In the inn of our own hearts, there is an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

 CHRISTMAS 2021

 “Keep Christ in Christmas.”    This is a theme we support, and we have fashioned many signs saying just that.

 

My question for our prayer today is: “What about Christ are we keeping in Christmas?”

For us, it’s not just Happy Holidays.  It’s Merry Christmas.  This is beautiful but does it say enough?

Keep Christ in Christmas.  Yes, we are celebrating the birth of Christ to Mary and Joseph in the Bethlehem crib.  But even the fact of celebrating his birth, is that enough?  As we celebrate Christmas in 2021, Christmas is not simply about Mary and Joseph and the baby.  It is about God becoming part of our daily struggle, transforming the world through us. Tonight, love has conquered fear; new hope has arrived.  God’s light has over the darkness.   Celebrating Keeping Christ in Christmas in welcoming the birth of Christ in the inn of our hearts in 2021.

 

Keep Christ in Christmas.  We celebrate the joy and the love in our family life around the family Christmas tree and the joy of a family dinner.  It is by God’s design that our children are the beacons of God’s light and love.  When the Lord of history, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, broke the silence of the centuries and spoke in the darkness of that first Christmas night, he spoke through a vulnerable infant in a manger.

Why did God come to us as a baby? 

At the risk of being schizophrenic, the presence of Jesus is revealed fully both in the blessed chaos of our children at the 3:00m and the 5:00 Christmas Eve Masses as well as in the solemnity of the midnight liturgy.   God is present in the youthful enthusiasm of our children and in the more solemn reverence of our other liturgies.

 

 

Keep Christ in Christmas.  It also means keeping in Christmas the humility and simplicity of his birth in the Bethlehem crib.  Do our exterior Christmas decorations obscure how we are to discover the presence of Christ in our lives in 2021?   Are we able to get in touch with the simple, the ordinary, the humble moments of our day and to know in that simplicity we will best discover the Bethlehem crib in our lives?

 

Keep Christ in Christmas.  It also means that we need to keep in Christmas the message that all are welcome at the Bethlehem crib.  What is the housing situation in the inn of your own heart?  Is there room in the inn of your heart for the family member for whom you have difficulty getting along with?  Is there room in the inn of your heart for people who think differently than you -- politically, religiously, or in any way whatsoever?  Is there room in the inn of our hearts for Jesus who lives in the hearts of the poor, the immigrants, and children of all cultures and of all ways of life?    How many people in our world today experience “no room in the inn” because of race, color, religion, gender, or sexuality?  The Son of God was born an as an outcast in order to tell us that every outcast is a child of God.

 

 

Keep Christ in Christmas.  It means also we need to keep in Christmas the compassion and love and joy and the light of Christ that shines through all the dark places of life, transforming the world through us.  We are the people who walk in darkness – the darkness of sin, the darkness of war, the darkness of relationships that are broken, and the darkness of the threat of violence and terrorism.   The message of Christmas is that Jesus comes for people like ourselves in dark places.  The real, lasting, and deep joy of Christmas is that light shines in the darkness.

We recognize on this Holy Night that even after centuries of knowing Jesus Christ, our world still wanders in darkness.  Even after proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ, our hearts are not yet converted completely to Him and our world even less so.  We humans are a broken people and each of us is broken.

 

Tonight is Christmas!  The birth of the Savior.  We can rejoice, even though we are broken because the Savior is born.  We can rejoice even if we do not always respond so well to our Savior because we recognize that the Savior has come to us and will make us free.  All we need do is rejoice in the Savior and trust in Him as much as we can.  God wants us free.  God sends the Savior to give us freedom.  This is a freedom from darkness so that we can live in the light.  This is a freedom from our sinfulness so that we can live in His grace.  This is a freedom that is won for us by Jesus Christ.

