Dear Friends,
I was sitting at a restaurant recently with a friend and she noticed the book I had with me. She commented on the title of the book, “How To Be Unlucky,” and asked if that was really the name of the book, and wondered why I would be reading it. I explained that the book is about the challenge of teaching the virtues to high school students. One of the main points of the book is that it is difficult to learn deeper wisdom if we have a lucky life without hardship and suffering. When people look back on their life, most will acknowledge that they grew in wisdom and strength through the tough times of life; they did not grow much during the easy and blessed times. The author argues that we need to challenge our high school students to grow by making life a bit harder for them, not easier. By giving them challenging work to do they will grow into better adults ready to face the real difficulties of life.
When St. Paul was nearing the end of his earthly pilgrimage and sat in a Roman prison awaiting word on his fate, he wrote one last letter to a young man, Timothy, whom he had mentored and given authority over the church in Ephesus. St. Paul was about to die and knew it. So he wrote to Timothy. It is one of the most intimate letters in the Bible. Listen to what Paul says to Timothy: “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began…On this account I am suffering these things; but I am not ashamed, for I know him in whom I have believed and am confident that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.”
Here is St. Paul, in prison, suffering, even dying day by day, having been betrayed and forsaken even by friends, having watched others lose their lives and having known many Christians who died. Yet, he tells Timothy to live without fear and to choose to suffer as Paul himself does. Paul is able to take on the sufferings he experiences in this life because they have meaning, they happen for a reason. To Paul, everything is in Christ Jesus. Nothing outside of Christ is worth having. All things are in him and all things have been given to those in him. Especially life and immortality. Christ is, after all, the resurrection and the life. Paul believes Jesus is going to change the way you think about life and immortality – and death. Because what Paul is saying implies that people were thinking about them all wrong until Christ came.
You may be wondering…what does this have to do with Christmas. Yes, this is a Christmas post or late Advent post…without sentimentality.
When Jesus lay in the womb of His blessed mother, she became the burning bush that was not consumed. God inhabited her womb. That was how life came to us. She gave birth to Jesus in a cave and laid him in a manger. It was unpleasant, cold at night, shameful. The Christmas crèche we display was not a place of beauty, but a place for farm animals. Mary suffered in the midst of her joy. Simeon told her that a sword would pierce through her soul. She had no spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, of love, and self-control. She and Joseph had to flee from soldiers shortly after his birth and became refugees living in a foreign land. She had to form her family in this foreign land where language and customs were different. The Holy Family looks more like the families huddled at the US-Mexican border than the peaceful scenes on Christmas cards.
The reality is that God came in the midst of a human mess, in the midst of human pain and suffering and precisely there offers us a new vision, a new truth, a new life. His grace flowing through the experiences of Mary and Joseph changed our world.
Christmas has become a popular holiday even for non-Christians because at Christmas we think we can avoid the messiness and suffering of Easter. Christmas is sentimentalized because a newborn baby and a very clean mother are easy to keep in your heart. Sweet sentimentality tends to dominate at Christmas. Christmas is what it is because American Christians desire religion without pain and suffering. But that is not the real Christmas story. Listen well these next few days. Hear the story of love become even more powerful in the midst of challenge and suffering. See God claim a place in the midst of the human mess. God chose to be powerless, small, and open to pain so that we, in turn, would open our hearts and let him in.
Peace,
Fr. Damian