Now that the Christmas season is done, I can return to reflecting on astronomy! As I shared with you in the past, I plan on doing a couple more pieces on the forthcoming Artemis Missions. I also thought it would be fun to reflect on space missions slated for 2021. For understandable reasons, Covid-19 has often forced us to reflect on hard things that can lead to an emotional weightiness. Let's take a little time to focus on the positives. Literally, let's allow our minds to drift into space today!

While poking around on EarthSky, I found a piece titled, "6 space missions to look forward to in 2021." Below are the missions. I want to get your feedback on which missions interest you the most and, of those missions, which ones would you like me to write about. With that, let's dream! 

Mars Missions

Though these probes are already on the way to Mars, a host of technologies will be arriving at our distant neighbor in February. The first interplanetary mission from the United Arab Emirates named Al Amal will be arriving on February 9th, followed by an obiter and rover from the Chinese Space Administration named Tianwen-1. The third sojourner to the "red planet" will be a rover from NASA named Perseverance that will explore the Jezero Crater. Here are summaries of each mission.

Al Amal

Tianwen-1

Perseverance

Chandrayaan-3

Chandrayann-3 is the third in a series of Moon Missions for the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO). If successful, the mission will send a rover to the Moon to search for subsurface ice! Here's a summary of the mission.

James Webb Telescope

Selfie time! Me having fun with one of the mirrors on the James Webb replica.

What I am most excited about in 2021 is the launch of the James Webb Telescope (fingers crossed!!). After having the privilege of visiting NASA Goddard and seeing the replica of the James Webb Telescope support structure, I've been waiting with great anticipation to see what this space telescope will deliver! Launch is set for October 31st, the day after my birthday! Oh, how I wish Covid-19 would allow me to see this launch! 

Again, I want to thank Sacred Space Astronomy member and good friend Leonard Garcia for the invitation to visit NASA Goddard and his personal tour of the facilities. For those of you who may be interested, I wrote a piece a while back about my experience of visiting NASA Goddard. You can either click here or on my James Webb selfie to read about my visit!

Artemis 1

Later this year, the first of the Artemis "prep" missions will take place as the Orion probe will be sent to the Moon and back. The probe will not have a crew, but serve as a kind of "stress test" for the Orion probe. This is scheduled for November of 2021.

So, which one of these missions interests you the most and why? Leave your comments below and, together, let's make 2021 a year of wonder, even amid the ongoing struggles of our national pandemic.

Happy Monday!

Christmas offers wonderful opportunities to reflect on faith and astronomy. Therefore, I'm going to delay my next reflect on the Artemus Moon missions until after the New Year. For now, I will venture into a classic minefield that tonight's conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn actually begs us to ask. The minefield I speak of is the question, When was Jesus born?

As I shared with you last week, tonight will be the highpoint of the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. Sadly, the weather forecast for Wisconsin looks "so-so" for good viewing of the conjunction. Still, the event has awoken some logical questions - Was this conjunction the Star of Bethlehem? Was Jesus born on December 25th? How do we know for sure any of this is true?

These are all good questions! However, these question also present a plethora of not-so-good rabbit holes we can fall into if we are not careful. In my youth, the certainty of answering questions about the date of Jesus' birth were fighting words. The intellectual "dukes went up" and I was ready to fight to the death that Jesus was born on December 25th. Then I entered seminary and heard in class that Jesus most likely wasn't born on December 25th. What? Have I been duped? Is my faith a lie?

Looking back, I can easily diagnose my theological disease - Radical Certitude. Since I came of age as a Catholic during a time when Christian apologetics (clear, simple answers to defend Christian faith) was replacing theology, I wanted my faith to be clear, consistent, and certain. I find it ironic that it was entering seminary that took the certitude I clung to and dismantled my presumptions. In an environment that I thought would simply affirm my radical certitude, I spent the first year of seminary studying the history of philosophy. The running joke that year among my classmates was, So when will we start to talk about God?

