided to launch a two-part series on Aboriginal justice. 

Santiago with members of Holy Cross Parish in Wikwemikong, Ontario

When the first two Jesuits arrived in Port Royal, Nova Scotia, in 1611, the Mi'kmaq people became friends of the Jesuits and supporters of their mission in the Annapolis Valley. In the spring of 2011, as I toured different Mi'kmaq communities in Nova Scotia to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Jesuits in Canada, I visited Holy Family Parish at the Eskasoni First Nation.

On that cold May morning, I joined a group of Mi'kmaq Elders for tea and sweet bread after Mass. As my conversation with the Elders began, half of my tea ended all over my shirt and my pants. I can be an accident-prone klutz at times. I have butterfingers and an incredible ability to fall down the stairs. While I am used to being a stumblebum in front of my family and friends, in that moment I was mortified because I was there on official business. I tried to make light of the situation by joking that I needed to start wearing diapers. I laughed at my own joke, but nobody else did. I sat down again after cleaning up the mess, feeling a bit self-conscious and humbled. While I held my refilled cup of tea with both hands, I noticed one of the Elders looking at me with a mischievous smile. She laughed a little bit and told me how glad she was to learn that some Jesuits need to wear diapers. We all laughed at her comment.

Aboriginal Justice: What Happens on the Ground?

By Edmund Lo, S.J.

On the calender of the Catholic Church, the twelfth of December is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Given her importance to all native peoples around the world, some of our Ibo contributors have decided to launch a two-part series on Aboriginal justice.

Grandmothers Guidance Centre celebration, Regina, Saskatchewan

The following is an interview with Sr. RéAnne Letourneau, PM. Sr. RéAnne belongs to the religious congregation that is the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary, and has been very involved in Aboriginal ministry for a number of years. She is currently active in Regina, Saskatchewan, with the Urban Aboriginal, Non-Aboriginal Relations Ministry.

Myth Busters and the Scientific Story

By Eric Hanna, S.J.

the2bitgamers.com

I'm an arts nerd, mostly. I enjoy Lord of the Rings and the genre of fantasy. But I also enjoy science fiction stories like those found in Star Trek. Both kinds of stories are similar in that they use the journey motif. People travel to strange lands and are confronted with things they could not imagine. In both kinds of stories people's basic moral instincts are tested against difficult circumstances.
The key difference between fantasy and science fiction is that in fantasy, the usual goal is to get home, while in science fiction, the goal is to leave home.

I had the pleasure of going to see the live show presented by the MythBusters, a group of special effects engineers who put urban legends and anecdotes to the test. On their TV show they have tested every kind of question, from “does playing classical music for plants actually help them grow?” to “what's the best thing to do if you are in a car that's falling from the sky?”

Christ With Us in the Scriptures

It occurred to the editors of Ibo that there was one basic question, so fundamental to the Christian life, that it demanded to be explored for greater profit of both ourselves and our faithful readers. Quite simply, the question was this: What are the ways Christ promised to be with us? “That’s so obvious!” the reader might cry. Perhaps. But it is nonetheless an important question. Unless we know the primary ways of encountering the living God in the bracing reality of our lives, the faith risks becoming an abstraction at best, an ideology at worst. There are four privileged ways we know of in which Christ manifests himself to his people in the here-and-now. Four writers are exploring these in a series of four short articles. The first is here, the second is here, the third is here. This is the fourth and final one.

By Adam Hincks, S.J.

(Image: redletterchristians.org)

Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ. –St. Jerome

Every time we hear a reading from the Bible at mass, the lector concludes by saying, “The Word of the Lord,” and we respond, “Thanks be to God.” In this simple exchange, we acknowledge the centrality of the written texts of our faith in our experience of God. For although the Bible is a product of many human authors living in many concrete times and cultures, it is not merely a human book: we believe that in it, God reveals himself to his people. As taught by the Second Vatican Council, all parts of the Bible “have God as their author and have been handed on as such to the Church herself” (Dei Verbum, §11).

Thus, the Word of God as recorded in Sacred Scripture is one of the privileged ways that the Lord Jesus is with us. To explore this further, I would like to consider two traditional approaches to interpreting the text of the Bible. The first is as the Book of Scripture, complementary to the Book of Nature that is studied by the natural sciences. The second is the distinction between the literal and spiritual senses that coexist in the sacred writings.

Lonely Streets and Humble Shacks: Christ Awaits Us in the Poor

It occurred to the editors of Ibo that there was one basic question, so fundamental to the Christian life, that it demanded to be explored for greater profit of both ourselves and our faithful readers. Quite simply, the question was this: What are the ways Christ promised to be with us? “That’s so obvious!” the reader might cry. Perhaps. But it is nonetheless an important question. Unless we know the primary ways of encountering the living God in the bracing reality of our lives, the faith risks becoming an abstraction at best, an ideology at worst. There are four privileged ways we know of in which Christ manifests himself to his people in the here-and-now. Four writers are exploring these in a series of four short articles. The first was here, the second was here. This is the third.

By Santiago Rodriguez, S.J.

Fritz Eichenberg- Christ of the Breadlines

The soccer field stared through the Orange and Avocado trees. We left the more densely populated barrio, and walked uphill on a narrow pathway. After a couple of minutes, we stopped in front of a very small shack on the side of the pathway. Oscar, my companion, called out, asking if someone was home. He got closer to investigate, when the small wooden door opened. Oscar went to the front of the door and spoke to someone I could not see. A few seconds later, three shy little girls came out to examine the strangers outside. In no time, the entire family was outside socializing with us – the parents and their five children.

“For Realsies”: Jesus in the Eucharist

It occurred to the editors of Ibo that there was one basic question, so fundamental to the Christian life, that it demanded to be explored for greater profit of both ourselves and our faithful readers. Quite simply, the question was this: What are the ways Christ promised to be with us? “That’s so obvious!” the reader might cry. Perhaps. But it is nonetheless an important question. Unless we know the primary ways of encountering the living God in the bracing reality of our lives, the faith risks becoming an abstraction at best, an ideology at worst. There are four privileged ways we know of in which Christ manifests himself to his people in the here-and-now. Four writers are exploring these in a series of four short articles. The first was here. This is the second.

By Edmund Lo, S.J.

(Image: Huffington Post)

Of the four topics that we Ibo contributors intend to cover in this series, I consider the Eucharist both the easiest and the toughest. Due to its importance, much ink has been spilled on this topic since the early days of the Church. For Catholics, receiving the Eucharist is one of the most recognizable “things” that we do; for non-Catholics, this is easily the biggest scandal of them all. Given the limits on time and space, I simply wish to address three points in this blog entry: its scriptural roots; the role of our perception of reality; and the aspect of communion.