 

Keep Christ in Christmas.  It also means that Christmas is to be found in the presence of Jesus among us and in our love for one another.  The story of Bethlehem points to a vision of hope, one that relies not on the exercise of military power but an on appeal to the common instincts of the human heart.  These common instincts of the human heart are very spiritual – a spirit of peace, a spirit of joy, a spirit of family, a spirit of love, the spirit of Christmas

We are missioned to be the keepers of the mystery of Christmas – God is with us. We give birth to Christ when we allow the light that is within us to extend to our family, and our parish family, and to all of creation.  The Christmas mystery happens when we allow ourselves to be loved by God.

 

Keep Christ in Christmas.  It also means the mystery of Christmas happens for us when we connect the story of our lives with the story of Christmas.  Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus.  The Christmas message is the story of God’s unconditional love for us.  As his disciples we are to fill this world with many other stories that mirror and give witness to God’s love for us.  That is the meaning and wonder of the Incarnation.  Keeping Christ in Christmas happens when we love to be loved – to be immersed in the merciful love of Jesus.

 

 

Keep Christ in Christmas.  The real meaning of Christmas is that God is with us.  In the inn of our own hearts, there is an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.  Why did God come to as a tiny infant?

 

Yes, we need to keep Christ in Christmas in all the ways we communicate that all welcome at the Bethlehem crib.  We are to love thy neighbor, no exception.  We are to keep in Christ in all the ways we welcome God to become part of our daily struggle and to transform these struggles by allowing the love of God into our lives.  We are to connect our story with the story of Christmas.  We are to keep Christ in Christmas through our faith-filled awareness that God is within us.  In the inn of our hearts, there is infant wrapped in swaddling and lying in a manger.

Have a blessed Christmas day.

What is your Visitation experience going to be this week?

Fourth Sunday of Advent  C  2021

During Advent we have been celebrating our emptiness.

This probably sounds a bit odd.  But think about it:  if we were completely filled up with the preoccupations of our life and if the inn or our heart was already filled with stuff, there would be no room left in the inn of our hearts for the birth of Jesus.

In the Advent season, we seek to be aware of a spaciousness emptiness in our heart that only God can fill. 

This time of the year, we can regret the increased hours of darkness in our day.  Our daylight hours are becoming less and less.  But maybe, just maybe, we can find some wisdom and grace in the darkness. We might hunker down more in the darkness, reflecting a bit more, and waiting for the light to return.  As symbolized by our Advent wreath, we thirst for the light of Christ.

In the first Scripture reading from the prophet Micah, God says as much about the insignificance, the darkness of the town of Bethlehem.  “You Bethlehem too small to be among the clans of Judah.”  You are empty of big ideas, power, royalty, and influence.  How could the Savior possibly come from the emptiness of this bit of a town?

Micah suggests that we look to the peripheries, to the margins of society to find God’s work in the world.  Micah is considered a minor prophet – not sure what that means but he is not as prominent as Isaiah or Jeremiah, the lead prophets of the OT.  Nonetheless, Micah, a man from the insignificant countryside, proclaimed that the Savior of the world, the Lord of the universe was to be born in the obscure town of Bethlehem.

It is the same way for us.  Our darkness and our emptiness are where Jesus is to be born this Christmas.  Such darkness includes whatever in us that is gloomy, angry, jealous, or just discouraged.  The friends who leave us behind and while we feel so alone:  that is where the child will be born.

 

 

 

 

We will discover God best in our lives when we focus on the simple, the ordinary moments of the day.  God will come again in the periphery of your life.  In the darkness and the emptiness of our lives may be where the Savior will be discovered in your life this Christmas day.

In the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel, we have the very significant moment in salvation history as the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary proclaiming that she was chosen to be the mother of the Savior of the world.  We have Mary’s beautiful response: “I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done unto me according to thy Word.”  There is no over-stating this moment in salvation history in preparing for the birth of Jesus.

Are you curious what Mary did after becoming first aware that she was to be the Mother of the Savior of the world?  The Gospel then tells us what happened next for Mary.  Our Gospel reading recalls Mary's actions after the announcement of Jesus' birth by the angel Gabriel.  

