Christmas 2022: Homily offered by Rick Malloy, S.J.

 

Christmas Homily 2022

Rick Malloy, S.J.

“The Logos was God, and the Logos was in communication with God.” -  Benedict XVI

Little kids’ Christmas play.  Cool 7-year-old Billy trumpets: “I bring Gold.”  Bobby, six, yells: “I bring myrrh.”  Barney, five, and always a little discombobulated, says “Frank sent this.”

What is brought to us as Jesus is born again in our lives and in our World?  What will we send as a result of the Incarnation?  To whom shall we send it?

First, Let me say something about the WORD, the LOGOS.  Second, Something about a Christmas Song.  And Third, something about The Letter, the documentary that aired on PBS the other night. It’s about the encyclical letter, Laudato Si, on the climate crisis.  Pope Francis sent Laudato Si in 2015.  He addressed it to the whole world.  We all must find ways to respond to this crisis. Finally, there will be a final suggestion….

1.  LOGOS.  This Christmas, we need truth and hope more than ever.  THE WORD, THE LOGOS, is truth.  THE WORD is not just in touch with reality, or just corresponding to reality. THE WORD creates and sustains reality, permeates, and penetrates all the pulsating beauty and bodacious being of existence.  The Logos might better be translated “the reason for existence.”  The “Purpose of our lives.”  The “Why we are here” is born in the baby in the manger.  We are born to praise reverence and serve God and be happy with God and all our loved ones forever.  This life is a prelude to life eternal. 

THE WORD has become human, and we see the glory, the glory of the Lord and the glory of “the human person fully alive.”  THE WORD takes on our human being and transforms us, giving us grace upon grace upon grace (John 1:16).  In Greek, grace is charis, from which we get the word charism, meaning a divine gift, a transcendent power.  Thomas Aquinas says grace is the ability to do what we could not do before.

And in this grace, the gift of God, we find hope.  We find purpose.  We find love.  And we and our worlds are transformed.  With this grace we are gifted with Peace.  We need to accept and actualize the gift of grace, this ability to make Peace in our world, in our communities and families and in our hearts.

2: Christmas Songs:  Now the Today show reported the other day that the most played Christmas songs are:  #5 It’s the Wonderful time of year  #4 Jingle bell Rock #3 Rudolph  #2 Rock christmas tree  #1 All I want is You.  But the song we really need to hear is “Do You Hear What I Hear.”

“Do you hear What I hear” was written in 1962 by a husband-and-wife song writing team.  They wrote it in response to the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.  As we watch the horrors and atrocities happening right now in the Ukraine, we have to ask the first question of the song.  Do you see what I see?  Do we see what’s happening on our Southern Border as Central American countries descend into chaos. 

Do we hear what the lamb says to the shepherd boy, that there is a song high above the trees with a voice as big as the sea?  That song sends the shepherd boy to the mighty king.  The boy tells the King of a child who shivers in the cold.  He calls for the king to bring silver an gold, the wealth of the kingdom to the aid of the poor.  And the King hears and calls the people to pray for peace everywhere.  Let the child bring us goodness and light.

So much to hear in this song.  Peace.  Care for the poor.  Listen and pay attention to the deeper meanings of the Christmas story, the gift and grace of the LOGOS among us.  The call to care for everyone, and the images of nature in the song.  Night wind.  The voice as big as the sea. 

3.  THE LETTER:  We need to pray for peace.  We need to call those who control our political economy to care for the poor and desperate among us.  Even more as we listen this Christmas, we need to hear the cry of the earth. That cry is expressed in a documentary which aired on PBS.

The Letter is a beautiful meditation on people from all over the earth who Pope Francis invited to the Vatican for a conversation about how climate change is impacting their lives.  A woman from Ireland, a indigenous chief from the Amazon, a kid from India, a man from Senegal who breaks down weeping when telling about flood and rising tides destroying the village where he and his family and friends live.  The Letter brings home the impact of climate change on peoples lives. 

