In October 2023, I moved to Winnipeg, Canada to serve as a lay missionary, working at an inner city soup kitchen and food bank as my missionary assignment. It was my first winter in Canada. It was cold and dark. The soup kitchen operated in an old storefront in the worst part of the downtown area, surrounded by single-occupancy hotels where a lot of the poor were housed. It was a harsh reality. A local Mennonite congregation sponsored our missionary unit. I attended Mass each week at the nearby parish of St Ignatius of Loyola, served by a Jesuit priest. On Christmas Eve of that year, I was asked by one of the ministers at the Mennonite church to give a reflection about how I experienced Christ as a light in my life during their worship service. I had just been a missionary for a couple month in a city and a country that was still so new to me. However, I knew immediately how I saw Christ as a light. In my service in the soup kitchen and food bank, in the relationships I was forging with the poor, the street people, my fellow volunteers, and my fellow missionaries, I saw Christ in a very real way. Our lives as missionaries were very minimalist and serving as a missionary in the harsh Canadian was very challenging, but the joy I felt in the two years I served there had the bright light of Christ all over it in a very real way. To this day, just reflecting upon that experience, I feel so much love and have so many wonderful memories.
As we celebrate Christmas this upcoming weekend, it would be good for us to reflect upon the ways we experience Christ as a light in our lives. Blessings - Father Lincoln.
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