A Supportive Vocations Promotion Environment

MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER
FOR THE 48th WORLD DAY 
OF PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS

15 MAY 2011 FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER

Theme: "Proposing Vocations in the Local Church"

Let the closing paragraph of the Holy Father’s message for today stand for all and serve as an introduction to my reflection on vocations promotion and the difficulties we face: 

"The ability to foster vocations is a hallmark of the vitality of a local Church. With trust and perseverance let us invoke the aid of the Virgin Mary, that by the example of her own acceptance of God's saving plan and her powerful intercession, every community will be more and more open to saying "yes" to the Lord who is constantly calling new laborers to his harvest."

One of the topics I addressed briefly a week ago at the annual plenary assembly of the Bishops of the Antilles was vocations promotion and discernment. I did so while keeping in mind some words borrowed from the Holy Father’s homily of 5 February 2011, for the ordination of 5 bishops. 

"Precisely in this hour... the Lord makes us understand that we cannot send workers to the harvest on our own, that it is not a question of management, of our own organizational capacity. Only God can send workers into his field. But he wants to send us to this work through the doors of our prayers. Thus this moment of thanksgiving for the realization of a sending on mission is, in a special way, also the moment of prayer: Lord, send laborers into your harvest! Open hearts to the one you have sent! Do not allow our supplication to be in vain!"

In a word, before we go on, be assured that nobody is more convinced than I am that prayer takes precedence over any vocations promotion program based on human ingenuity.

That said, let me say that so much of our faith in the Lord, in His power to save and to see to it that on their earthly pilgrimage His people are fed with the Eucharist, so much reassurance does not necessarily calm the fears or relieve the anguish over the lack of vocations facing many bishops who shepherd the flock in Christ’s stead. This faith in Christ the Good Shepherd may not even appear that comforting in the minds of many thoughtful and faithful lay people who are deprived of Sunday Mass for lack of a priest or who see their priests aging and no one coming up in the ranks to replace them. For our region in particular, the major seminary which recently closed (even if officially so only for three years for building repairs and the renewal of the seminarian population) stares back at us, perhaps even reproves us with an indiscriminate and less than salutary demand to correct what we are doing wrong and open the doors once again. The theme of the Holy Father’s message for today, “Proposing Vocations in the Local Church”, is not only a pertinent one but ends up being a confrontational challenge. With all that is going on in the world around us, one can feel almost if not truly helpless.

The Readings for Holy Mass on Good Shepherd Sunday (Year A) come to the rescue with a couple thoughts we need to hold onto in the face of hard times.

“I am the gate. Anyone who enters through me will be safe; he will go freely in and out and be sure of finding pasture.” (John 10:9)

While the terminology “horizontal and vertical” hardly renders the idea, it must be said that the horizontal or relational character of our Church experience today stifles our prayer because it places us often enough really outside the sheepfold. We can truly be out of touch with the supernatural, with the Divine. When the Holy Father invites us to enter through “the door of prayer” I think he is speaking about something vertical or supernatural, or if the spatial analogy disturbs, then, let us say, truly God-centered, truly focused on Jesus. “I am the gate.” Jesus says. He is the focus and too much of what we say and do looks to our neighbor or to our personal interests rather than to the Shepherd Who never leaves His flock untended. You could say that faith is lacking to the extent that we are not unlike Israel in the desert, impatient for Moses’ failure to return immediately from Mount Sinai and abandoning ourselves to crafting idols as a substitute for the Living God in Whom we should be placing our trust.

Invariably, when people are driving me around in the car (certainly in Jamaica and often on other islands) and we have to slow down or stop for sheep or goats on the road, people point out to me how much smarter goats are than sheep. I have heard this ten times if not two. My hosts always claim that goats seem to be able “to think on their feet” as the human expression goes. They are street savvy and manage road traffic, whereas sheep just plain follow or freeze. Needless to say, this predilection for goats here in the islands does not seem to be scriptural. You might say that part of the message of the final judgment scene from Matthew’s Gospel rests in understanding why the sheep are the ones invited into the Kingdom and the goats banished. Dependence upon God is not our immediate inclination; like goats we tend toward either self-reliance or despair.