What can we do?  This year I suggest we all investigate the problems and challenges of climate change.  Maybe think about changing our diet and living a more planet friendly way of eating.  Maybe find small ways to lessen our global footprint.  Buy stuff from eco friendly corporations. 

Dan Berrigan, S.J., the anti-war activist during the Vietnam war and throughout his life once said: “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.  And the moral difference between doing something and doing nothing is monumental indeed.”

Finally, one other suggestion.  Let’s Forgive.  This year, as Jesus comes to reconcile us to one another, let’s forgive one another.  Greg Boyle is a well know Jesuit who runs Homeboys Industries in LA helping gang members escape the gang life, and helping the incarcerated get reintegrated into society after serving prison sentences.  His new book is Forgive Everybody. 

Maybe get to the sacrament of reconciliation, confession.  It’s good for the soul, and the world.

Jesus told us to “do this in memory of me” and we celebrate Eucharist daily.  Jesus also taught us to pray and the only command in the prayer is to “forgive those who trespass against us.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s daughter, Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt (I think her husband is a movie star) has a wonderful book, The Gift of Forgiveness: Inspiring stories from those who have overcome the unforgivable.  She tells of people like Sara Klebold, the mother of one of the Columbine Killers.  Imacullée Ilibagiza here tells of how she overcame he hatred for those who killed her family and millions of others with machetes in the Rwandan genocide of April 1994.  Hate filled rhetoric built into a holocaust with horrific consequences.  We need to tone down the truly alarming increase of hate speech in our society.  We need to listen to Christ’s call, “that we all be one.”

The Eucharist, the Mass, is the miracle and mystery of our faith.  When we take bread and wine and pray, the awesome reality of the power of God in our lives, the power to save us is present.  The power to rescue us from all sin and suffering.  The power to open ourselves and our world to transformation in Christ. 

“Frank” didn’t send this.  God sent this.  God becomes one of us, baby bald and vulnerable in the manger where animals munch their meals.  This Lord and savior remains among us as Eucharist, love incarnate, Emmanuel, God with us.  Let us realize and relish once again this amazing and loving God.  God is love.  Let’s forgive and love one another.  Let us pray.

Do You Hear What I Hear?
Said the night wind to the little lamb,
do you see what I see
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
do you see what I see
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
do you hear what I hear
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
do you hear what I hear
A song, a song, high above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,
do you know what I know
In your palace warm, mighty king,
do you know what I know
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold
Let us bring Him silver and gold
Let us bring Him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere,
listen to what I say
Pray for peace, people everywhere!
listen to what I say
The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light

The Present of Presence: All is Gift

 The Present of Presence: All Is Gift

(Here's an article I wrote for Christmas time years ago... Enjoy) 

BustedHalo.com  an online magazine for spiritual seekers in their 20s and 30s

 

All is Gift: Some thoughts on Christmas presence

by Richard G. Malloy, S.J.

 

HAVERTOWN, PA

December 1958

When I was little, I was small. At the age of four, my brother Timmy is a year older and can reach things I can’t.  One morning, he climbs up on a chair he’s put in the closet we’re not supposed to open, and sees toys on the shelf, new toys, still in their packages.  Fun!  He yanks down a set of blocks and a bunch of other stuff.  Soon I’m busy playing with a new set of beautiful, blond, wooden blocks, putting them one on top of another, and then immediately knocking them down.  Fun!  All of a sudden, our Mom, seeing that we’ve discovered the Christmas stash early, pulls us into the kitchen.  “Time for breakfast, boys.  I’m making chocolate chip pancakes and Maypo.”  I love chocolate chip pancakes and Maypo.  Forget the blocks.

