Advent Day of Reflection with Fr Nicholas King S.J.

LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS - WAITING FOR THE COMING
(Do you hate Christmas?)

  About 70 of us gathered from across the Diocese in the Blessed Sacrament Church in Melbourne in the heart of Advent to share the immense privilege of participating in a Day of Advent reflection led by the eminent Scripture scholar Fr Nick King SJ.

Nick has the rare gift of being able to combine erudite scholarship with an engaging and deeply communicative delivery and he held us attentive and reflective throughout the day.

The day began with Nick taking us more deeply into the lived reality of our Western world at this Christmas season which can begin as early as late summer! He then used Biblical texts with his inimitable humour and commentary to take us into the real call of the season, with its urge to wait rather than arrive early; to experience desert as part of that waiting rather than settle for a more superficial yet immediate satisfaction of desire.

 Our times of reflection and discussion raised very real and live issues rooted in human experience – the apparent absence of God in the atrocities of the world; the tension between living truly the sacred in a world which can shy away from or reject the sacred; the very nature of incarnation itself.

Nick’s interpretations of parts of the nativity narratives in both Matthew and Luke were engaging and provocative, and people focussed with great interest on his view of the ‘Christmas card shepherds’ as marginalised ‘cowboys’ whose very role in the incarnation story leads to a deeper understanding of the nature of God.

And so much more…. Nick’s many published books sold like proverbial hotcakes which is testimony to the impact he had on us all.

Thanks to the generosity of many, we were also able to send about £300 to our Sisters in the Kivu region of the Congo which has been the epicentre of so many atrocities in the recent months.