Gifts

December 22nd, 2012 Posted in writing | Comments Off on Gifts

Christmas is about gifts, those we give and those we receive. During this Christmas season, let’s take some time to look at all the gifts that surround us — gifts big and small that have blessed us in the past or bless us still, even if we didn’t initially think of them as gifts.

Take a quiet moment each day to look at the Christmas crib, the Christmas tree or the snow (if you have it). The Christmas season, after all, shouldn’t be totally filled with activity and running around. And spend a moment or two looking at the people in your life, whether they are right in front of you or in a photograph or kept in your memory.

Christmas reminds us that all is gift, especially the Great Gift of the Lord Jesus.

Merry Christmas!

No Words

December 16th, 2012 Posted in writing | Comments Off on No Words

On the third Sunday of Advent the scripture readings at Mass speak of joy. But in many hearts and homes in our country, and even all over the world, there is no joy this Sunday, especially in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and 6 adults were brutally murdered.

The Bible tells us that there is a time to be silent and a time to speak. Ironically, TV commentators talk about the “unspeakable” tragedy but then deluge us with torrents of words, even coaxing young survivors to talk about what they’d seen and heard (how despicable and exploitative!).

We may in the future find explanations that will give us some understanding of this senseless killing. And we need to remember that Christ came to our bleeding and broken world and will always stay with us, even when we have no explanations for tragedies like this.

For many of us, though, I believe our call, these coming few days before Christmas and even beyond, is to be present to the tears and cries and groans and sighs that fill Newtown and our own souls, and to pray for the families and friends of those who were killed.

Prepare the Way

December 9th, 2012 Posted in writing | Comments Off on Prepare the Way

John the Baptist was the “voice” in the desert calling to people to get the Lord’s way ready, making the crooked ways straight and the rough ways smooth.

I’m glad to think that we can ease the Lord’s path and contribute to smoothing God’s way (always with the help of his grace, of course). But some days I think that we actually make things tougher for God, as we behave like the crew that, a few years ago, tore up everything in front of where I work so that people couldn’t use the street at all, but for weeks had to take a complicated detour.

The bottom line is that we are just helpers on God’s project, not the bosses. Preparing God’s way — a road for us to travel also — is primarily God’s job. We may be of greatest help when we get out of God’s way and let him engineer and fashion the road as he knows best.

Of course, admitting that possibility may bruise our confidence in our own expertise and good intentions. But that’s all right. After all, as we’ve heard plenty of times, a road that’s paved with (only) good intentions can sometimes lead to a very bad place.

Advent’s Job

December 2nd, 2012 Posted in writing | Comments Off on Advent’s Job

The purpose of Advent is to remind us of something fundamental in us as individuals and as the human family, namely, that we need, desire, hunger for and await God’s coming into our lives and our world. It encourages us to become aware once more of what St. Augustine wrote: our hearts are restless and our lives are incomplete without God.

Most of the time our desire for God’s presence seems to function as a type of “white noise” or background music to our lives. It’s there, but we don’t explicitly advert to it. Advent, though, takes that yearning for God and moves it from the periphery to the center.

It says, “Pay attention to your desire for God and this world’s need for him!” And it reminds us of people like Isaiah, Mary, Joseph, Zachary, Elizabeth and John the Baptist, whose words and actions show us what it means to long for God and prepare for his coming.

Of course Jesus has come already in history and, as St. John wrote, has “pitched his tent among us” for good. But it is also true that Jesus is always coming into our lives and our world, and Advent encourages us to acknowledge and intensify our longing for him so that we will recognize and welcome him when he comes.

King of a Different Kind

November 23rd, 2012 Posted in writing | Comments Off on King of a Different Kind

The people of Jesus’ time, including his disciples, longed for a king they could be proud of, one who had power and knew how to use it, a king who would see to it that neither he nor his fellow countrymen got pushed around by the Romans. That’s clearly what Peter wanted, so when Jesus started talking about being handed over to death, he tried to put a stop to that – and got called “Satan” for his effort.

Jesus is a king, of course, only not the “normal” kind. Kings and others who rule our world cultivate the spotlight and public adulation. Not so with Jesus, for when a crowd of people came to make Jesus their king, he fled. And as far as we know, the only person Jesus ever let call him king in his lifetime was Pilate, who used the term in mockery of him.

Yet, St. Paul wrote that precisely because Jesus turned his back on our human understanding of kingship and laid aside the power he could have had over others, God “bestowed on him the Name above all other names so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend.”

Then and now Jesus’ kingship is all about love, humility, service and willingness to suffer for the truth, all in obedience to the Father’s will. It may not fit the world’s expectations. But it makes our King close to us and shows us how we, too, should live.

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