A few days later, it’s Christmas morning.  I rip the bright, colored paper off a new set of beautiful, blond, wooden blocks.  Fun!  I start stacking them and knocking them down.  Fun!  My mother looks to see if I recognize the blocks.  I’m clueless.  The blocks also come in pretty handy as objects to throw at my brother.  Fun!  Mom stops that action.  Not fun!  Pretty soon, I’m sleepy.  Time for a nap.  As I drift off, I hear my brother asking, “Hey, aren’t these the toys we were playing with before?”  “I don’t think so, Timmy,” answers Mom.  “Santa brought these in his sleigh last night.”  “Wow,” my brother replies. 

 

 

PHILADELPHIA, PA

December 2005

When we are young, all is accepted as gift.  We rarely question why and how all the good things of life appear.  We believe whatever we are told.  Santa comes down the chimney.  Reindeer fly.  At the North Pole, elves make the toys.  The magic of Christmas is carried in the glow of the Christmas tree lights and the strong scent of pine in the living room.  Brightly wrapped packages appear during the night.  It’s all so miraculous when seen through the eyes of a little child.

Sing Christmas Carols and drink hot chocolate with marshmallows... Sled...Sit late in the quiet glow of the tree's lights and let God be with you... Most of all, pray.

 

As we mature, we come to realize that God gives even greater gifts at Christmas.  We discern and celebrate the reality and meaning of Christ’s birth.  His present to us is presence.  In a stable is born a baby, the savior of the world.  God lies in a manger, is warmed by the breath of oxen and ass, and makes his home among us.  This Christmas, once again, the miracle occurs.  We are reminded that the life of grace--the reality that God is present in the depths of our hearts and all that we love--is the center of our lives.  God becomes one of us, and we are God’s family.  God makes his home among us.

 

Christ’s birth reveals God’s love for us and promises that we will “come to share in the divine nature” (II Peter 1:4).  In the third century, St. Athanasius proclaimed, “The Son of God became man, so that we might become God.”  We become human-unto-God, as was Jesus, and participate in the mystery of creation’s transformation, “so that God may be all in all” (I Cor 15:28).

 

 

To Do…

This Christmas, be present to the reality and meanings of God’s gifts to us.  Eat hearty.  Party wisely and well.  Don't work too hard.  Read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol and Oscar Hijuelos' Mr. Ives' Christmas, a short, remarkable novel of faith and reconciliation.  Watch It’s a Wonderful Life and “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Laugh and cry watching While You Were Sleeping, the story of an achingly lonely young woman without family, who falls in love with a goofy Irish clan in the week between Christmas and New Years.  Listen to "Christmas in the Trenches" by John McCutcheon, an amazing ballad that poetically retells the historically true event when, for a few fleeting hours, peace broke out in the frozen trenches of France, Christmas Eve 1914.  The singing of Christmas carols on both sides of the lines gave the men the inspiration and courage to lay down their guns.

Click Here  Christmas in the Trenches 

 

Take a child to see Santa.  Give generously to the poor.  Sing Christmas Carols and drink hot chocolate with marshmallows.  Sled.  Sit late in the quiet glow of the tree’s lights and let God be with you.

 

Most of all, pray.  Walk outside at 2:00 AM on a freezing cold, stunningly starlit night, and experience the awesomeness of the universe.  Go to Midnight Mass.  Read the first chapters of Matthew and Luke.  Engage the beautiful rhythms of the Liturgy of the Hours.  Sit in still silence, breath and realize life is a miracle and mystery. 

 

Know that Christmas is the time of year when we remember and ponder the birth of our God who loves us so much that he becomes one of us.  Vulnerable and wrapped in swaddling clothes, appears the one who saves the world.  Realize that Jesus is real and wants to be reborn again in our hearts.  The Lord has a mission for us.  Worship him these days and listen to that inner voice of your imagination where God communicates.  The presence of God confirms for us that St. Ignatius was right: All is gift.  Jesus again gifts us with his presence this Christmas.  O come, let us adore.

