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Note From The Pastor
A Christmas to Remember
Christmas evokes memories. Except for the youngest among us, we all have memories of Christmas past. Yours may be a childhood memory of feeling surprise and joy as Santa brought you the gift you most wanted. The memory may be of family gatherings and sharing times with loved ones. Maybe your memory is of the choir singing at midnight Mass or the first Christmas you shared with your spouse or as a parent or grandparent. It may be a sad memory of a Christmas following the death of a loved one or being separated from family or friends. Memories of Christmas are powerful. As Charles Dickens once wrote, “Remembrance, like a candle, burns brightest at Christmastime.”
This Christmas may seem like one you want to forget. The pandemic has caused many to change Christmas plans or simply give up some traditions for this year. Family gatherings may be smaller or virtual. Loved ones may be absent. Participation in Christmas Mass may be at home via the livestream. Traditional activities of outreach or service may have been omitted. This Christmas will be remembered for what we have given up or what is being left out. This absence is a type of poverty – a Christmas poverty.
Poverty is the true message of Christmas. Jesus came into this world homeless, without even simple comforts afforded travelers. Yet, the poverty of the Christ child was more than simply material poverty. The more significant poverty of Christmas is that the Son of God, the Word of God, embraced the poverty of our human existence. God became one of us. That was the mission of Christ Jesus. The material hardship helped illustrate His mission of poverty. “For you know the gracious act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that for your sake he became poor although he was rich, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9) These are spiritual riches – riches of God’s love and our hope for salvation.
It has become cliché to say, Jesus is the reason for the season. True enough. Yet, He is more than just the “why” we celebrate Christmas. He is the “how.” His experience of poverty is the lens through which we can view the deeper meaning of Christmas. Any experience of letting go, of giving up, of going without, of emptying ourselves, can lead us to a deeper understanding of what Christmas is all about. When things are stripped away from us we look to the basic, what is essential. Experiences of loss can help us to acknowledge and appreciate what is most important. For example, people are more important than specific traditions. That expressing love is more essential than the particular means of communicating it. That celebrating the gift of Christ in His Word and the Eucharist at Mass this Christmas is more significant that the decorations or the music. Jesus shows us how to embrace losses and have a poverty of spirit.
When we embrace our spiritual poverty, we acknowledge all is a gift. We don’t consider that we are entitled to anything. This is the attitude of Christ (see Philippians 2). When we embrace our poverty, we don’t look to what is lacking. We are not focused our wants or needs that go unmet. We thank God for what we do have, what we are able to do, and how we are able to share with those we love this season. This is poverty of spirit. This is the “how” of Christmas. The way of life Christ came to teach us.
In whatever way you celebrate Christmas this year, embrace your poverty. Whatever you have had to give up, accept it. Accept it in poverty of spirit. Focus on the riches you receive from Christ this Christmas. If you are able to do that, it will be a cherished Christmas to remember.
“There is no joy like that known by the truly poor in spirit.”
~ St. Thérèse of Lisieux
Merry Christmas!
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Dale