In those moments, my faith was ironically shaken. For some of my classmates, the shaking was too much and they decided to leave seminary. However, that shaking was necessary so I could be "rebuilt" with authentic faith. Welcome to why the word seminary means "seedbed" or a place where seeds are planted and grow. And in order to grow, you must first till the soil and remove its weeds for healthy growth the occur. The first year of seminary was the tilling and weeding!

I start with this because our culture has become obsessed with radical certitude. I hear it in young Catholics considering marriage when they say to me, "Father, if I don't know 100% that this is the person I will marry, I wont marry them." My response, "Well, then I guess you'll never get married." Even though I am a young pup at 47, I'm finding more and more that radical certitude is a fast path to neurosis. A healthy life isn't found in certitude, but, rather, trying to make the best decisions we can with what is presented to us and then make a "leap of faith." The leap isn't blind or uneducated. Far from it. However, true faith is discerning - With what is presented before me, what is the best path for me to take forward?

What in the world does this have to do with the date of Jesus' birth? Hang in there, we're getting to the answer. We just need to till a little more soil!

One of the moments of rebuilding my faith in seminary was to understand the role of inculturation in the Church. Inculturation is something that all of us participate in both knowingly and unknowingly. For example, when I was in college I went through a crisis of cultural identity. Even though my hereditary background is Polish, Irish, German, and English, there wasn't much of these cultural traditions that were maintained on either side of my family. I started to feel like I was a "cultural orphan." I became good friends with a young woman who was part of a local Native American tribe in Wisconsin. Many of our conversations centered on what it meant for her to be Native American.

My friend invited me to join her at Pow Wows and explained to me the significance of the event. At the center of the Pow Wow was a drum that was constantly played. My friend explained to me that this represented the "womb of creation" and how when the drummers would play and sing, the songs signified the creation of all things. I instantly started to reflect on my own faith and how I viewed creation from both my faith background and the astronomy classes I was taking at the time. When she invited me to join her in the dance around the drum, I hesitated, feeling like I shouldn't join the dance - This isn't my tradition. She explained to me that it is considered a great insult to reject an invitation to dance, so I danced... awkwardly! In that moment, feeling the reverberations of the drum in my own body, I finally felt I had found a part of my identity, even though I am not Native American. When I would go home after these Pow Wows, I would often ask, "Why can't what I experienced be part of my Christian faith?" Welcome to how inculturation occurs.

The date of Christmas has much to do with inculturation. When you start to study theology, you encounter a strange reality - We often don't have a definitive birth date for most the key Christian thinkers from the first two centuries. Why is that? The reason is that the ancient Judeo-Christian world did not view a person's birth as significant. Instead, to the early Christian, the date of their death was more significant - Their birth into eternal life. Therefore, Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ, was not observed by early Christians. Instead, the emphasis in the ancient Church was celebrating Holy Week and Easter - The time of Jesus' death and resurrection. Even Scripture fallows this trend of placing more focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus since the passion and resurrection narratives appear in all four Gospels, but the infancy narratives appear in only two Gospels.

So... When did Christians start to celebrate Christmas?

As a liturgical feast, we don't find Christmas mentioned in official liturgical texts until the ninth century and the first reference to December 25th as the date when Jesus was born doesn't appear until the third century through the writings of Sextus Julius Africanus (click here to read a piece from the online encyclopedia Britannica with more details). This raises some interesting questions. First, why did it take over 200 years for someone to figure out when Jesus was born and, second, if they did figure out the date in the third century, why did the Church wait until the ninth century to start celebrating Christmas? Welcome to the process of inculturation! 