 

Rev. Richard G. Malloy, S.J., Ph.D., was an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA. From 2010-2019 he served as Vice President for Mission and University Chaplain at the University of Scranton.  Since 2019 he has served as Director of Mission Integration at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Baltimore, MD.

 

©2005 Bustedhalo.com.  All rights reserved.

What Would the Holy Family Look Like Today? by Sebastian Salamanca Huet, S.J.

What would the Holy Family look like today?

Advent IV

https://thejesuitpost.org/2022/12/what-would-the-holy-family-look-like-today/ 

by Sebastian Salamanca Huet, SJ | Dec 16, 2022 | Advent

The following reflection is part of our “Jesuit 101” series. This piece helps us to dive deeper into the Contemplation on the Incarnation from the Spiritual Exercises. To learn more about this contemplation, check out our explainer article: “Jesuit 101: The Contemplation on the Incarnation: Why and How Jesus Shows Up”

St. Ignatius proposes the Contemplation of the Incarnation as a prayer during the Spiritual Exercises. The person making the retreat imagines the love that the Holy Trinity has for the world in choosing to intervene on behalf of humans. I first encountered this prayer as a pre-novice, a stage of Jesuit formation before entering the novitiate. The group of pre-novices, men interested in discerning to enter the Society, gathered for a month of prayer before being sent off to work in parishes, universities, schools, and other apostolates. I was sent to the Sierra Tarahumara, a remote mountain range in Northern Mexico, to the parish of St. Michael of Guaguachique. I was unsure about being missioned to this location because it was often the scene of intense narco violence. But my desire to know and to serve God, in another culture, overcame my fear of the unknown. 

Upon my arrival, my superior heard I was an artist and asked me to paint a postcard. The parish would send the image as a gift to thank benefactors and others who supported the mission. At first, I wasn’t sure what to paint, but God helped me. At that time, the teachers of the Rarámuri cultural centers, local indigenous schools, organized several traditional races, such as bola race and ariweta race, with the public school of the neighboring town. 

Because I wanted to immerse myself in the Rarámuri culture, I did my best to dress myself like them, and pray like them. Inculturating myself, I decided to walk the over five-hour hike to watch the races wearing Rarámuri sandals, made from tire scraps. I was reminded throughout the walk, that I was not Rarámuri, as two large blisters developed, one on each foot. Arriving at dusk, I wanted nothing more than to sleep. Ramón, the father of a Rarámuri teacher, had prepared a small space for me to sleep at his home. But the blisters got worse, and after a bad night’s sleep, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to return on foot. Ramon invited me to stay with his family, so I could go back to Samachique with the school director the next day by car.

In my infirmity, I continued to struggle with what I might paint for the Christmas card. I remember waking early, hoping for something to eat. There was Ramon, his wife, and his youngest son greeted me. Ramon’s wife was preparing a soup over a small firepit, and warming some tortillas. I sat on the floor, waiting to eat breakfast, and it struck me, that this was how Jesus must have lived. Jesus was born in a place like this: a very simple home between the mountains, with some improvised adobe walls and small rooms, a nice firepit in the middle of the patio as a kitchen, in the silence of a small town near the outskirts of the hills. Like the Holy Family, Ramon, his wife, and his small kid, had a surprising contagious happiness. This is where the Trinity decided to enter the world on a redemptive mission. As I ate my simple breakfast, I began to cry in silence at the scene I was contemplating. 

This moment inspired me to paint a Rarámuri nativity scene. It took me some time to create what I saw in the neighboring village. I painted Mary, holding Jesus in her arms, while Joseph was standing next to them, his eyes watching little baby Jesus. They were Rarámuri, in a cave, their traditional home. Considering how Christ entered the world, in this Rarámuri family, I was able to see how God desired to live among us, to show us God’s redemptive love, especially in the places it is most needed. By imagining where God chose to incarnate, we all can see where we are invited to make our home, with those discarded by society, to help make the Kingdom of God a reality. 