The smarter of our two dogs, the one that receives all of the accolades, is the one that won’t stay put in the yard but is forever climbing out of the fence and chasing around the neighborhood all night with yelping and barking packs of strays, shredding ours and the neighbors’ trash bags in a search for morsels more tasty than the dog chow or chicken and rice the sisters so lovingly provide. Is the hound really smarter for being so “proactive”?

What is the kind of prayer that serves as an antidote to our restless distraction? While there are no sure-fire recipes or magic formulas, are we knocking on the right door, the real door of prayer? Do we seek to pass through the sheep gate Who is Christ or are we pretending to jump in and out like some nimble goat or my smarty dog? You might say then that our panic in the field of vocations promotion stems from our bold reliance on our personal skills and resilience. Some (let’s charge them with “progressive” posturing!) would say that if we can’t make it work according to the traditional norm then we’d better improvise. That doesn’t sound very scriptural either. Could it be that we’ve strayed too far? Could it be that we need the Shepherd to pick us up and carry us back to the fold?

The choice of the 2^nd Reading for this Sunday is an important one for my reflection:

“The merit, in the sight of God, is in bearing punishment patiently when you are punished after doing your duty. This, in fact, is what you were called to do, because Christ suffered for you and left an example for you to follow the way he took. He had not done anything wrong, and there had been no perjury in his mouth. He was insulted and did not retaliate with insults; when he was tortured he made no threats but he put is trust in the righteous judge. He was bearing our faults in his own body on the cross, so that we might die to our faults and live for holiness; through his wounds you have been healed. You had gone astray like sheep but now you have come back to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.” (1 Peter 2:20/25)

Almost ingenuously I’d like to say that our salvation and vocations will bloom or burgeon as a result of our docility, as a result of our “heads down” following the Shepherd. If we could get people back into the sheepfold through the gate, we would stand a chance of them hearing the Shepherd’s voice and following Him out to verdant pastures.

I would hope that no one gives in to despair on this 48^th World Day of Prayer for Vocations. I would also hope that nobody succumbs to the temptation to being rather street savvy in a goat-like fashion, jumping in and out of the fold at will. I would hope and pray that if we are not in the fold that we (especially our young people) would allow ourselves to be scooped up and carried back by the Shepherd. May we not abandon the faith of our fathers but rather entrust ourselves to Jesus, meek and humble of heart!

“You had gone astray like sheep but now you have come back to the shepherd and guardian of your souls.”

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

High Noon at the Well!

Third Sunday of Lent (Year A)

Exodus 17:3-7

Romans 5:1-2.5-8

John 4:5-42

“Through our Lord Jesus Christ by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God’s glory.” (Romans 5:1ff.)

I am reasonably sure that my Lenten reading is what triggered a reflection on particular judgment in the light of the great Gospel we just heard about Jesus’ exchange with the Samaritan woman at high noon at Jacob’s well. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains what we believe concerning the particular judgment:

1021  Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ…

1022  Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven – through a purification or immediately, - or immediate and everlasting damnation…

1058  The Church prays that no one should be lost: “Lord, let me never be parted from you.” If it is true that no one can save himself, it is also true that God “desires all men to be saved” (1 Tim 2:4), and that for him “all things are possible” (Mt 19:26).

What provoked this thought about the particular judgment we must all face at the moment of death, I think, were Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman:

“If you only knew what God is offering and who it is that is saying to you: Give me a drink, you would have been the one to ask, and he would have given you living water.”

Lucky woman! As she admitted, He told her everything she had ever done. Jesus laid her life out before her eyes like a book and offered her an exchange which allowed her and many others of the town with her to come to faith in Jesus as God’s Anointed. Even among us with the best possible Catholic upbringing we might have reason to be envious of the opportunity Jesus provided her to know Him Who is our Hope and our Salvation.