Since early Christian culture didn't celebrate Jesus' birth, non-Jewish converts explored a logical question - Our culture celebrates birth and we want to celebrate the birth of Jesus - When was he born? Is the fact that we can't find a birth date for Jesus proof that Jesus didn't exist? No, it simple affirms that birth wasn't emphasized in the culture of the Children of Israel. From this starting point, it makes sense that the date of Jesus' birth would most likely be determined in large part through the eyes of inculturation. To reference my Pow Wow experience, welcome to the heart that would ask, "Now that Jesus is the center of my life, how can I make this a part of my cultural expression?"

This gave birth to the idea of Cosmic Liturgy. Cosmic liturgy, which I have discussed in the past, is the process of seeing in creation the natural rhythms of our world as signs and symbols of faith. Sextus Julius Africanus connected spring with the creation of the world, leading him to presume that March 25th must have been the date when Jesus was conceived since Jesus came to set creation aright after the fall of humanity. Therefore, March 25th (around the time of the vernal equinox) is the feast of the Annunciation, when Gabriel visited Mary to announce that she would bear a son and name him Jesus.

Nine months later, December 25th was then the presumed date of Jesus' birth. Given the rhythm of the length of days in the Northern Hemisphere, a theology was developed to make a connection between the length of days and the impact of sin on the world. The feast of the Birth of John the Baptist, June 24th, the one who cries out "prepare the way of the Lord," is around the summer equinox. From there, the elongation of night begins, signifying the impact of sin on the world. When Jesus is born (around the winter equinox) then nights are longest, signifying how the impact of sin can hinder "the light of truth" in our world. However, the birth of Jesus also occurs when days are becoming longer, signifying the impact that Jesus is the light of the world, dispelling the darkness of sin. This brings us to spring and the whole pattern starts again.

Beautiful when you think about it, unless you live in the Southern Hemisphere. I speculate that one of the reasons that Cosmic Liturgy didn't have a long shelf life was because it was a uniquely "Western European" view of the rhythm of creation. Or, to put it another way, the inculturation of the symbol system of the western gentile world was a regional inculturation and not a universally applicable theology. Therefore, most of Cosmic Liturgy fell by the wayside while remnants remain, like the presumption that Jesus was born on December 25th.

Fr. James, does this mean that Christmas is a lie?

Vatican Christmas Tree

No, not at all, Christmas is not a lie. We know that Jesus existed not only from Scripture but from sources outside of Christianity as well. We don't know the exact date when Jesus was born, but to assign a day to remember his birth doesn't make Christmas a lie. It simply means we need to be careful not to wrap our faith around a date that not even the first Christians felt a need to emphasize.

Therefore, the next time a friend of yours argues that Jesus wasn't born on December 25th, you don't need to feel the pressure of defending a calendar date under the presumption that this must have been the day Jesus was born (blind radical certitude). Instead, you can simply affirm that we don't know when Jesus was actually born and, given the inculturation of gentile world views into Christianity, we don't have to obsess about the actual date of when Christ was born (healthy inculturation).

Instead, we can focus on what is most true of the days ahead - The promised light of hope that shines in the darkness of our world has been born to us - God made flesh in Jesus Christ. What we celebrate isn't a date on a calendar, but the fact that God loves us so much that God became one of us, walked with us, lived our life, died our death, and rose on the third day.

In this spirit, Merry Christmas! And may the light of hope shine brightly in the darkness of our times. And may we see God's presence in the world around us and with the people we love. Put another way, to recall the sacred friendship I referenced from my college days, let us dance with the Lord this Christmas!

Last week, I offered a simple question for you to reflect upon - Should we return to the Moon?

The responses I received, both public and private, revealed three, clear conclusions.

There is definitely a body of people who think we should send people back to the Moon.

There is definitely a body of people who think we should send rovers to the Moon since they are more budget friendly and could maximize the science due to the budget savings.

The third conclusion I wasn't looking for, but become very clear was this - Everyone felt we should go back to the Moon.