This article is dedicated to the memory of my Jesuit brothers Javier Campos, SJ and Joaquín Mora, SJ, whose lives were lost to the outrageous violence that affects Mexico. Their lives are a source of inspiration for those who have lived with the Rarámuri people.

"It's a Wonderful Life" and Frank Capra's Catholicism

https://www.ncregister.com/features/frank-capra-earned-his-wings-with-it-s-a-wonderful-life 

National Catholic Register provides us with Jay Copp's wonderful article on "It's a Wonderful Life"

******************************

Frank Capra ‘Earned His Wings’ With ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’

Director’s name might not ring a bell with younger viewers, but his timeless movies are full of themes and plots close to his Catholic heart.

Top row: L to R: Donna Reed, Jimmy Stewart and Karolyn Grimes star in the beloved classic. Bottom row: Henry Travers portrays Clarence Odbody alongside Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey. (photo: RKO Pictures)

Jay CoppMoviesDecember 11, 2022

This December, millions of Americans once again will gather in front of their TVs to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. The poignant dramatization of an earnest, kindhearted small-town banker saved by a grandfatherly angel is a beloved staple of the Christmas season. On the surface, the 1946 film has all the trappings of a religious movie. It opens with a flurry of disembodied prayers heard in the heavens by celestial beings. “I owe everything to George Bailey. Help him, dear Father.” 

“Joseph, Jesus and Mary, help my friend, Mr. Bailey.” 

“George is a good guy, God. Give him a break.”

Played wonderfully by Jimmy Stewart, George is falsely accused of misappropriating the funds of the “broken-down Building and Loan.” Drowning his sorrows in a bar, he prays desperately to God. That moment of pleading gets him, as he ruefully recounts, “a bust in the jaw.” He could not be more mistaken. To his rescue comes the white-haired Clarence Odbody, Angel Second Class, eager after hundreds of years to at last “get his wings.” The movie is celebrated for its wholesome virtues and old-fashioned American values. Bedford Falls is a stereotypical small town where people know one another and don’t lock their doors. Hard work enables you to buy a home, raise a family and build a community. 

Virtue is ultimately rewarded, and when you are down and out, friends and family rally around you. Even on Christmas Eve. It’s not a film seen as steeped in religion or even as a morality tale. Instead, it’s the story of a decent man who loves his family and Bedford Falls as he faces off against a ruthless business tycoon, Mr. Henry Potter, “a warped, frustrated old man,” as George calls him. Clarence is not set forth as proof of God, but as a fanciful plot device in the drama of an honorable man driven to a suicide attempt before recognizing the value of his life. But the movie actually is steeped in spirituality. 

It’s a Wonderful Life is not only a Christian film — it essentially unfolds a Catholic vision of life.

To appreciate the movie’s Catholicism, it helps to know the story of its director, Frank Capra, and his career in Hollywood. 

Capra’s faith was hard-won. Born in 1897, he was a self-described “Christmas Catholic” as a younger man. His brother was a priest, but Capra felt he needed God only when he perceived he needed him. Early in his career, failing to establish himself, he knelt alone in a back pew of a cathedral. He was there “to remind the Almighty here was another sacred sparrow needing help,” as recalled in Catholic Digest’s “I Remember Frank Capra,” from January 1992, based on his autobiography. His career breakthrough came when he directed the highly successful It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, in 1934. Strangely, certainly to him, his triumph left him anxious as a director and hollowed out as a man. Success brought despair. He was lost and bereft. His conversion, as both an artist and as a person, came after he was told by an anonymous man, “The talents you have, Mr. Capra, are not your own, not self-acquired,” as he recounted years later in his autobiography (and as noted in the same article in Catholic Digest). “God gave you those talents. They are his gifts to you, to use for his purpose. When you don’t use the gifts God blesses you with, you are an offense to God and to humanity.”

