At the end of this year 2011, you, priests and religious women and men come together with your Bishop to celebrate the end of the year and to thank our God for his benefits and to pray for your church. You are a very important part of this local and centennial Church of Macau. You have a strong responsibility regarding the new evangelization, to which Pope Benedict XVI has calling us.

We must to take advantage of today’s feast of the Sacred Family to meditate during a short time on the “art of living together” as Church and community.

The Purpose of this meditation about the art of living is to help us

•   to be aware of our identity as living beings;
•   to make sense of our interdependent world and who we are in it
•   to connect and create on increasingly higher levels and, together, bring the greater lives and world we all envision into reality.

Epictetus was a philosopher, born into slavery about A.D. 55 in Turkey. He was sold as a child and crippled from the beatings of his master. He was freed and established an influential school of Stoic philosophy. Stressing that human beings cannot control life, only how they respond to it. Epictetus dedicated his life to outlining the simple way to happiness, fulfillment, and tranquility. He wrote a very famous book entitled ““The Art of Living: The Classic Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness”.

“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it.” (Epictetus).

Jesus is, above all, our Master in the art of living, the art of loving (Eric Fromm). In communion with him our passing life is connected with the eternal life, our poor love is connected with the amazing love of the Spirit. The Gospel, the teachings of Jesus, we follow, are the best method to learn the art of living and or loving.

We priests and sisters know very well the philosophy of Jesus! But our main task consists in embodying it!

We are now the body of Jesus Christ in Macau, the visible manifestation of our Lord. We are in Christmas days not because the city is full of lights and music, but because our community celebrates the birth of the Son of God. We are astonished by the amazing mystery of God’s Son becoming flesh. From that very moment of the incarnation everything is different: we are in a new world children of light. All our sins and failures are forgiven. The covenant of God with humanity, with the cosmos, is everlasting; his love for us has no end. The Holy Spirit fulfils the earth. Jesus became a citizen of our planet, a member of our humanity. After his resurrection Jesus ascended into heaven, but his blessing remains with us. He is always “Emmanuel” –God with us- through the Holy Spirit, abiding in our hearts.

We are the Church, -that means, the body of Jesus, the human extension of the Eucharist-. Our life is connected with the eternal life, with the life of Resurrection.

The Bride of Jesus

The Church is the body of Jesus, the Spouse of Jesus. A local Church –like this of Macau- encloses in itself the whole mystery of the Church. You are the beloved Bride of Jesus, but not as individuals, but all of you as a body.

The power of the Church resides in the mutual love, communion, interconnection. Individualism destroys the Church. Our card of identity needs our given name, but also our family name.

The art of living is founded in the art of loving. Love one another as I love you! To be catholic means to be inclusive, and not exclusive, to be ecumenical and not fundamentalist. The power of a Christian community resides in mutual love and communion. By this sign we are recognized as disciples of Jesus.

This is a very common problem in our local churches and community: the lack of mutual love, divisions, confrontations, individualism. Those who love are in the world of light. Those who do not love are in the world of death and darkness.

The mother Church

The Church, as Spouse of Jesus, becomes mother. We call her “mother Church”.  This Church of Macau is “mother”. This motherhood of the Church is the best gift she receives from Jesus, her Bridegroom. The Church is not called to be sterile. She has received the power of being mother: mother of new Christians, of new vocations for Christian Marriage, for Priesthood, for Religious Life, for an engaged laity. The true Church is a spiritual mother, she gives life, she is generative. Maternity or motherhood is the name of Mission. A missionary Church is a mother Church, who gives birth to new children of God, to new vocations.

My brothers and sisters, we are in Christmas days, in times of birth. Put your  hope in the Lord Jesus. He will surely give you new children. You will not be called “sterile”: nothing is impossible to God.

The local Church of Macau is a beautiful family of God. In it we contemplate the body of Jesus, the presence of the Spirit. Mary, Joseph teach us the art of living: in the company of Jesus, in loving service to the people, in constant prayer to God.

A living Church manifests her identity in three traits:

• creativity, innovation, generation. We need a culture of creativity in mission, to maintain the fecundity of the Church, birthing new children, new vocations.
• Another identity trait of a living Church is the care of life to those who are in the shadows of death, who do not find the meaning of life, who are hopeless.
• To be a Church is to be interconnected by love, friendship, communion. Alone we are nothing. Together everything is possible.

We finish our meditation with the words of Epictetus:

“Don’t explain your theology of the Church. Embody it.” (Epictetus).

You are, my brothers and sisters the embodiment of the Church in Macau. Through your vocation and ministry the Church is the beloved bride of Jesus and the mother of charity, of faith, of hope. Merry Christmas and Happy new Year!