Now, something we need to keep in mind is the Artemis Missions are meant to prepare to send humans to Mars. With that in mind, it's not a simple debate of "send people or don't send people to the Moon." If the goal is to put women and men on the Moon to prep for Mars, then having missions with people aboard are essential. Obviously, this aspect of the Artemis Missions leads to another layer of reflection - Should we send people to Mars (and beyond)? We'll save that question for a future post. For now, let's focus on three of the main concerns and interests that came up from last weeks reflection question: Fiscal concerns, scientific benefit, and theological insight.

Looking at the "Follow the Money" argument, the numbers are striking. As a means of comparison, the New Horizon's Mission to flyby Pluto came in at $780.6 million dollars while the Artemis Moon missions will cost between $30 to $40 billion dollars. Obviously, this might not be the fairest of comparisons. The mission objectives of the Pluto flyby and the Artemis missions are very, very different. Also, the Artemis budget reflects multiple missions while the New Horizon's budget reflects only one mission. Still, I think it safe to say that both missions remind us that space exploration is very expensive and this expense is always going to be a point of concern for many people. And sending people to space instead of rovers is even more expensive.

Personally, I'm okay with the price tags. At first glance it is easy to scoff at the expense, thinking of many practical things we could reallocate funds toward on Earth. Yet, when we compare these expenses with other culturally accepted, big ticket items, it brings the numbers into perspective. For example, the BBC reported that the presidential/congressional elect held this year in the United States cost almost $14 billion dollars. This, obviously, points to a number of questions on the ethics of elections when the price tag to elect someone to public office is over fourteen times more expense than sending a probe to Pluto. This post wont explore this hot potato of a political issue, but when you compare the expense of space exploration to other culturally acceptable big ticket items, we see that space exploration is not as fiscally outrageous as one may think.  Post your thoughts below on what you think of the expenses involved in space exploration!

From the perspective of science, one of the questions that was presented to me was whether or not humans are essential to do the science of the Artemis missions? To explore this question, we need to get a grasp of what the scientific goals are for Artemis. NASA has made public the mission outline and objectives of the Artemis Missions (Click here for the summary of the main science goals of the missions). After doing so, I would like you to post your thoughts on what you think the Artemis missions should explore? If you would prefer a shorter summary, here's an Artemis interview conducted by NBC. 

Some may argue after watching this video, "Of course you need to send people into space if you want to do scientific exploration of Mars and worlds beyond!" Also, the video points out that this expense does have a potential fiscal gain in the exploration of usable resources that could be "mined" and brought back to Earth. This is one of the core truths I have learned over the years about the scientific exploration of space: As much as I would love to argue that the simple desire of the human person to wonder "what is out there" is a good enough reason to go to the Moon, there needs to be a benefit to humanity to justify the mission. Often times, people reduce missions to Mars and other worlds to an exploration to put people on a world that isn't our own. However, there is a big part of the Artemis missions that strive to make life better on this world by exploring other worlds for usable resources.

As true as all of this may be, the argument can be made that many of the missions goals could be met without people ever being sent to the Moon or Mars at a much lower price tag. In the NBC video, the show host was using virtual reality goggles to demonstrate to the viewer different aspects of the Artemis mission. Virtual reality is transforming how things are done on Earth as well, whether it be educational, scientific, or recreational purposes. Could a small army of robot rovers be used on the Moon with humans using virtual reality on Earth to build space stations? Could the same tests be conducted from Earth with no threat to human life through virtual reality? Honestly, I don't know the answers to these questions, but I would love to hear our professional scientists (and well educated enthusiasts) weigh in and share your thoughts below.

Okay, we've touched on money and science, what about faith? Some may think there isn't any theological implications of sending human beings to the Moon and Mars. At one level, that would be a true statement. I haven't heard of NASA exploring theological aspects of Moon and Mars missions nor would I expect them to do so. Still, there are theological questions and implications that are worth asking in light of these missions.

Do these missions change our view of God and religion as we discover things like water and usable resources on other worlds?

