WELCOME AND A BLESSED CHRISTMAS

I hope that you enjoyed our 2005 celebration of that awe-filled moment in time when God 'pitched his tent amongst us' and took on human form. What a tremendous act of humility for our Creator to become one of us. In the Incarnation, God came to live in our midst. He experienced in the deepest way our joys and sorrows. God, in the words of St. Paul:

Emptied himself (of his divinity)
to assume the condition of a slave
and became as all people are
accepting even death on a cross
(i.e., the death of a condemned criminal)

How amazingly profound of our God to join the human race in this way. He could have decided to join the human race as a child of privilege. Instead, he choose to live among us as a poor man-identifying in a special way with the lowly and outcast.

When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3) he said to him.

I have seen the miserable state of my people.....
I am well aware of their sufferings..... V. 7-8

In the Incarnation, this same God decided to go one step further and join his suffering people. But, he did not just visit the suffering. He actually took on the sufferings of all humankind. "Ours were the sufferings he bore" (Isaiah 53:4). In the Incarnation, God became "a man of sorrows familiar with suffering" (Is. 53:2). Never again could we say our God is aloof and distant. We may think he is. But the truth is he is closer to us than we are to ourselves. His Christmas name Emmanuel (God-with-us) reminds us that our Creator is not only Transcendent (totally other) but also Imminent (totally close with us).

Sometimes in our pain and suffering and loneliness we cry out to God for help. We want desperately to feel his closeness and presence. If for some reason we cannot feel that presence, we must try to believe in the darkness of faith he is very close. In fact, he is weeping with us and suffering. This is the truth whether we experience it or not or believe it or not.

I believe one of the very successful tricks that Satan plays on us is helping us to believe that "God is absent" "God is distant", "God can't be trusted", "God doesn't care". When we think any of the above we are, I believe, under the influence of the evil one.

It must sadden, if not break the heart of God when we give in to the evil spirit's promptings and believe God is absent, distant and uncaring.

Jesus comes especially to express solidarity with the forsaken and poor of the world.

When God decided to join our human race, he chose a people who were very small (i.e., as a nation) and preoccupied. He joined a lower income family who could only afford the offering of the poor when they went to the Temple (Luke 2:24). He choose to be born not in a nice hospital or home, but in an abandoned cow barn. Just imagine the Creator of the world choosing to be born in a cow barn. His first visitors were not the important people in town, but lowly shepherds from nearby hills. Shepherds were considered outcasts. Talk about God's ways not being our ways. As an infant his parents had to flee with him to a foreign country not in fancy transportation, but on a donkey. For the first few years of his life he, Mary and Joseph were immigrants who spoke with a 'funny accent'. Our God who could literally have enjoyed the lifestyle of the 'rich and the famous', chose instead to live as an outcast.

How could we ever even think he doesn't care and love us madly? The late spiritual writer and monk, Thomas Merton writes:

"Into this world, this demented Inn,
in which there is absolutely no room for him at all,
Christ has come uninvited.
But because he cannot be at home in it,
because he is out of place in it, and yet must be in it,
his place is with those others for whom
there is no room.
His place is with those who are discredited,
who are denied the status of persons,
who are tortured, bombed and exterminated.
With those for whom there is no room,
Christ is present in the world.
He is mysteriously present in those for
whom there seems to be nothing
But the world at its worst.

Catholic newspaper columnist and best selling author, Fr. Ronald Rollheiser writes:

Christ is born into the world of the marginalized more than into the world where power
and influence reside.
This goes against our common conception.
But the point is made consistently and without
compromise throughout the Gospels.
The baby who's born at Christmas
grows into the Jesus
who tells us that there's a privileged presence
of God within and among the poor,
that the cross is erected where the outcasts are found,
that the one who is rejected by society is central to the community, and that the quality of our faith is to be judged by the quality of justice in the land
and the quality of justice in the land is to be judged on the basis of how the weakest,
not the strongest, fare.
The birth of Jesus reverses Darwin's evolutionary principle:
God's concern, unlike nature's,
is not about the survival of the fittest
but about the survival of the weakest.
God has a privileged presence in the powerless.
Not because the poor are morally superior
to the rich;
but, if Scripture is to be believed,
because the poor more easily make a place for
God in their lives.
Their stables and mangers are more available for
God's birth than are our homes,
condos and hospitals
Not to mention our boardrooms, talk shows, college classrooms, sports arenas and
other centers of influence.
Within virtually everything that our world judges to be important, there is no space for Christ to be born.
That's a message our culture needs to hear.
It's not so much that we're insincere,
ungenerous or morally deficient.
Sincerity, generosity and moral fiber abound,
even among the rich.
Overall, we're good-hearted.
The problem is more that we are star-struck,
celebrity-obsessed, too much convinced that God's
real blessing lies in being forever...
young, rich, good looking, healthy, talented, important, busy, productive, admired and entitled to have
something interesting to do.
The seduction of all of this, which drives our culture
and our souls so much, is the most powerful narcotic
the world has yet produced.
Like all narcotics, it's not so much a question of
morality as of reality.
It tends to make everything far, far, from real.
And it also makes the crib hard to find.
As the Christmas stories make plain,
the God who was born into this world at the
first Christmas and who is still trying to take
on real flesh in our world
cannot easily be found in the places where we
the young, rich, attractive, important, busy,
productive, healthy and talented-do our stuff.
It's more our busyness than our badness
that's the problem.
In our lives and in our world, perennially,
there's no room at the inn,
No place to welcome the God who wants
to be born there.
The Christ Child then, as at the first Christmas,
must be born outside our city,
among the poor, in places where we can find him
only by letting ourselves be led
by the poor, the children,
or by some other guiding star.

I think the above two quotes are very powerful and worthy of our prayerful reflections.

The Christmas event and story most of all call us to show solidarity with the poor and forgotten members of our society wherever they may be found. If we miss out on this piece of the Christmas event, we really miss out on the central meaning and message of Jesus' coming. We may not all respond in the same way. Some will give time and talent to helping the poor, others will give money to support ministries that daily seek to lift up the lot of the poor. If we are parents and grandparents, we should do what we can to help our children to grow up with a real desire to help the less fortunate members of our global family.

A Word to Those Who Do Not Come to Church Regularly

People miss Mass on a regular basis for a variety of reasons. The following are six of them to which I give a brief response.

Reason #1. For some parents with young children getting to Mass on Sunday seems to be too much of a hassle. It is particularly difficult when one parent has little or no interest in church. It is an extra burden on the parent who tries when children say "why isn't daddy or mommy going?' Some parents find it too much of a challenge to keep young children quiet in church.

Response: Across this country every weekend millions of parents do get to church on a regular basis simply because it is a priority for them. Church is an important value and they make time for it. So we know it is possible. What is frequently missing for many parents is motivation and conviction about the importance of Mass. Hundreds of parents in our parish received motivation and conviction about Mass by participating in one of our Men or Women's Retreat Weekends. For more information on our Men and Women's Retreat weekends, see top of page 9 of this bulletin. We ALWAYS make time for what we consider important in our lives. On how to make Mass less stressful I have two suggestions:

  • Speak to parents who do attend regularly with young children and are not stressed out with the experience. The Hills attend Mass every Sunday with their six children. Four of these children are under the age of seven. They would be happy to share with you their "secret weapon" for keeping their children quiet in church (and in restaurants). Email shakhill@earthlink.net

  • Make use of our free childcare during the 9:30 AM and 11:30 AM Mass.

    Reason #2. "I'm bored at Mass".

    Response: Mass was never intended to be entertaining or even uplifting. When Jesus presided at the first Mass in the Upper Room, he didn't invite his Apostles to come so that he could entertain them or uplift them. He invited them so that they could participate in a ritual meal which would commemorate his dying and rising. Many Catholics and Christians have brought a 'consumer mentality' into church. They come 'just to receive' and see 'what's in it for them'. If only we would come to give of ourselves-to give thanks and praise to God, we would most likely receive lots and in the process be uplifted.

    Reason #3. Loss of faith in the awesome gift we have in the Eucharist

    Response: Many good and even praying Catholics no longer come to Mass because they have lost faith in the wonderful gift of Jesus present in the Eucharist. They may not be even aware that they have lost faith in the Eucharist but they have, it would seem, if they no longer come. Two thousand years ago when Jesus was giving a discourse on the Eucharist, Many disciples walked away (John 6:59-66). Jesus didn't chase after them, he simply turned to the Apostles and asked: "What about you, do you want to go away too?". Peter responded: "Lord, who shall we go to? You have the message of eternal life...." (v 67-68).