Particular judgment! Most of us would not be so presumptuous as to brag or boast that we will die as the equivalent of canonized saints. Even those who talk about their saintly Irish mothers know enough to pray for dear Mom, to have Masses said for the repose of her soul, that she might quickly move from Purgatory to the glories of Heaven.

What about those who were estranged from the faith of their Baptism, perhaps because no one ever taught them their prayers as children, no one ever took them to Mass on Sunday or saw to it that they got to catechism and confession on a regular basis? What about those who were never baptized and their life’s journey kept them far from faith? What about all those who have never heard of Jesus? From India, St. Francis Xavier wrote to St. Ignatius of Loyola talking about the work to be done in the mission fields to save souls and how he was tempted to come home and run up and down the hallowed halls of Europe’s Catholic Universities and challenge all those men to put their preoccupation with schooling behind and come join him in proclaiming the Gospel.

Are all those who never hear of Jesus, who don’t accept Him because they’ve never really encountered Him, are they all lost for eternity? What happens to them at the moment of particular judgment? Is it a “near death experience” of a cozy white tunnel and then nothing?

I’d like to think that for all those who have been deprived of the opportunities given to you and to me that there would be a kind of pre-particular judgment, a high noon experience at Jacob’s well, bright light and no shadow, with Jesus sitting there and opening up that conversation with a request for a drink of water from the well. If they botch the encounter? Well fine, then off with them to oblivion. God did not spare His only Son, but delivered Him up for the many and not just a few. Our failures in handing on the faith cannot be laid at the doorstep of those who have been deprived.

Granted, the Samaritan woman did not get her “home free card” that day, but she met Jesus, she knew the Savior of the world. Her life was different and she was empowered to make the choices such that when her earthly life had ended she knew what was coming. I am sure that when indeed she drew her last breath and opened her eyes on eternity that there was more than a bright light. She recognized her Lord and He welcomed her into His Reign. Did she go in as a canonized saint or did she have some time to do in Purgatory? It’s hard to say. Certain however is that fact that the exchange at Jacob’s well held her in good stead for the rest of her life and for what was to come.

“Through our Lord Jesus Christ by faith we are judged righteous and at peace with God, since it is by faith and through Jesus that we have entered this state of grace in which we can boast about looking forward to God’s glory.” (Romans 5:1ff.)

Transcendent, Immanent or Evanescent?

Faith, Reason and the War against Jihadism: A Call to Action,

by George Weigel (Kindle edition)

A dear friend of mine recently conned/duped/tricked me into reading the second George Weigel book of my life. As it was the case with the first, so also this time I could hardly put the book down. It truly read well. George is indeed a wordsmith and as I could cheer him on in that first book I read as an apologist for the role which soon-to-be Blessed John Paul II played in bringing down the Berlin Wall, so this time I can identify with George as he holds up our present Holy Father’s Regensburg Lecture as beacon and prophecy for the demands of reasoned discourse and not only in the dialogue between Christianity and Islam.

Nonetheless, don’t expect me to pick up another one of Weigel’s books anytime soon. It is not that I disagree with him; it is not that I do not admire his command of the sources. As a say, he’s quite the wordsmith. Although I was a bit distracted by his repeated (at least twice) use of the word “fecklessness”. It is a word I understand, just like I understand many words in foreign languages which are not part of my active speaking vocabulary:

feck·less         adj \ˈfek-ləs\

Definition of FECKLESS

1: weak, ineffective

2: worthless, irresponsible

— feck·less·ly adverb

— feck·less·ness noun

Examples of FECKLESS

1.      She can't rely on her feckless son.

2.      feckless response to the rise in school violence>

Origin of FECKLESS

Scots, from feck effect, majority, from Middle English (Scots) fek, alteration of Middle English effect

First Known Use: circa 1585

Related to FECKLESS

Synonyms: counterproductive, ineffective, hamstrung, ineffectual, inefficacious, inefficient, inexpedient

Antonyms: effective, effectual, efficacious, efficient, expedient, operant, ultraefficient

Related Words: abortive, bootless, fruitless, futile, nonproductive, pointless, profitless, unavailing, unproductive, unprofitable, unsuccessful, useless, worthless

Near Antonyms: availing, beneficial, helpful, productive, profitable, successful, useful, worthwhile

I have never heard with my ears the word “feckless”. Maybe it is everyday in Scotland or on the eastern seaboard of the U.S… in Canada or Australia, perhaps?