Let's say we find water and usable resources on the Moon and Mars. Let's push it a little further and say we find simple organisms on Mars that confirm that life is more common in the universe than we often presume. Does this finding change how we see ourselves as made in God's image and likeness? And let's say an historic event happens in a future mission that would be akin to a first contact with life outside of our common home that would allow for some type of meaningful interaction. Would this change the way we view our place in the universe? 

"'Earth Rise" taken by Apollo 8 Astronauts. Image Credit: NASA

To end my piece this week, let's look at how people of faith have understood past space missions and how those missions informed and transformed their faith life as a means of helping us reflect on what future space missions might reveal about our understanding of God.

Those of you who were around for the Mercury and Apollo Missions, how did the first images of the Earth from the perspective of the Moon not only change how you see our world, but how you see God?

In my priestly ministry, I've heard many reflections on the historic image of Earth-rise captured on Apollo 8. People have shared that Earth-rise was their first awareness of how fragile our world is and gave birth to modern ecological moments, embracing the mentality - As fragile as this precious blue marble is, we need to protect it!

Here is a remaster image of Earth-rise.

Remastered Image of Earth-rise. Image Credit: NASA, Bill Anders, Processed by Bill Weigang

In regard to people's view of God, I find few that would say this image did any harm to their faith. If anything, the beauty of this image often strengthened people's faith, seeing the contrast of the barren lunar surface and the blue "life-fest" that is the Earth. Still, the connection of viewing our smallness that evoked the need to protect our common home is something easily forgotten, but monumental for how we view God's creative act and how we are to care for this gift.

The Voyager 1 Probe Image of Earth from Saturn Image Credit: NASA

Another image of our scientific past that does sometimes challenge people's faith is "the pale blue dot." If the Apollo 8 images from the Moon gave us a sense of the fragile gift of the Earth, images of our common home from Saturn gave us perspective of just how small we are in the universe - really, really small!

This smallness has led many to question God, wondering how beings on such a minuscule place mean anything to God? Perhaps its because I'm young enough to have grown up with these images and benefit from years of prior reflection, but I've never had the feeling that "size matters" when it comes to how I view God in light of the relationship between Earth and the rest of the universe.

One approach to the question of our physical place in the universe in relation to how meaningful we are to God was presented by Fr. Chris Corbally of the Vatican Observatory. In an interview he did with Br. Guy, Chris was asked to reflect upon how such a small creature could mean anything to God?

Chris stated that the problem with thinking we are too small for God to care about us says more about how we limit our understanding of God versus the insignificance of the human person. There are many images from Scripture that state that God is attentive and present to all of creation regardless how significant or insignificant something may appear to be - big or small. In light of this, could our smallness actually affirm our faith? And does it make sense that "the God of Smallness" chose to dwell with insignificance, came into our world through an impoverished family, and taught time and time again that God's presence is to be found in the rejected and lowly of the world? These questions are good food for thought to start my post next week!

Here is the interview I referenced in the previous paragraphs with Fr. Corbally.

We will continue this discussion next week, but, for now, I want to hear from you. What are your thoughts on the fiscal, scientific, and theological aspects of exploring space? I'll address these questions in next week's post. That being said, I need comments to put next week's reflection together, so error on the side of sharing thoughts! I will respect every response regardless of the perspectives offered and respond with the same respect.

Happy Monday everyone!

Once again, my apologies for my absence. Any of you who have gone through a job addition know that one of the first challenges is establishing a new workflow. So, is my new workflow... flowing? Let's just say we're in the river and we found the current. Now we just need to figure out how to keep with the current!

In some ways, I think it's a Godsend my concluding reflection for Fratelli Tutti was delayed. The reason for this thought is that we are a week away from starting a new Church year. When we think of a new year, we often think of a change of heart, a new way of seeing the world, and finding hope to be better people. From this standpoint, can we see Fratelli Tutti as part of this time of new beginnings? Let's find out!