If that sounds like a George Bailey-type revelation, well, Capra’s movies unspooled themes and plots close to his Catholic heart. In Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, in 1936, Gary Cooper plays a small-town tuba player who outwits his enemies. It’s one of his many films that shows the power of goodness to change hearts and prompt conversion, according to film critic Maria Elena de las Carreras Kuntz.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, in 1939, similarly depicts an idealistic young senator who overcomes villainous political operatives. In the climactic scene, Stewart, playing the fresh-faced senator, stages a one-man filibuster. Sweating and talking for 24 hours, pleading for justice and the American way, he reads from the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the famous “love passage” from 1 Corinthians.

You Can’t Take It With You, in 1938, is an offbeat comedy about a free-spirited family threatened by a rapacious banker. The film closes with a reconciliation. The movie was a “golden opportunity to dramatize ‘Love Thy Neighbor,’” Capra said, as chronicled in Catholic Digest. “Christ’s spiritual law can be the most powerful sustaining force in anyone’s life.”

Meet John Doe, in 1941, is about a man (Cooper) down on his luck who is turned into a hero by an ambitious newspaperwoman and used as a pawn by big business. It’s a dark movie. Yet the power of faith is asserted. “The ‘meek can inherit the earth’ when John Does start loving their neighbor,” Doe says on a radio show during the film.

It’s a Wonderful Life is Capra’s deepest and most artistically satisfying expression of the Catholic faith. The movie opens with prayer, and an angel is a central character. More religion comes when Bedford Falls residents “wept and prayed” on V-E Day and “wept and prayed” on V-J Day. People in Bedford Falls do a lot of praying in Catholic-like churches with grand exteriors and sweeping interiors, too. Still, Capra doesn’t wear his faith on his sleeve in his films. Art conveys truths and values through story. Meanings are embedded in characters and their choices, circumstances and crises. 

Spiritual messages undergird It’s a Wonderful Life. Potter may not believe it, but the people of Bedford Falls, even and especially the lowly and humble, possess inherent dignity. Goodness transforms people and communities. Love, a gift freely given, graces our lives through the lives of others. God is present and active in our ordinary lives. He works through us. 

An instrument of God, George Bailey’s desperate prayer is his “Gethsemane moment.” He finds his way to salvation only when he fully realizes his utter powerlessness. Capra knew what he was up to. He often said that the Sermon on the Mount drove his movies. “Movies should be a positive expression that there is hope, love, mercy, justice and charity,” he said in a 1960 interview.

It’s a Wonderful Life was a commercial and critical failure when it was released after World War II. Americans were in no mood for an uplifting parable. His masterpiece at last began to get its due in the late 1970s, when it entered the public domain, belonging to no one and, as it turned out, to everyone, as matters of faith do. The director’s film legacy continues to speak of God’s love, including in the very last scene of his great Christmas classic, highlighting the love of family and community — and angelic aid. 

Jay Copp is the author of 150 People, Places and Things You Never Knew Were Catholic, published by OSV. This article was adapted from his book.

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Christmas 2020.  Covid Blues.  Christmas: Green Hope & Red Truth

Rick Malloy, S.J.

In 2019 it was, Stay away from negative people. In 2020, it was Stay away from positive people.

In 2020, I was so bored I called Jake from State Farm just to talk to someone. He asked me what I was wearing.

In 2020, The world has turned upside down. Old folks are sneaking out of the house & their kids are yelling at them to stay indoors!

In 2020, I saw a neighbor talking to her dog.  It was obvious she thought her dog understood her. I came into my house & told my cat.  We laughed a lot.

In 2020, Every few days you had to try on your jeans to see if they still fit. Pajamas trick you into believing all is well.

In 2020, we didn’t take showers (parfum de moi…) We just keep washing our hands.

In 2020, the virus did what no woman had been able to do before.  Canceled sports, shut down all bars & kept men at home!

In 2021, I need to practice social-distancing…. from the refrigerator.