At any rate, this “Call to Action” lauding world-changing interventions by Winston Churchill or Harry Truman in the past, full of confidence that we’re still capable of “one more for the Gipper” seems more a recipe for nightmares. Mind you, I agree wholeheartedly that George is at his best arguing that nuclear disarmament has never been a more urgent need, but he seems to gloss over countless reasons beyond two hundred years of Islamic heresies underpinning the desperate acts of people who have more reason that Britney Spears to hate the “Great Satan”. There are countless reasons for the mad rage which comes flying at us, innocent or not. “Self-imposed dhimmitude” may not always be the best description for why a Western European might react with genuine contrition for crimes committed against humanity in the Arabic world and elsewhere.

The book is indeed masterful; it is a great piece of work. I think the movers and shakers of society could profit immensely from not only skimming this book but reading and reflecting upon it. It is however, and hats off to the master, a series of variations on a theme. 

A no less important question to be faced is really, I mean really, “What can I do about it?” George very aptly describes an “Unhinged Left” and an “Unhinged Right”. In the almost four years since he wrote the dedication to the book these two camps have drifted even farther apart and are even less willing to carry on civil discourse with one another. What is one to do from an armchair far from the corridors of power populated by the very same persons who run rough-shod over our basic civil liberties, like the right to life?

George’s book will nonetheless be treasured by me for his introductory remarks concerning the otherness of Islam. While I have on more than one occasion been preached to by those who wished to make it clear to me that my faith in the Living God as revealed in Jesus Christ had been superseded by the teaching of the Koran, I had never really appropriated as well as I could thanks to this book the notion of a God so totally apart and transcendent. The Mystery of the Incarnation, of God become Man, and of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit for the life of the world become for me more so good news and more urgent to proclaim. 

The hastening of the coming of the Day of God through my conformity to His Will for the sake of the establishment of His Reign becomes all the more urgent. The Love which has come to dwell in our hearts must be better known! Thank you, George, and thank you, Mike, for the book suggestion!  

Allegiance to the King of the World

The Resurrection from the Dead and the Life of the World to come

“Some Sadducees – those who say that there is no resurrection – approached Jesus and they put this question to him…” (Whose wife will she be?)

          There’s little doubt where the Sadducees were coming from and where their hopes or expectations for this life resided. No doubt as well they have their counterparts in our day and time! One possible read of the message for this Sunday (Luke 20) would have less to do with critiquing those who can’t get beyond the here and now, and more with inviting us to choose or to express more clearly or decisively our allegiance to the Lord of Life.

          I have to admit that I always shudder when I read the Maccabees passage which is assigned as the first reading for the 32^nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C. The gory details of the entire passage describing the torture and death of all eight come vividly to mind each time I read even a part of it. Such brutality against these seven young men, boys some of them, and their mother, just because they would not abandon the traditions of their ancestors and eat pork! They chose sacrificing life and limb, literally, for their hope in God’s promise to Israel and they clarify the content of that promise: life forever with God in the glory of the resurrection.

Here we have an Old Testament book witnessing to the faith in the resurrection of the dead (in B.C. times certainly a controverted article of faith which the Sadducees refused to accept), the faith we profess, which took on substance and clarity in Jesus’ teaching and in His victory over sin and death (A.D.). It is in this sense that the Letter to the Hebrews certainly has also in mind the heroism and faith of this mother and her sons and how by faith they saluted from afar the Risen One (Heb. 11:13-16; 32-39):

 “Inhuman fiend, you may discharge us from this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up, since it is for his laws that we die, to live again for ever… Ours is the better choice, to meet death at men’s hands, yet relying on God’s promise that we shall be raised up by him; whereas for you there can be no resurrection, no new life.” (2^nd Maccabees 7)

          The mother and her seven sons suffered brutal torture and death confident that their victory was in the hands of the King of the world whom they worshipped. For them nothing was to be gained by winning the favor of any worldly king or potentate who cannot restore life to the dead or preserve himself from that obligatory passage through the gates of death. St. Paul (as we read this Sunday in his 2^nd Letter to the Thessalonians) likewise knew all too clearly that ultimately at issue in the fight were not custom, usage or moral message, but that sure hope which comes from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ himself. He is God of the living, not the dead, for in Him all are in fact alive.