In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis sets the parable of the Good Samaritan as the central Biblical image of the Encyclical. In doing so, he is reminding us of Jesus' call to view human dignity in a completely new way (or perhaps to see human dignity as God intended from the beginning).

In the time before Christ, the Covenant between God and humanity was seen as limited to the Children of Israel. "Love thy neighbor" really meant "Love thy fellow Hebrew." Sadly, this view of the Covenant was used as justification to mistreat those deemed outside the Covenant, such as Samaritans.

Time and time again, Jesus presents a more expansive understanding of the Covenant. The most blatant example being when Jesus states in Luke 6:27-38 to not only love thy neighbor, but also love thy enemy. In doing so, Jesus shows us that the people we perceive as "enemy" are not enemies at all. We are members of one human family and should treat each other as such. The true enemy is evil, the privation of the good. Ergo the oft used but oft forgotten maxim, "Love the sinner, hate the sin."

Let's refresh our memory of the story of the Good Samaritan. Here is the parable as presented in Fratelli Tutti.

“Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’ And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’ But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan while traveling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’ Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’”(Lk 10:25-37). (Fratelli Tutti. 56)

Shows mercy - What a beautiful understanding of right action. And being that Christianity is a faith with strong emphasis on imitating the actions of Christ, it reminds us that what we are actually imitating is the mercy of God. The irony of the story of the Good Samaritan is that those who should have acted with mercy - the priest and the levite - refused to show mercy to the man beaten and forgotten. It was the forgotten one, the Samaritan, who acted according to the Covent by showing mercy. By extension, this passage should pierce the heart of every Christian with the reflective question: Do I show mercy in the universal manner Jesus calls for or am I exclusive with whom I am merciful toward? 

How does this story connect to the Church's New Year? This coming Sunday is the beginning of Advent, a paradoxical season. We begin our new Church year by joyfully anticipating Christ's final return in glory. So... we start by looking forward to the end times? Yes! For many, Christ's final return in glory is met with fear, presuming war and cataclysmic doom. However, the cry of Advent in the Greek, Maranatha, indicates a joyful anticipation of Christ's return, not fear. It's a beautiful paradox, reminding us how Jesus often would take culturally presumed norms and turn them on their heads.

Speaking as a Pastor, we all need to be "turned on our heads" this Advent. We have been struggling through a national pandemic that has created great division, death, fear, and denial. At least in the United States, a toxic political environment has emerged that is worse than any I can recall in my brief 47 years of life. And as we approach the months of December, January, and February, I fear the combination of "Covid fatigue" along with months that can be long, dark, and cold in the Northern Hemisphere will create a culture of depression. To state the problem simply, we have enough in our world that communicates a "dark Advent" of doom and death. We need "an Advent of light" and joy to signal a new beginning.

And what is at the heart of this new beginning I pray comes this Advent? A renewed sense of the communal love that all of us are to share as members of the human family. A new sense of detesting the divisions that fear and hatred have created in our world. Embracing the simple truth that I am my brother's, sister's, neighbor's, friend's, enemy's, and stranger's keeper. And I pray this Advent can be a return to embracing the human family in its true catholic/universal sense, while also distancing ourselves from the trap of recreating an exclusionary view of God's Covenant.

Here is this same sentiment as presented by Pope Francis in Fratelli Tutti.

57. This parable has to do with an age-old problem. Shortly after its account of the creation of the world and of man, the Bible takes up the issue of human relationships. Cain kills his brother Abel and then hears God ask: “Where is your brother Abel?” (Gen 4:9). His answer is one that we ourselves all too often give: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (ibid.). By the very question he asks, God leaves no room for an appeal to determinism or fatalism as a justification for our own indifference. Instead, he encourages us to create a different culture, in which we resolve our conflicts and care for one another.

58. The Book of Job sees our origin in the one Creator as the basis of certain common rights: “Did not he who made me in the womb also make him? And did not the same one fashion us in the womb?” (Job 31:15). Many centuries later, Saint Irenaeus would use the image of a melody to make the same point: “One who seeks the truth should not concentrate on the differences between one note and another, thinking as if each was created separately and apart from the others; instead, he should realize that one and the same person composed the entire melody”.

