How does it feel to be in your eighties?
With gaze steady on the dawn of eternity . . .
With failing eyesight that dims with each passing day . . .
With deficient hearing that strains to catch some words . . .
With arthritic fingers that still produce wonderful works of art . . .
With toes deformed with rheumatoid arthritis . . .
With unsteady steps that wobble in measured pace . . .
With diabetes, scoliosis, emphysema to bear with . . .
What a ‘wreckage’ after 81 long and fruitful years!

But all these will once again shine
And gain their former luster
Once on the eternal shore
In the embrace of our Triune God
Resting in His bosom will glory
The precious ‘PEARL’ for all eternity.

From a cloistered contemplative missionary, the following is a sharing to all fellow missionaries, my musings during my encounters with the Lord in silence, solitude, and prayer.

We commemorate Christ’s birth in the flesh – He has become ‘Emmanuel!’ God-with-us, truly and really in the Eucharist. Here we renew daily the ‘CHRIST-event’ – Christ being born anew each day, each time the priest consecrates the bread and wine and they are changed into Christ’s own flesh and blood. Mary is present in each Christ-event – for Jesus is flesh of her flesh, blood of her blood. She gave birth to Him who is our Savior. She was the first to utter that Name which is above every other name, the Name that is to be praised from the rising of the sun to its setting, the ‘bloody Name’ that brings salvation. CHRISTMAS is the great feast of our Redemption, a call to save others and to be saved ourselves. It is ‘birthing’ anew our ‘en-Christed’ life, to abide in the true Vine, JESUS, so that we can bear fruit, rich fruit that remains. Christmas is birthing Christ’s attitudes, Christ’s thoughts, Christ’s words, and Christ’s deeds.

This is what Christmas means: to live its deeper significance and to take in the mystery of Christ in our daily life. All the glitter of external preparations cannot reveal its inner meaning. A contemplative goes beyond, digs deeper and lives the mystery of this great CHRIST-event. Then Christmas is not only celebrated for a day, or even for an octave; it’s a prolonged celebration, a continuous birthing process, a redeeming and transforming mission, accomplished by the Holy Spirit if we allow Him to ‘overshadow’ us like Mary. Then our consecrated virginity lived under the shadow of His Love will be fruitful. We shall birth new deeds of love and holiness, we shall birth new members of His body, the Church; we shall birth a new peace and unity, for our separated brothers and sisters.

Our fruitfulness in virginity depends on our abiding in love – in the true Vine – JESUS CHRIST. Let us remain in His love, a love that is virginal and at the same time, universal. This is indeed a fruitful virginity like Mary’s. Then, like her, we are inserted and immersed in every CHRIST-event – whether it is the Birth of Christ, or the Passion of Christ, or the Death of Christ, or the Resurrection of Christ. Each CHRIST-event is a mystery we can live in our own consecrated life, then each moment becomes a ‘Christed-moment,’ another Christ-event lived with Mary is the power of the Holy Spirit to the glory of the Father. For us, missionaries, CHRISTMAS is EVERYDAY because we live and share, we love and care as CHRIST, who is EMMANUEL – God-with-us, in us and among us.