Holy Moments: Reflections on the 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Holy Moments: Do you notice when Jesus shows up in your life?

I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation to everyone for your generous gifts to me and Fr. William. May Jesus, whose birth we celebrate at Christmas, bless you and grant you a fruitful year.

This week at our staff meeting we each had the opportunity to reflect and share what our highs and lows were for the year 2022. The prompt was to share how and when Jesus showed up in our year, whether we considered them high or low. It was interesting and soul searching for me as I listened to each member of staff share how Jesus walked with them in moments that would have otherwise been considered as indicative of the absence of God. It seems easy to see Jesus in good times, when things go the way we want them and when life is easy and sweet. But when pain and moments of sadness come we quickly assume that God had abandoned us. How quickly some of us give up the practice of our faith when we experience some tragedy or difficulty in our lives. How many of us stop walking with Jesus because we associate his presence only with the good times and not with the bad? Let us remember Job’s poignant question: “if we receive good things from the Lord, can we not accept evil? (Job 2:10). My intention is not to dwell on the presence or prevalence of evil in the world and why God allows them. I aim to invite you to recognize God’s presence even in the darkest moments of your life, because God is with us at all times, and even more so, when we think he is absent. At the end of the meeting, it became evident how many of our staff members found inspiration and hope to begin the year, seeing that God’s love is never lacking even when life is hard and difficult. There are always “holy moments,” if we pay attention.

One of such holy moments in my life was given to me over the Christmas holiday. My sister and nephew were visiting and it was so much joy having the little man, who is a year and four months old. My nephew enjoys listening to children’s rhymes, particularly “Cocomelon.” Whenever he would get antsy, we would placate him by playing that for him either on the phone or Television. On this day I was playing that for him on my newly acquired MacBook computer. I stepped aside for a moment to speak to his mom, and before I returned, he had caused a crack on the screen. He started to cry because he could no longer see the characters on the screen. I was a little upset because he had done damage to my priced computer. When I took this computer to the Geek store to fix it, they told me it would cost half the price of purchasing it to repair it. They also said I could sell it for a paltry sum as it is or trade it in for an insignificant sum. I also had the option of buying a new one. As I struggled with the pain of spending so much to fix a computer versus buying a new one, it dawned on me that this could be how God deals with us. God loves me, even more than I love my nephew. Like my nephew, I continue to do damage to God’s creation by my poor choices and many sins. God has the power to discard me, create a new person or fix me. As painful as it was to fix my computer, I imagined how much pain I cause God by my indiscretions and sins. Yet, he does not discard me and create a new individual. Instead, he does what no one else can, he comes himself to fix me, even when that means his death at the hands of his own creatures. This is how much God loves us.

To conclude, last week, I chanced upon a video on Facebook of a little boy singing at school. His video has since been picked up by some internet influencers who have made music of his rendition of Jermaine Edwards’ Beautiful day. I invite you to take a moment to reflect on the lyrics of the song provided below:

I don’t want to act too high and mighty
‘Cos tomorrow I may fall down on my face
Lord I thank you for sunshine
Thank you for rain
Thank you for joy
Thank you for pain
It’s a beautiful day