59. In earlier Jewish traditions, the imperative to love and care for others appears to have been limited to relationships between members of the same nation. The ancient commandment to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18) was usually understood as referring to one’s fellow citizens, yet the boundaries gradually expanded, especially in the Judaism that developed outside of the land of Israel. We encounter the command not to do to others what you would not want them to do to you (cf. Tob 4:15). In the first century before Christ, Rabbi Hillel stated: “This is the entire Torah. Everything else is commentary”. The desire to imitate God’s own way of acting gradually replaced the tendency to think only of those nearest us: “The compassion of man is for his neighbour, but the compassion of the Lord is for all living beings” (Sir 18:13).

60. In the New Testament, Hillel’s precept was expressed in positive terms: “In everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets” (Mt 7:12). This command is universal in scope, embracing everyone on the basis of our shared humanity, since the heavenly Father “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good” (Mt 5:45). Hence the summons to “be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36).

61. In the oldest texts of the Bible, we find a reason why our hearts should expand to embrace the foreigner. It derives from the enduring memory of the Jewish people that they themselves had once lived as foreigners in Egypt: “You shall not wrong or oppress a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex 22:21). “You shall not oppress a stranger; you know the heart of a stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex 23:9). “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Lev 19:33-34). “When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not glean what is left; it shall be for the sojourner, the orphan, and the widow. Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt” (Deut 24:21-22). The call to fraternal love echoes throughout the New Testament: “For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’” (Gal 5:14). “Whoever loves a brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness” (1 Jn 2:10-11). “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death” (1 Jn 3:14). “Those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen” (1 Jn 4:20).

62. Yet this call to love could be misunderstood. Saint Paul, recognizing the temptation of the earliest Christian communities to form closed and isolated groups, urged his disciples to abound in love “for one another and for all” (1 Thess 3:12). In the Johannine community, fellow Christians were to be welcomed, “even though they are strangers to you” (3 Jn 5). In this context, we can better understand the significance of the parable of the Good Samaritan: love does not care if a brother or sister in need comes from one place or another. For “love shatters the chains that keep us isolated and separate; in their place, it builds bridges. Love enables us to create one great family, where all of us can feel at home… Love exudes compassion and dignity”.

Avoiding the trap of closed communities. In many ways, this has been at the heart of the psychological stress of the Covid-19 Pandemic. Out of concern for the common good, we have physically closed ourselves from the activities we typically participate in to protect each other's health, which is a good thing. As we have done this, has our heart also become closed to the love we all need? Have we found creative ways to stay connected with the community of faith that is part of our lifeblood not only as Christians, but as a human species? Have we taken time to pray with the hope-filling question, "How will I live as a child of the Covenant once I can fully embrace my neighbor?" Or have we chosen a darker road of deeper exclusion, allowing physical distance to bleed into an emotional and spiritual distance from each other and God?

As word of vaccines and new treatments offer glimmers of hope amid this pandemic, let's ready our hearts this Advent to turn our world on its head in a good way. Let us distance ourselves from the cultural hate, distrust, and fear that is tearing our global community apart. Let us not behave in an exclusionary manner, seeking only to affirm those who are closest to us. Let us have a true Advent of embracing the breadth of God's Covenant. To put it simply, this Advent, let us start the Church's new year by loving one another as Christ has loved us.

Spiritual Exercise: As we approach Advent, is your heart filled with hope or fear? Are you joyfully awaiting with hope the end of this pandemic and a return to communal life or has depression and fear created barriers that need to be torn down. Wherever you find yourselves spiritually, let Christ turn you and our world on its head. It's time to move away from a culture of distrust and hate. Let us live as citizens in the Kingdom of God and rebuild the bonds of trust and love.