Pastors Notes from 12/17/2022
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December 19, 2022Fourteen years ago, six months into a new parish assignment, the early Christmas Eve Mass was one to remember. A predicted snowstorm swelled up on the afternoon of the 24th, high winds and an accumulation of snow. Masses throughout the area were canceled for the evening and the next day, except for the four o’clock Mass at the parish I was assigned. (Only because I hesitated long enough before calling into the local radio station, canceling the remainder of the Christmas Masses; and a promise from the hired man to ‘try’ clearing the parking areas up to the time of the service.) People anxious to find some solace graciously made the effort to fill the pews. Chatter seemed to fill the entire church nave, good-hearted and gracious voices—a spirit of Christmas. Rather than tell the people to be quiet from the pulpit as Mass was about to begin, something spontaneous occurred. Three of the students dressed as angels for the enactment of the Nativity (to take place after the gospel) were sent up the aisle, each holding a lit candle to be placed around the crèche scene. As they begin their slow procession down the aisle the church suddenly became silent, as if parishioners and visitors alike realized, out of reverence, the transcendent in our midst on that cold, snowbound evening.
Each Advent Season we each search for the ‘transcendent’, the grace of “peace on earth and goodwill toward men” as only our Savior can open before us. Too often our planning, activities, responsibilities, and commitments distract us from recognizing the spontaneous moments of grace, the Spirit of Christmas enfolding before us. Henry Van Dyke, an otherwise forgotten minister, author, and professor from the nineteenth century wrote a short sermon entitled, The Spirit of Christmas. Possibly, an excerpt from that sermon entitled, “Keeping Christmas,” can provoke within us the grace of ‘peace and goodwill’ within this holy season.
“It is a good thing to observe Christmas Day. . . .But there is a better thing than the observance of Christmas day, and that is, keeping Christmas.
Are you willing. . . .To forget what you have done for other people, and to remember what other people have done for you? To ignore what the world owes you, and to think about what you owe the world? To put your rights in the background, and your duties in the middle distance and your changes to do a little more than your duty in the foreground. To see the that men and women are just as real as you are, and try to look behind their faces to their hearts, hungry for joy?
To own up to the fact that probably the only good reason for your existence is not what you are going to get out of life, but what you are going to give to life? To close your book of complaints against the management of the universe, and look around you for a place where you can sow a few seeds of happiness? Are you willing to do these things even for a day?
Then you can keep Christmas.
Are you willing. . . .To stoop down and consider the needs and desires of little children? To remember the weakness and loneliness of people growing old? To stop asking how much your friends love you, and ask yourself whether you love them enough? To bear in mind the things that other people have to bear in their hearts? To try to understand what those who live in the same home with you really want, without waiting for them to tell you?
To trim your lamp so that it will give more light and less smoke, and to carry it in front so that your shadow will fall behind you? To make a grave for your ugly thoughts, and a garden for your kindly feelings, with the gate open? Are you willing to do those things, even for a day? Then you can keep Christmas.
Are you willing. . . .To believe that love is the strongest thing in the world, stronger than hate, stronger than evil, stronger than death - and that the blessed life which began in Bethlehem two thousand years ago is the image and brightness of the Eternal Love?
Then you keep Christmas. And if you can keep it for a day, why not always?
But you can never keep it alone.”
God Bless, Fr. Tim
FYI: “Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” (Voltaire)