Mary hastens to her cousin’s house, a long trip, over dirt and sand and rocks, under the hot, hot sun.  She does not need to be coddled and queenly in order to bring forth our Savior.  She does not spend a second worrying that the way is too hard.  Her soul somehow knows about the light of Christ that will shine from within her.  Everything else is in second place.

Maybe emptiness can speak humbly from within you and me too.  Our emptiness points to the hunger that is within us for the birth of the Savior.

Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, her cousin, who is also with child. This is such a gentle scene and reflects the very best of humanity. One cousin going to help an older cousin as she prepares to give birth. Mary goes to visit her cousin to share her love and hospitality and friendship with each other.  Simply put, they speak the language of love to each other.

 

 

 

 

Mary is witnessing to us the way to prepare the inn of our hearts for the birth of Jesus.  It is when we serve and share friendship with others that we encounter Jesus Christ.  It is when we give ourselves in love that we find that we are loved.  It is in the simple and ordinary that we discover the presence of Christ.

May our interior Christmas decorations mean that we have time to share our love and friendship with one other.  May you prepare for the coming of Christ into the inn of your heart by your own Visitation experience – that is by your sharing of the gift of your friendship and love with another as Mary did in visiting her cousin Elizabeth.

In following the example of Mary, my prayerful question for you is what is your Visitation experience going to be like this week?  Who are you going to take the time to visit and share friendship with?

With Mary as our Advent guide, sharing the gift of friendship and love is the best way to prepare for the Christmas feast of love that God has shared with us.  May our Christmas preparation be marked by not what get but the ways we give.  And the very best gift we can give in our friendship and love.

If we are thinking that we just haven’t got the time to share friendship with another this week, know that the mother of Jesus is tugging at us in this Gospel passage reminding us that nothing is more important than the ways we serve and love and share with one another

In Luke's Gospel the Holy Spirit helps reveal Jesus' identity as God to those who believe. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and sings Mary's praise because she bears the Lord. We sing these words of praise to Mary in the Hail Mary:  Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Even John the Baptist, the unborn child in Elizabeth's womb, is said to recognize the presence of the Lord and leaps for joy.

 

 

 

 

Mary gives forth with the beautiful prayer of praise: “My Soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my Spirit rejoices in god my Savior.”

It is in the context of visitation and sharing our friendship that we best recognize the presence of the Savior in our midst.

May our Scripture reflection today invite us to develop a spacious emptiness in our hearts so there will be room for the birth of the Savior within us.   May we ask ourselves where is the Bethlehem crib in our lives -- that most unexpected place in our hearts where God chooses to dwell among us.  Finally may we like Mary have a Visitation experience this week in which we share our love and friendship with the Elizabeth of our life.

 

And may you be a blessing to others.

Every experience in life, if we can only realize it, is touched by God and has its meaning.

 

  

Third Sunday of Advent  C  2021

 

“Rejoice in the Lord always…The Lord is near.  Have no anxiety at all, but in everything by prayer and petitions, with thanksgiving make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

 

These words were written by the apostle Paul in his Letter to the Philippians.  Where was Paul when these words of joy and hopefulness were written – in a prison cell!  Now mind you Paul is writing from his prison cell.  Paul was not rejoicing in the things of this world; rather Paul was rejoicing because God was with him in his prison cell as he wrote to the Philippian church.

 

These words of joy -- rejoice in the Lord always – may seem to ignore those in our congregation who are suffering greatly at this time because of a death, a diagnosis, a natural disaster or any one of the heinous crimes that are reported every day in the media.

 

And yet, Paul knew suffering.  As I say, he wrote these words from his prison cell.  His only crime was preaching the Good News of the love of Jesus for all people.

 

What the apostle Paul knew in his heart is that real joy comes from knowing that you are unconditionally loved by God.  God is in our midst -- even in a prison cell.   Joy comes from knowing that God is truly present and never abandons us through the trials and or triumphs of life.  God is always there.