          Father Robert Barron of Word on Fire just reviewed a recent Clint Eastwood film called “Hereafter”. It would seem that the object of the movie is to make a statement about “life” or “something like existence” beyond the grave. It would seem the movie tries to do so without reference to God. The mother and her seven sons from Maccabees, St. Paul and we too must stand speechless and sad that anyone, including Clint Eastwood, would make an effort to comfort people as they face the big existential question, while denying the power and presence of the King of the world.

O Comforter, to Thee we cry, Thou Gift of God sent from on high, Thou Font of Life, Thou Fire of Love, and sweet Anointing from Above…

Hollywood has once again shown its allegiance and opted for the favor of worldly potentates, opinion makers, of those sad creatures skulking about, hell-bent on poisoning the well, or as it says elsewhere: seeking the ruin of souls.

          “Jesus replied, ‘The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God.”

          The Sadducees opposing Jesus saw nothing except the here and now; even today and beyond Hollywood there are many who live only for the moment. I can remember as a young priest in the late 1970’s hearing some writer or prominent Catholic speaker promoting a more serious or committed approach to marriage preparation as an antidote to divorce. He held the opinion that the ordinary form of marriage preparation back then in the U.S. was a bad first marriage. The problem is not so simply described. With time and experience we have learned that only exceptionally does the second attempt net better results than the impetuous first try. Marriage preparation, no matter how long or how excellent, cannot always supply the deficiencies of a faith upbringing cut short, or cope for the lack of support most couples and families have to face when trials or hardships come their way. Nor does it successfully confront a lifestyle bent on a measure of quality which does not surpass the moment or the celebration of the here and now.

The Sadducees are as good a reminder as any that our own day and time has no corner on the market of short-sightedness or the urge for immediate gratification. Many would insist that faithfulness in marriage, for instance, is imposed from outside; few people are convinced of the overarching value of “sticking it out”, of really living the marriage vows as recited. Common parlance would insist that the law and social pressure kept my grandparents (for whom wedding bells rang over a century ago) together a whole life long. The longer I live the more I see the half truth in all of this. The mindset of the Sadducees is what is really telling. Faith in the resurrection from the dead, hope in the sovereignty of the King of the world, love for Christ, Who gave Himself up for all of us, it is in such that the everyday heroism of faithfulness in matrimony and much more is grounded. Too bad there aren’t statistics concerning O.T. divorce among Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, as opposed to Pharisees, who did!

          Many out there would insist that more believing does not necessarily mean more faithful, whether it be to a partner in marriage or to Christ Jesus Himself. But that is not really the point. The point has to do with perspective and where my hope lies. Most places in the world fewer young people are presenting themselves for marriage. Some hastily tack a signboard on the phenomenon which reads: FEAR OF COMMITMENT. More accurately perhaps we might be said to find ourselves standing speechless before the general tenor of a society worse than that of the Sadducees, who at least attempted to live on in their progeny, children and grandchildren, who before dying and returning to dust brought them the joy of seeing themselves young again or at least their same color of eyes or their dimples or the way they gimp along repeated, the spitting image of his dad or of her mom even as different as we snowflakes are from one another. The notion of a culture of death makes many bristle, but what is it when you encounter so many today who without God in their world or hope of a world to come go one worse than the Sadducees and also deny themselves the joy of seeing themselves in their children.

          In a sense, there is no crossover or reconciliation between the mother and her seven sons and their executioners; there can only be contrast between the Sadducees and Jesus: “Jesus replied, ‘The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God.”