 

All kidding aside, 2020 has been a year of years; a time unprecedented; an epoch of chaos, challenge, and change.  The year of the Covid shutdown, the year of Black Lives Matter Protests, the year of deathly dangerous and painful political partisanship.  One White House correspondent on Meet the Press summed up the year as “the year of alternative facts.” As this year ends, what do we really need to give one another?  I suggest we need to give one another the gifts of dialogue, truth and hope.

 

The philosopher Gadamer writes, “To reach an understanding in a dialogue in not merely a matter of putting oneself forward and successfully asserting one’s own point of view but being transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we were” (1991, p 379.  Italics added). 

 

What a gift.  To really reach understanding with one another.  To listen and learn from one another.  To stop shouting and asininely asserting.  To begin to hear and heal.  Hear one another’s hurts and fears.  Heal our wounds and weariness. 

 

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”  So proclaims the Gospel of John.  The WORD, in Greek, the LOGOS, is much, much more than a mere one syllable utterance.  THE WORD means understanding has come to live within us, in our heads and hearts, in our communities and countries, in our cosmos.  THE WORD is the ground of being that undergirds all existence.   THE WORD is wisdom that reality is good and beautiful and true.

 

THE WORD is reason, the awareness that reality makes sense, that our lives have deep and desperately significant meaning.  Think of George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life.  Without George, Mr. Potter destroys social life, for the greedy and selfish do not live according to THE WORD.  The mean and mendacious, the stingy, sad, and sinful lot, live according to the lie, not according to the WORD of truth and faith and hope and love.  When lies rule, all is lost.

 

William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960) observes:

 

“I myself was to experience how easily one is taken in by a lying and censored press and radio in a totalitarian state. Though unlike most Germans I had daily access to foreign newspapers, especially those of London, Paris and Zurich, which arrived the day after publication, and though I listened regularly to the BBC and other foreign broadcasts, my job necessitated the spending of many hours a day in combing the German press, checking the German radio, conferring with Nazi officials and going to party meetings. It was surprising and sometimes consternating to find that notwithstanding the opportunities I had to learn the facts and despite one’s inherent distrust of what one learned from Nazi sources, a steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one’s mind and often misled it. No one who has not lived for years in a totalitarian land can possibly conceive how difficult it is to escape the dread consequences of a regime’s calculated and incessant propaganda. Often in a German home or office or sometimes in a casual conversation with a stranger in a restaurant, a beer hall, a café, I would meet with the most outlandish assertions from seemingly educated and intelligent persons. It was obvious that they were parroting some piece of nonsense they had heard on the radio or read in the newspapers. Sometimes one was tempted to say as much, but on such occasions one was met with such a stare of incredulity, such a shock of silence, as if one had blasphemed the Almighty, that one realized how useless it was even to try to make contact with a mind which had become warped and for whom the facts of life had become what Hitler and Goebbels, with their cynical disregard for truth, said they were” (Kindle edition, loc 5761 ff.).

 

This Christmas, we need truth and hope more than ever.  THE WORD is truth.  THE WORD is not just in touch with reality, or just corresponding to reality. THE WORD creates and sustains reality, permeates and penetrates all the pulsating beauty and bodacious being of existence.  THE WORD has become human and we see the glory.  THE WORD takes on our human being and transforms us, giving us grace upon grace upon grace (John 1:16).  In Greek, grace is charis, from which we get the word charism, meaning a divine gift, a transcendent power.  Thomas Aquinas says grace is the ability to do what we could not do before.

 

The great grace and gift of Christmas is light.  This year we are all mesmerized by the Star of Bethlehem in the night sky, the closest Jupiter and Saturn have been for 800 years (https://www.space.com/great-conjunction-jupiter-saturn-2020-fun-facts).  “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

 

We cannot see light, but light gives us the power to see.  This Christmas, let’s give one another, give our communities and countries, our churches and cosmos, the gift of looking for, seeing and appreciating the light, the light that makes life possible, and pregnant with the possibilities of new birth.  Carl Sandburg once said, “A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.”  This baby, this light, this WORD, is God’s pledge and promise that life will go on forever.

