Keeping Christmas All the Year

We should never tire of celebrating Christmas. Yes, it is natural to tire of the sugar overload and clutter of decorations and constant activity. But that is not what Charles Dickens meant when he said, “I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.” No, he meant honoring the good news that the Christ child brought.

What is this good news? As Brian McLaren describes it, “…the story of God’s work in history has never been about escaping Earth and going up to heaven. It has always been about God descending to dwell among us.”

We don’t have to wait to go to heaven to be with God — God’s presence is already here among us. We don’t have to wait for Christ’s light to illumine our darkness — that light already shines within us. We don’t have to wait for a gate to open to enter the kingdom of God — it is already open to anyone whose heart is open to love others.

This good news calls for a change of perspective. Hard as it is to believe, we don’t have to wait until we die to be with God; God has already come to us. We need only ask for Wisdom, who “passes into holy souls from age to age, producing friends of God and prophets” (Wisdom 7:27) to open our eyes and hearts to God’s presence, where we will never tire of celebrating the good news of Christmas.

All Will Be Well

I learned a new word today: agathism, which is the doctrine that, in the end, all things tend toward good. It is from the Greek word “agathos,” which means “good.”

Some teachers who affirmed the doctrine of agathism were St. Paul, who wrote, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28); Julian of Norwich, who heard Jesus say in a vision, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well”; Teilhard de Chardin, who counseled, “Trust in the slow, slow work of God”; and Martin Luther King, Jr., who observed, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Persons who believe in agathism don’t deny the presence of misfortune or evil in the world but trust that everything ultimately will end well. Christians are agathists because they believe that the betrayal, crucifixion, and death of Jesus could not prevent him from being resurrected as the Christ. The love and mercy of God does not prevent misfortune or evil but transforms it. As Catherine Upchurch says in Give Us This Day upon reflecting on the death of the Holy Innocents, “Violence would not magically disappear in the coming of Jesus, but [the evangelists] knew his very presence in the midst of it would begin to transform the world.”

We can hasten this transformation of the world by participating in the work of Jesus, who demonstrated God’s love through his ministry of presence, healing, teaching, and advocacy for the poor and oppressed. As John of the Cross said, “Where there is no love, put love and you will find love.” And thus we will taste and see the goodness of the Lord (Ps 34:9).

Making a Joyful Noise

Music always has been important to the community of Mount St. Scholastica — in fact, it helped ensure that the mission of the first sisters would continue. Several months after they arrived in Atchison, Kansas, in response to religious prejudice, the city mayor and prominent citizens decided to meet to determine whether the sisters could stay in the town. Before they held their meeting, the sisters mounted a counteroffensive; they issued written invitations to the men and their wives to attend to an open house at their school. The sisters displayed their textbooks and needlework, played the violin and sang for the visitors, and provided a buffet supper. The guests were delighted and dropped their opposition to the sisters’ presence in the town.

In the early decades of the community, teaching music lessons was an important source of income for the sisters. The community was consistently blessed with excellent vocalists, instrumentalists, and composers. Sacrifices were made to purchase organs for St. Scholastica Chapel and the Choir Chapel.

Today, we honor this history by decorating the community Christmas tree with finely wrought miniature musical instrument ornaments — various horns, violins, guitars, and harps. It is a way of celebrating what we value and acknowledging what matters to us: to “Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts” (Colossians 3:16).

May Christmas be a time for you to celebrate and proclaim that which matters most to you!

A Whole New World of Questions

The philosopher Susanne Langer said, “If we would have new knowledge, we must get us a whole world of new questions.” This insight certainly applied to our desire to know more about God, and with the birth of Jesus, new questions arise within us. Why did God choose a young peasant woman to be the mother of his son? Why was he born in a stable, of all places? Why were shepherds the first to be told about his birth?

These circumstances give us new knowledge about God:

1.     To further his plans, God uses those who are unlikely and overlooked, such as Mary, who had no status in her society because she was young, a woman, and a peasant. As Susan Quaintance, OSB, notes, “No one is paying attention. And that is God’s secret weapon…. I am called to trust that when Love is born in the world, it is through tiny openings, against impossible odds, with nothing but grace to cling to.”

