Richard Ho Lung | Christ is the best for the new year

Dear beloved sisters and brothers,

At Christmastime our saviour is born, let us all rejoice. Sadness should have no place in this season; the birthday of Jesus Christ. There are all kinds of evils that threaten us with death. So many of my friends have reported sickness and there are many broken hearts, sadness, despair and deaths.

But my friend, the Lord has come! He will bring us light into the new year. He came at a time when there is darkness everywhere. But suddenly, there is a festival of lights. This new year yields to the inner spirit of man. We need to hope for there is a burst of hope.

We cannot live without hope. Jesus is that hope. We have struggled through the last year. There are world events, there are serious mistakes, people have disappointed us, and our finances didn’t go so well. What is this sadness in any heart that has like despair? I can’t seem to get out of it. But I have tried.

Now Jesus is here to take me into the new year. He is our leader and I am a Christian, or want to be a Christian. We must struggle on. We must look at the great light flickering at the end of our lives and at the end of the world. Get past the gloom; concentrate on the brilliant light within you.

See God within.

See God within creation.

See God in the newborn year.

See God in the poor.

See God in the cross.

See God in the figure of Christ.

See God in His love for every man.

He reaches out! He reaches out for you and me.

Go to Him and tell Him your troubles.

Meditate on this man- God who knows us through and through.

If we see Him and know Him and deliver all our weaknesses, sins and disappointments to Him

He will take us into a world of hope and eternal happiness.

CONTEMPLATION

We are called to be contemplative. We must concentrate on the word of God which brings us to the person of Christ, who broke through every type of suffering, even death.

As St Paul says, we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man sees is not hope. Why do we hope for what is seen? If we hope for what we see not, we wait for it with patience.

It’s just a little seed. We know that all things fall apart. We know that this futile world in which we trust cannot last. If we hope in Christ the everlasting life, and we go through trials and tribulations that our flesh and our minds and hearts must experience, we must carry our hope with us. There is the world to come, Jesus home, which is around us.

In the new year, let that little light lead you. Go towards it – Jesus Christ and you be the light for others.

Father Richard Ho Lung is a Roman Catholic priest and founder of Missionaries of the Poor.