The apostle Paul knew that joy was the basic mood of a Christian.  This is the theme of Gaudete Sunday.  There is a saying:  “A sad saint is a sad kind of saint.”  A sad Christian is a contradiction in terms.  That is not to say that there is not sadness in any Christian life – as in any normal person’s life – times of pain, of sickness, of failure, of great loss.  Grieving and letting go is an important part of

 

 

 

 

 

 

 life but these experiences do not ultimately define us as the disciples of Jesus.  Even in the midst of tears, the works of Jesus to us are:  “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  Have faith in God and have faith also in me.”

Every experience in life, if we can only realize it, is touched by God and has its meaning.  To repeat, every experience in life, if we can only realizer it, is touched by God and has its meaning.  Once that meaning is found and accepted, inner joy and peace can return.  The great truth of our life is we have everything we need here and now to be happy.  Amen.  The problem is that we identify our happiness with people or things we don’t have and often can’t have.  

In the first Scripture from the prophet Zephaniah, we are told that sin occurs when we search for happiness apart from God, when are too caught in the busyness, the commercialism, the fleeting pleasures of life.  The prophet reminds us that the Lord, your God, is in our midst.  The Lord wishes to rejoice with you and renew you in his love.

We confess the times we have searched for happiness apart from God.  Sometimes we search for happiness in our wealth, in our successes, in our desire to control people and manage what happens in life, in our pride, in our sexuality and so on and so on.

My question for you is how have you experienced happiness in this Advent season, in this holiday season with all its festivities? 

Without doubt there is joy with Christmas celebrations with friends and family and in the sending and receiving of Christmas cards.

Our exterior Christmas decorations are up, and they are beautiful.  What about our interior Christmas decorations?  May we allow the peace of Christ to enter once again into our lives, calming all of our anxieties, and filling us with all that is good.

 

 

 

For me, a high point has been an inspiring prayer service of Lessons and Carols led by our children.  I find great joy when our children teach us once again the Christmas message that we have taught them over the years.  I never tire hearing again from our youth the Christmas story revealed in Lessons and Carols.

Will you experience Advent joy in participating in our Advent Day of Penance on Monday in the afternoon at Holy Spirit or in the evening at St Joseph’s.  May we experience real joy as we are immersed in the merciful, forgiving love of Jesus? The Sacrament of Reconciliation offers us the opportunity to encounter the Lord and to experience the joy that comes with God’s unconditional love.

In today’s Gospel, John the Baptist takes center stage. 

As we listen to the Gospel, the image shifts.  We are standing at the River Jordan, face to face with John the Baptist with all his intensity.  John doesn’t rejoice; John says to repent. 

John’s words strike the crowd with evident power, for they seek instruction:  “What then should we do?”  John does not make radical demands.  Instead, he calls people to fidelity in the very circumstances of their lives.  Those who have more than they need, share with those who have less;  parents, cherish your children; spouses, be faithful; neighbors, live in peace.  Repentance for John calls to be faithful to who we are. 

Don’t wait to be somewhere else, or to be doing something else, or to be someone else -- begin with the road in front of you, walk that road, and so allow God to transform the real life you live right now.

John preached the baptism of repentance.  What does repentance mean in practice?  John’s advice is simple and practical – live charitably and honestly.  Share what you have with the needy; be fair and honest with others in your business dealings; don’t be greedy.   John goes on to say:  “One mightier than he is about to come who will fire us up with the power of the Spirit.”

 

 

 

John’s mission was to help people recognize the presence of Christ who is in our midst. 

We indeed will experience the presence of Christ when we embrace the joy that comes from within – knowing we hold within ourselves the God who wishes to be born again in the inn of our hearts and when respond to John’s call to repentance -- by sharing what we have with those in need.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

My God gift you the gift of listening to the ways that God is birthing within you.