2.     God wanted to be poor at birth and thus was born in the humblest of circumstances. Catherine Doherty observes, “He came into the world stark naked, as every child of woman comes froth from the womb. God loved poverty unto nakedness. This means that he made a total surrender, a total commitment to love. It had to be this way, if it were ever to lead to His Resurrection, and to ours. Don’t you think so?”

3.     Shepherds were observant by nature; they had to be, to protect their sheep. Therefore, the glory of the birth of Emmanuel was first revealed to people who were awake and paying attention.

Our questions, then, lead us to appreciate and trust in tiny openings and grace. They lead us to understand the importance of the total commitment to love that is represented by the life of poverty that is chosen by God. They affirm the importance of staying awake and paying attention in our own lives.

Like Mary, we ask questions, and as we ponder them in our hearts, they lead us closer to an understanding of the workings of God’s own heart.

Touched By an Angel

One e-newsletter I look at every day is a news update called “The Morning” from The New York Times. This newsletter ends with a “pangram” puzzle (word jumble), and yesterday the seven letters provided were a, g, e, c, I, n, and i. The following words can be formed from these letters: allegiance, angelic, angelica, canceling, cancelling, cleaning, enlacing, and inelegance. Guess which word I came up with: Cleaning!

I’m rather chagrined that my mind seems to prioritize cleaning over an angelic encounter. This incident reminded me of a poem called In the Kitchen by Kilian McDonnell, OSB, in which the Virgin Mary is recalling her visit from the angel Gabriel. It includes these lines:

Actually I had just
come back from the well, 
pitcher in my hand. 
As I placed it on the table 
I spilled some on the floor. 

Bending to wipe 

it up, there was a light 

against the kitchen wall 

as though someone had 

opened the door to the sun.

Rag in hand,

hair across my face,

I turned to see

who was coming in, 

unannounced, unasked.

Mary didn’t let her daily chores get in the way of a visitation from an angel. Can we say the same? Do we recognize angelic visitors who arrive unannounced and unasked, or are we too busy to recognize them and thus miss the tidings they bring?

They say cleanliness is next to godliness, but I’d still rather not miss a visit from an angel because I’m engrossed in wiping up some spilled water on the floor!

Drawn to a Crib

Babies are irresistible because of their innocence, vulnerability, and cuddliness. Seeing a newborn renews in us a sense of wonder at the miracle of life and awe that we are in the presence of something new and unique.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise, then, that God chose to come to us in the form of an infant. The writer of 1 Kings prayed, “May the Lord, our God … draw our hearts to himself, that we may walk in his ways….” (1 Kings 8: 57). Because our hearts are naturally drawn to babies, it makes sense that God would choose this avenue to draw us into a web of love.

In her book Donkey Bells: Advent and Christmas, Catherine Doherty said, “You will catch your first glimpse of love on the straw of a stable. There He is, emptying Himself, the Lord of Hosts becoming—out of love for us—a child. In a cradle, in a crib, we see Love so small that we can pick it up. And we look at that cradle and we ask ourselves, ‘Why do I think that God does not love me? Here He is. How stupid of me!’ That is one of the healing processes of God—to draw us to a crib.”

Our churches and homes generally display creche sets during the Christmas season. They are so familiar that we may tend to treat them as a backdrop. Perhaps it is time to renew the ancient practice, started by St. Francis of Assisi, of using the image of Jesus lying in a manger as a prayer tool to let God draw us into his heart.

The Witness of St. Juan Diego

In the year 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe chose a peasant, Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, to relay the following message to Bishop Juan de Zumárraga of Mexico: She wished a chapel to be built so the people who sought her help would have a place to gather and pray.

Why did she choose a man like Juan Diego, who was poor and without status or influence, to deliver this message? For that matter, why didn’t she just appear to the bishop herself?

Although Juan Diego may appear to be an unlikely candidate to be a divine messenger, he had characteristics that made him a wise choice. He and his wife, María Lucía, were among the first to be baptized after the arrival of twelve Franciscan missionaries in Mexico in 1524, which reveals that he was open to the word of God and courageous. Juan Diego walked regularly from his home to a Franciscan mission station for religious instruction, thus showing that he was persistent and faithful. He also tended to his sick uncle, revealing a caring and compassionate heart.