 

And isn’t that our hope?  That, despite it all, despite the destructiveness of our days, light and life, goodness and grace, faith and freedom, joy and justice, peace and promise, love’s crashing into our stubbornness (Damn it, for God’s sake, wear a Mask!) will win in the end.

 

We need to grace and gift one another with hope these days.  But how?  More than 325,000 in the USA and 1.7 million worldwide lost lives to Covid.  Political tensions can terrify.  Families stressed and strained by months of isolation and/or too much togetherness, now face holidays on Zoom rather than in the warmth of fireside with “fire water.”  No traveling.  No visiting.  No cheer.  A year without Easter and, the final insult, the cancellation of Christmas.  How hope? 

 

“Hope it the thing with feathers // That perches in the Soul // And sings the song without the words  // And never stops – at all” – Emily  Dickinson.

 

How hope? Sing.  Communicate.  Zoom.  Don’t eat too much junk food or drink too much wine, but indulge wisely and well.  Watch the movies. Decorate the tree.  Walk outside on a 15 degree, clear star filled night and let the awesomeness of the universe caress you.  Play with children.  Sit late at night, in a room lit by Christmas lights, and gaze on the manger.  Know God is with us. 

 

Isaiah proclaims: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone.  You have brought them abundant joy and great rejoicing” (Isaiah 9:1).  St. Paul attests, “The grace of God has appeared, saving all” (Titus 2:11).

 

Luke reveals, “And the angel said unto them, ‘Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.  For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.  And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.’  And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:10-14).  And little Linus sagely tells us, “That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.”

 

Pope Francis addressed the world in an op-ed article in the New York Times on Thanksgiving Day.

“If we are to come out of this crisis less selfish than when we went in, we have to let ourselves be touched by others’ pain.  … the danger that threatens in a crisis is never total; there’s always a way out: “Where the danger is, also grows the saving power.” That’s the genius in the human story: There’s always a way to escape destruction. Where humankind has to act is precisely there, in the threat itself; that’s where the door opens.

This is a moment to dream big, to rethink our priorities — what we value, what we want, what we seek — and to commit to act in our daily life on what we have dreamed of.

God asks us to dare to create something new. We cannot return to the false securities of the political and economic systems we had before the crisis. We need economies that give to all access to the fruits of creation, to the basic needs of life: to land, lodging and labor. We need a politics that can integrate and dialogue with the poor, the excluded and the vulnerable, that gives people a say in the decisions that affect their lives. We need to slow down, take stock and design better ways of living together on this earth.

The pandemic has exposed the paradox that while we are more connected, we are also more divided. Feverish consumerism breaks the bonds of belonging. It causes us to focus on our self-preservation and makes us anxious. Our fears are exacerbated and exploited by a certain kind of populist politics that seeks power over society. It is hard to build a culture of encounter, in which we meet as people with a shared dignity, within a throwaway culture that regards the well-being of the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled and the unborn as peripheral to our own well-being.

To come out of this crisis better, we have to recover the knowledge that as a people we have a shared destination. The pandemic has reminded us that no one is saved alone. What ties us to one another is what we commonly call solidarity. Solidarity is more than acts of generosity, important as they are; it is the call to embrace the reality that we are bound by bonds of reciprocity. On this solid foundation we can build a better, different, human future.”

 

There’s the hope.  We can dream big.  We can come out of this crisis better.  We can allow ourselves to be less selfish.  We can open our hearts to feel others’ pain.  We can delve into dialogue and come out “transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we were.”  To all who receive him he gives power to be sons and daughters of God (cf. John 1:12).

 

Have a Blessed Christmas.  Un Prospero Año Nuevo.  Jesus again begins the Dialogue.  He calls us to live and to love Truth.  He is our Hope.

And may we stay away from the frig in 2021.