Sunday, December 21, 2014

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Illustration copyright 2014 by Leighton Drake
Some years ago on an early Fall Saturday, my wife dubiously entrusted me with the task of taking my five year old daughter to a birthday party. Our first job was to go by the store to pick up a gift on the way. Typically, I was running late. I frantically searched the shelves of the toy department, trying in vain to find a suitable gift for a five year old girl I barely knew while staying within our usual ten dollar birthday gift budget.

I asked my distracted daughter to give me a hand ("Some help here would be appreciated, Honey!"), so she began perusing the shelves down the aisle a bit. From the corner of my eye, I caught her doing something interesting: she would look at a toy, make the sign of the cross, mumble something with great earnestness, and then make the sign of the cross again. She performed this little ritual with several different toys.

I finally asked her, "What are you doing?"

She replied with wonderful solemnity, "I am praying for my Christmas gifts."

We are all seeking something.
"All you who are thirsty, come to the water! You who have no money, come, buy grain and eat; come, buy grain without money, wine and milk without cost! Why spend your money for what is not bread; your wages for what does not satisfy? Only listen to me, and you shall eat well, you shall delight in rich fare" (Is 55:1-2, NABRE).
Advent is a time in which we prepare for the greatest of gifts. Christmas is the time we celebrate that gift. Sometimes we get distracted by the little gifts and neglect to think about the Great Gift.

Pope Francis begins his apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium, the Joy of the Gospel, with this  invitation to life:
The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 1).
What promise! What delight! What hope we experience when we consciously remember the gift of Jesus Christ!

In the midst of all the frantic scrambling for that “perfect gift” for spouse, parent, child, or friend, let’s not forget the greatest gift of all, the gift of God’s very self, given for us, so that we may experience eternal life. 

The first time I appreciated and embraced the true gift of Christmas I was a young man, a former, devout unbeliever who, by a remarkable chain of events, found himself journeying through the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults), happily preparing to receive the threefold sacraments of Christian Inititation: Baptism, Confirmation, and Eucharist.

I had grown up in a home in which my mother, and my mother alone, professed faith in Christ, and Christianity had little impact on forming or informing our family values and our choices. My father strenuously dismissed Christianity as a form of pious sentimentality; religion was for the weak. We didn't attend church or pray as a family. Christianity, if it was to be tolerated, vaguely meant that "God loves you," and "you should practice the Golden Rule," though I doubt any of us but my mother could articulate what that meant. I idolized my father, and took his beliefs as my own from an early age.

Perhaps my mother was the single, lovely and glittering ornament on an otherwise barren tree. Still, no doubt due to her influence, I do remember Christmas as a wholesome time in which we celebrated the gift of family and gift-giving. The only religious symbol I recall is our family nativity set, hand-painted by my mother, a delightful play-set for little hands. It had little spiritual meaning for me, but I treasured it. I suppose I vaguely perceived its meaning, that God loved us and sent his Son for us (whatever that meant). The TV version of The Little Drummer Boy probably represented (and formed) the depth of my understanding of the Incarnation.

Regrettably, during my adolescence, Jesus was the occasional subject of bad humor at the dinner table, though actually more often than not He was simply ignored, arrogantly dismissed as a pious legend. I cringe at how we treated Him, and how we teased my mother for her faith when she dared speak His name. We thought we were being playfully clever rather than blasphemously cruel. 

During the Advent and Christmas I journeyed through the RCIA I finally understood that Christmas is the time we celebrate the most astounding truth there is or could ever be: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life" (Jn 3:16, NABRE). Having been ransomed from the dark slavery of agnosticism, I was in awe that God could love us so!

Communion with the God who loves us more than we can comprehend is the greatest of gifts, because communion with God is God’s gift of His very self to us. There is no greater gift than God. In receiving Him, we experience the real life that Jesus promised (cf. Jn 10:10). We share in the life of the Blessed Trinity: "...[T]his is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ" (Jn 17:3, NABRE).

This Christmas, may we rediscover the truth, goodness, and beauty of God’s gift of Himself in the Person of Jesus Christ, who died for us so that we might live. This Christmas, especially with so many bleak and tragic stories trending in the news, it would be good to reflect on the sublime words of Saint John:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. 
What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth” (John 1: 1-5, 14, NABRE).
May we enjoy the freely given gift of God’s love! Recall the words of Jesus Christ as He began His public ministry: "This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel" (Mark 1:15, NABRE)! 

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