Accepting that everything we have and everything we are is ultimately a gift of God’s grace, and the serious need for ongoing repentance – not to avoid punishment – but to embrace God’ love for us.

The Old Testament People of God showed us that we need to pray about calamity in the world (like Russia’s war with Ukraine) even if we don’t know how God will act - God is still Lord!

Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness – overcoming them for us, and showing us how, with God’s grace, to align ourselves with God’s Word to overcome the temptations we face.

Our ‘mountaintop’ experience – our opportunity to be engaged by the Risen Christ – is offered to us in every Eucharist celebration. We need to open ourselves to receive the invitation!

Forgiving and loving those who have injured you can only be done by looking to, and receiving grace from – God.

Christ’s beatitudes (“Blessed are …”) teach us about living under God’s reign. As his disciples, we need to align ourselves – our attitudes and our actions – to living under God’s reign.

Like Isaiah, Peter and Paul, overcoming our resistance to, and responding to, God’s call to us.

gape love is essential for Christian disciples to be able to express their gifts to the benefit of others. It’s a kind of spiritual ‘vitamin D’ that we can generate from being in the light of the Son.

As St. Paul teaches the Corinthian Church, each of us have a specific call from God in the Body of Christ – to offer our gifts and talents to the purpose of the whole. We all have value.

The Light of the world who changed water in wine, still shines as brightly in our lives today.

Our baptism into Christ is God’s eternal gift to us. And living out the Baptismal Covenant is the way that God makes sure we are able to continue in God’s love.

“All of us have received the revelation of Jesus Christ as God’s Saviour of the whole world. As Church, we have to be the same revelatory “crèche” that Bethlehem was for the Wise Men.”

Authentically receiving the gift of Christmas doesn’t require in-person worship with glorious choirs – it requires opening ourselves to the life-transforming gift of the Son of God for each and all.