    Our church has always considered the Mass as the greatest gift Jesus left to us. If it is a boring experience for us, I think we need a change of heart so that we can discover this most wonderful gift. Having said that, we priests, liturgists and leaders of song and music must constantly seek to do our best to provide music, song and homilies that touch people's minds and hearts.

    Reason #4. Problems with the church. It may be some of her teachings, practices or the recent scandals.

    Response: The scandals were terrible. They have now become one of the saddest chapters in the church's history. But we shouldn't allow the terrible sins of some (one is too many) to drive us away from the church, which Christ founded and still continues to be with. Our church (and every church) always has and always will be made up of saints and sinners. We have to learn to live with both as we try to purify the church and ourselves of sin and evil. If you have problems with some of the church's beliefs and practices and they keep you from coming to church, please remember that lots of good church going Catholics have difficulty with some of the church's teachings and practices, but they do not allow those difficulties to stop them from coming to church and neither should you.

    Reason #5. Bad Things Happening to Good People. Recently, I visited a good woman who had more of her share of bad things happen to herself and her family. Because of these bad things, she and her husband pulled away from God and church. My guess is that this happens all the time. It probably happened to a bunch of people this fall when the hurricanes came our way.

    Response: There is no easy response to the perennial problem of "bad things happening to good people". It's the age old problem of the mystery of suffering, which Job struggled with 3,000 years ago. I'm sure most, if not all, of us have said: "Why O Lord, why?" Perhaps we have been mad or angry with God. While there is certainly no perfect answer to the problem of suffering, the following can be offered for our reflection.

  • It is O.K. and even spiritually healthy for us to be disappointed or mad with God when bad things happen to us or our loved ones. God can handle our anger. He handled the anger of the prophets and psalmists who frequently got angry with him for his strange ways. But it is not spiritually healthy for us to stay angry with God for years. In fact, this is being very foolish. It is like "cutting off our nose to spite our face".

  • My belief is that God never sends us suffering to "straighten us out". Rather, he allows evil and bad things to happen for reasons we may never know. Of course, sometimes looking back on some events we may even be joyful that some bad event happened because it led to some great thing or growth in our lives. Of course, sometimes, it is very hard, if not impossible, to see what good could come out of some events.

  • When bad things happen, God is not aloof and distant. Rather, he is very close to us even if he is not 'fixing the problem'. One great spiritual author once said: "Jesus came not so much to solve the mystery of suffering, but to fill it with his presence. Whether we recognize it or not, God is always in our suffering and not aloof or distant from it. If we don't believe this what do we think Good Friday was all about?

  • It is always a loving thing to pray for people carrying a big and or whole series of crosses. Pray that they may have the faith and support of good friends to pull them through.

    While some of us may be able to work and pray our way through our suffering alone, most of us usually need the help and support of faith-filled people and even a wise counselor. I hope if you are going through a bad time you would not hesitate to call one of the priests or deacons at the office to talk.

    Reason #6. Many Catholics believe that the Church does not want them because they are divorced, divorced and remarried outside the church, have a homosexual orientation or are big sinners.

    Response: Following the example of her Founder and Savior, Jesus, our church welcomes all people. To do anything less would be a betrayal of Jesus. Religious leaders in the time of Jesus complained that he "sat and ate with sinners" (Lk 15:1-3). Jesus responded by telling them three magnificent parables on God's awesome mercy-which by the way is always bigger than our ability to sin. (See Luke 15). This is not to say that the church is soft on sin. To do so would also be a betrayal of Christ. He came to call each of us to turn from sin. Sin is spiritual cancer on the soul and we should always seek to avoid it. When it happens we should repent of it as soon as possible. So the church's challenging task is to "Proclaim a Gospel of Hospitality" and a "Gospel of Repentance". Both are equally important. Those of us who do attend church regularly are also sinners but we do not allow our sins to stop us from coming to our Divine Physician to receive his healing love and mercy and neither should you.

    Bottom line, our church community is less than it could be because of your absence. If you are a non churchgoer, you may doubt this, but it is true. The absence of your prayer, song and goodness diminishes the worship we give to God each Sunday. Your return to church and to the Eucharist would gladden the heart of God and bless us. If you would like to talk about any issue, please do not hesitate to contact me or any one of our pastoral team.