Juan Diego protested to the Virgin that he was a “man of no importance” and she would do better to recruit someone of greater standing to talk to the bishop, but she insisted that she wanted him to be her messenger. In so doing, she affirmed indigenous people as being worthy instruments of God’s grace and gave the bishop (and later the rest of the world) the opportunity to see this as well.

Juan Diego was a good and faithful servant in carrying out the Virgin’s wishes, and after the shrine was built, he lived in a nearby hermitage and dedicated the rest of his life to serving her. This “man of no importance” was canonized in 2002. On his feast day, December 9, may we emulate his example of faith, persistence, and trust that no matter what service we might be asked to perform, with God all things are possible.

The Meeting of Kindness and Truth

Psalm 85 includes the beautiful line “Kindness and truth shall meet; justice and peace shall kiss.” It seems like truth and kindness and justice and peace should be natural companions. However, when people have different understandings of truth and justice, kindness and peace can feel very far away.

Later in Advent we will hear the story of how Jesus came to be conceived through the power of the Holy Spirit. When Mary spoke the truth to her betrothed about her visitation from the angel Gabriel, Joseph conceived of a different understanding of the truth; another man had gotten Mary pregnant, and justice required that he sever their relationship. This version of justice did not bring Joseph peace, however, and after the truth of Mary’s story was revealed to him in a dream, he was able to treat her with kindness and brought her into his home.

Mary and Joseph’s understanding of the truth converged relatively quickly, but this is not always the case. We all know of families who are estranged for years when a son or daughter speaks his or her truth, and a parent or sibling can’t accept it. “I’m gay”; “You can’t be, because God didn’t make you that way.” “I love this woman”; “You can’t, because she’s Muslim and we’re Christian.” “I’m an artist and I want to pursue a career as a musician”; “You can’t, because you won’t be able to support yourself.”

A lot of hard work is required for kindness and truth to meet: people must listen to each other, critically examine their own beliefs, and act out of love to allow others to be true to who they are. Similarly, when the hard work of determining the truth is completed, as when an inmate is proven innocent of a crime for which he has been convicted, justice can be enacted, which leads to peace.

Our pursuit of truth and kind acceptance of it — even when it looks different from what we ourselves imagined —is an important way that we can prepare the way for the kingdom (“kin-dom”) of God to flourish in our midst. This is the work not just of Advent, but of every season of our lives.

A Life of Tenacity and Tenderness

Sr. Elena Hernandez, who died on November 23, had a tenacious spirit that was honed in her childhood. Born in San Gabriel, Mexico, she knew she wanted to be a religious sister at the age of 10. However, when her mother died a few years later, she had to set aside this dream and left school after 5th grade to work in a clothing factory to help support her family. Finally, at around age 30, an avenue to fulfill her vocation appeared in the form of Benedictine sisters from Alabama who gave a talk at the parish in her village. She told them of her desire to be a sister, and within two weeks, she found herself in formation. She made her first profession of vows in 1958, and as if to make up for those years when she deferred her dream to care for her family, she was given 63 years to live her vows, dying at age 101.

Sr. Elena was also tenacious in pursuing an education. After transferring to a Benedictine community in Oklahoma, she completed high school and found a way to earn a B.S. in secondary education. Instead of teaching in a school, however, she was offered a job as a pastoral associate at Our Lady of Guadalupe church in the small rural community of Hollis, Ok., which did not have a resident priest. Her catechetical skills and devotion to her faith were put to good use as she taught religious education classes, prepared children to receive the sacraments, and acted as a spiritual guide for her parishioners.

It is no wonder that Sr. Elena had a feisty, strong-willed exterior, given the challenges she faced throughout her life. However, God tapped into her tender side in an unexpected way when she was given some parakeets, who became her beloved companions. When Sr. Elena’s community was discerning about leaving Oklahoma to join Mount St. Scholastica in Kansas, Sr. Elena’s only question was whether she could bring her birds along. An aviary was set up in an unused elevator shaft, and she spent many happy hours there with her winged friends.

Sr. Elena modeled determination, a joyful spirit, and the ability to encounter God in the smallest of creatures. At her 100th birthday party, when she was asked for advice about how to live a good life, she said, “Listen to God and follow your heart.” The best way we can honor her memory is by doing just that.