          In both cases, however, we as third parties, as witnesses have the choice of choosing whether to rally to the standard of the King of the world or to conform our lives to the dictates of the movers and the shakers for whom there is no resurrection. It’s too easy to make a desperate attempt to cling to the glitter and the fanfare; the invitation is to choose life really, life in its fullness.

The month of November, which commends to our prayers the Poor Souls in Purgatory, reminds us of the choice which is ours as well, that life is much more both here and now and in the glory of the resurrection:

“In him, who rose from the dead, our hope of resurrection dawned. The sadness of death gives way to the bright promise of immortality. Lord, for your faithful people life is changed, not ended. When the body of our earthly dwelling lies in death we gain an everlasting dwelling place in heaven. And so, with all the choirs of angels in heaven we proclaim your glory and in their unending hymn of praise…”(Preface of Christian Death I)

          The clarity and determination of the mother and her seven sons from the book of Maccabees might be a rarity in the face of social pressure, but this does not excuse us from striving to enter by the narrow gate, of opting for the road less traveled, of throwing in our lot with the King of the world.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Let the Child in!

Mass for Christmas during the Night
2007 - Rosary Monastery - St. Ann’s
Port of Spain, Trinidad


Isaiah 9:1-6
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14


“’And here is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger’. And suddenly with the angel there was a great throng of the heavenly host, praising God and singing: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace…’”

I don’t know about you but I’ve always felt sort of left out when people start speaking about their conversion experiences. As long as it was just televangelists or non-Catholic types knocking on your door of a Saturday, bragging about the date and time their lives had changed having accepted Jesus, it was something I guess one could write off as a bit unbalanced and maybe even untrue. Truth to be told, even Catholic charismatic conversions never worried me much. But if none of that seems right doesn’t there still have to be something that we’ll simply call “growth in holiness”, change, betterment, or progress even in the life of a rank and file Catholic Christian? Shouldn’t the word “conversion” have a meaning for me too? Of course it should!

We’ve just finished a preparatory season in purple: Advent. Where do we find ourselves tonight? Has Advent helped us prepare for Christmas? Are our hearts more open to the Lord who comes? Do we live our lives watching and waiting for the Lord? Is He my hope and my salvation? This is a very tough kind of examination of conscience to make, because it’s not as concrete as pinpointing sins of thought, word or deed, action or omission. In fact, I’d probably say it may even be unwise to try and measure our growth in the spiritual life that way if you, like me, can’t really point to some earthshaking conversion experience like being knocked off your high horse as St. Paul was on the way to Damascus. How does an average Catholic check himself or herself to see how things are going (remembering, please, that we’ve always been taught, and rightly so, to mistrust emotion or sentiment as the measure of our closeness to God)? We cannot, however, excuse ourselves from this type of examination of conscience, this kind of check on our devotion, on how or whether we are living for the Lord. The powerful readings of this Mass in the Night for Christmas are evidence enough that the Light, Who is Christ, shines in and changes the hearts of all the people. What difference does my baptism make in my life?

As I say, this is not an easy check. When all else fails, we can look to the lives of the saints to find a mirror, a solid point of reference for measuring how we are doing in our own lives. Thanks be to God there are lots of saints from every day and time and nearly all walks of life! If you look hard enough there has to be some saint you can identify with or who can be a model and a challenge to help you on your own path to holiness. Now maybe my early life wasn’t that of a “child-star-saint” like St. Catherine of Siena or the Little Flower, like young Aloysius Gonzaga or Dominic Savio. I certainly was not a bad boy, but in all honesty it would be hard to point to heroic goodness in those tender years of my life. Besides, they all died young and holy – I must keep looking. Let us get on to grown up saints and repentant sinners, like St. Paul or St. Peter, like St. Mary Magdalene, or if we dare mention him in a Dominican house, like St. Ignatius Loyola! If a lightning conversion hasn’t taken place, what has happened in my life? Do I belong (like I should) to God with all my heart, all my soul and strength, regardless of my age and state in life?