 

 

Second Sunday of Advent  C  2021   The living Word of God is always being spoken in the midst of the circumstances of our own lives and in the reality of the Church and the world we live in.  Our spiritual lives do not take us out of the world; rather we are called to transform the world we live in into the reign of God.   Recall the words of Scripture:  “That God so loved the world that he send his only begotten to save the world.”   Please note how today’s  Gospel begins:   “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip the tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the Word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.”   It is important to note that the evangelist is placing the ministry of Jesus in the wider historical context.  The point is the sacred ministry of Jesus emerged right in the midst of secular history.  Secular history does not get in the way of the Word of God.    Rather, for us to hear the Word of God proclaimed in this moment of history means we need to know the circumstances of our own history.  God’s Word is being spoken in the midst of the circumstances of our own lives and in the reality of the church and the world we live in.   We cannot absent ourselves from the challenges of life.  Rather, we need to recognize how Jesus is being birthed in the secular history of our lives.  This is such an important point.  I don’t like and you don’t how the world has been turned upside down dealing with this pandemic that seems to affect us all.  The message of the institutional Church doesn’t speak to the lives of some younger families.  For some of your children and grandchildren, the Church doesn’t seem to be a big part of their lives.    In 2021, this is the Church that Jesus chooses to be born into.   We are called not to leave the Church.  Rather, we are called to transform the Church and our world into the reign of God.  That’s why Jesus came – to teach us how to transform our church and our world into the reign of God, which means where God’s love controls everything, guides everything, and we all live together in peace under that reign of the love of God.   It is in the messiness and the questions and the fears of our lives that God chooses to be born.  This is the story of the first Christmas and it is the story of Christmas in 2021.   The evangelist Luke in today’s Gospel tells us that the Word of God was spoken to John the Son of Zachariah in the desert.  Say that again!  Where was the Word of God spoken and to whom?    Note that the Word of God was not pronounced by the religious and political leaders of the day.  It bypassed them all.  The Word of God did not come from the Palace of the Temple.  The Word of God came from an outsider in the desert.  The Word of God came to John in the desert.    This certainly leaves us to pause and ask where we hear and recognize the Word of God spoken to us.  We make a grave mistake if we don’t listen and seek to hear the Word of God spoken to us from the outsiders of our lives.   Who are the outsiders of our lives?  Who are the people who don’t look like us, who do not share the same religious beliefs, who do not have the financial resources we have and so forth?  Just maybe, these are the people who proclaim God’s Word to us.   Who is your John the Baptist?  Who is the person in your life that is pointing you in the direction of Jesus?  Who reveals the face of God to you?   So now in December, while everything  jingles with excitement about the Christmas holidays, the Church invites us into an Advent desert with John.  The desert is the antithesis of the suburban malls.  No matter how much money you have, there is nothing to buy in the desert.  Far from the city lights whose twinkling lights grab our attention, the desert allows us to fix our gaze on the stars, the beauty that is beyond our reach and yet has been created for our delight. The Advent desert is where our soul can expand, where we can remember what we really thirst for.  How do we fashion a desert for ourselves in this Advent season of busyness and parties and celebrations?

 

I like to think of Advent as a time of listening to what God is birthing in me.  I need to quiet down and listen.  During this gift of time that is the four weeks of the Advent season, may we find moments of quiet each day to listen to how God is speaking to us.

 

 

The prophet Isaiah describes John as one crying out in the desert:  “Prepare the way of the Lord.”  Every valley shall be filled and the winding roads shall be made straight.  Instead of seeing this mission as part of highway reconstruction, John the Baptist calls us to repentance and metanoia.  For John real change comes from within.  The prophet Isaiah refers to the geography of the heart.  This is where change needs to occur.  We are to clear the path to welcome Christ who is born into our hearts as truly as Jesus was born in Bethlehem. 

 

But this inner change is not just about our personal salvation.  The inner change is always in the context of community, of church, of the ways we love and serve people.  As St Paul writes in the second Scripture reading in his letter to the Philippians:  “I pray always with joy in my every prayer for all of you, because of your partnership for the gospel from the first day until now.”

 

Jesus seeks to be born again within our own hearts in 2021.  Jesus’ humble birth within us may be likened to his humble birth in the Bethlehem manger.  May we be Spirit-filled in embracing the Savior within us and may be missioned to sharing the love of Jesus in ways that will transform our Church and our world. 

 

 

 

May God give you the gift of listening to the ways that God is birthing within you.