Dear Members and Friends of our Auckland Community,

This Sunday there will be the opportunity of experiencing the Sacrament of Marriage, - truly a celebration of life in community! With we priests only just returning from our Synod in Melbourne, and Hartmut and Lis moving almost straight into the final phase of preparation for their marriage, I offered to write this month’s  letter for the Auckland Newsletter.

This coming Sunday will also be the opportunity of experiencing the first Sunday of Advent, and thus the very first Sunday of the Christian year.

 There is a powerful difference between the Epistle and the Gospel during Advent. The latter is apocalyptic – revelatory and earth shaking, the former carries a strong mood of Divine presence, of creative potential, - of new beginnings. When we focus on the meaning of Advent we will also be drawn to think of the preparations for the birth of the Christ-child, the Annunciation to Mary, and Joseph and Mary’s journey to Bethlehem.

To really find our way into an experience of Advent, each of us is challenged to seek within for that which is in the process of becoming – forming itself anew – quickening as revealed future substance. This is a process which is both gentle and powerful, already present yet of the future, both prophetic and apocalyptic.

Advent prepares our consciousness for the fulfilment of Christmas – the promise of the birth of our Self in Christ, of Christ in us. In much the same way the Sacrament of Marriage also shows how we human beings are in a process of becoming through Christ – and through each other. Marriage always brings something to birth in terms of mutual destiny and thus mutual becoming. The renewed Sacrament of Marriage reveals the part that the Risen One plays in bestowing the potential to become more than we are through joining lovingly with another. This is also the process that is ideally working in a community of Christians – A Christian Community.

Kevin Coffey