“The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light; on those who live in a land of deep shadow a light has shone… For there is a child born for us, a son given to us and dominion is laid on his shoulders; and this is the name they give him: Wonder-Counselor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace”.

Isaiah’s prophecy simply speaks of hope and of powerful, earthshaking change. Once the child is born, once the son is given, nothing can be the same. How indeed has the Birth at Bethlehem, the Sermon on the Mount, the Last Supper, and Judgment before Pilate, the trudge up to Calvary… how has the Glory of Easter changed me?

I don’t know if my mother could pinpoint the date during my adolescence or preadolescence – I surely couldn’t tell you when – but I can remember very clearly awakening one evening after supper to the realization that my parents loved me very much and I hadn’t really shown them my love or appreciation in return. Having to do something and not knowing what (remember an adolescent), I walked out into the kitchen and washed the dishes. My suspicion is that something similar happens when we give ourselves to God, when we finally recognize how much He loves us and how little we have done in return. But how in my life of faith do I walk out into the kitchen to do the dishes for Jesus when the truth of who he is for the world dawns on me?

St. Paul tells Titus and he tells us: “God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race and taught us that what we have to do is to give up everything that does not lead to God, and all our worldly ambitions; we must be self-restrained and live good and religious lives here in this present world, while we are waiting in hope for the blessing which will come with the Appearing of the glory of our great God and savior Christ Jesus. He sacrificed himself for us in order to set us free from all wickedness and to purify a people so that it could be his very own…”

“…we must be self-restrained and live good and religious lives here in this present world, while we are waiting in hope for the blessing which will come…”

Among the voluntary sacrifices we used to suggest to children as a way of bringing joy to their parents and sharing in the sufferings of Christ was going out to the kitchen and doing the dishes without being asked. At the very end of the popular novel, “The Lord of the Rings”, after all the incredible scenes which were painted, the little heroes of the epic story are faced back home with perhaps the biggest challenge of all three volumes of the book, namely together to stand up and say “no” to evil, reclaiming their homes and their land from a wicked group of bullies. They win that victory too and it is perhaps their greatest. Real conversion in the life of a follower of Christ is something like that – it’s not flashy, it’s a roll up your sleeves and get-to-work kind of thing.

The birth of the savior, Christ the Lord, is heralded to the least, to the shepherds, by an angel who gave them the great sign of a bundled up, baby boy, lying in a manger. We’re not talking about show time or ecstasy. Handel’s Alleluia Chorus is not the interpretive key for Christmas but rather the hymn “Silent Night” is.

Come to Bethlehem! Come with all your heart and soul! I am sure Mary will let you hold the baby. Rejoice! Rejoice in hope! The Wonder-Counselor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince-of-Peace” is here in our midst. Ultimately salvation is accomplished as our hearts open and we let the Child in, not as we slay the dragon, so to speak, but rather as we walk out to the kitchen to do the dishes without being asked.

Maybe this is all too much of a parable. But too many pious folk fool themselves into believing that they are the righteous and that the crown is theirs, as they sit comfortably with the innkeeper while the Child remains outdoors in the stable. Open your hearts to Christmas! Follow the angel’s invitation to go to the stable in Bethlehem! Leave lots of things aside for the sake of recognizing the son of David, born for us and for us given!

Between Christmas and Boxing Day a lot of food is prepared and here in this country many family rituals are replayed and a lot of socializing is done. It’s a favorite time of year for some and a source of almost desperate anxiety for others. Don’t, no matter how your spend these days, don’t mistake the true meaning of Christmas: it’s above all a time to give ourselves to God, a time when we can finally recognize how much He loves us and how little we have done in return. Keep the angels, the shepherds, the starkness of Bethlehem and its stable, keep the helpless baby boy, who is our savior, always before your mind’s eye. Let Christmas be the date and time of your conversion! Live your life in profound gratitude, wonder and awe! Respond to the love of the Christ Child; react like the shepherds or simply do the dishes without being asked!