The Holy Family

Just this fall, a billboard appeared on a major thoroughfare outside of Buffalo.  It read: “You don’t need God - to hope, to care, to love, to live.” Shortly before Christmas last year, rival billboards appeared at the entrance of one of the tunnels connecting New York City and New Jersey. 

The one billboard ridiculed the celebration of Christmas because it claimed the idea that Jesus is God or even that there is a God at all is just nonsense, a total fabrication.  Shortly after the billboard went up, another appeared on the other side of the entrance to the tunnel, this one encouraging the celebration of Christmas, claiming that, of course, God exists and God entered our world in Jesus, at His birth in Bethlehem.

While I suspect that we are in agreement that the important issues of faith are not going to be resolved by a billboard advertisement or by dueling billboards, the approach shows how the deep-seated conflicts in our culture can flare up almost anywhere.  And the dueling billboards are surely a call to alert all of us to deepen our sense of faith. No one will ever be able to scientifically prove that God became human in Jesus of Nazareth.  It is a matter of faith.

On the other hand, people of faith don’t expect or ask for proofs.  All the more reason then, that we open ourselves to the grace God surely offers, so that we can grow stronger and deeper in our faith.

The celebration of Christmas, which is one of our most popular holidays, is a case in point.  There are a lot of people who love to have an occasion for decorating and parties and gift-exchange just for the sake of it all.  Good for them.  

Christmas is as good a reason as any for these things.  But you and I can say prayers and sing carols and listen to Bible passages and offer the Eucharist and just reflect silently because we are convinced, and gratefully so, that there is indeed a God who created this world and all of us in it and who keeps loving this world and all of us in it.  God wants us to become more fully human, even to become like God.  God wants us to share His life.

Not only that, but it makes great sense to us that God would choose to enter into our world by means of the wonderful mystery of a woman giving birth to a new human being in our world.  And so when we read the poetic language of the Gospel story, we fall in love with God who loves us, and faith is awakened or strengthened: God cares about us; God wants to make our lives better; God wants to share eternal life with us.

The simple story expresses it better than elaborate scientific explanations could.  A young couple arrives in a strange town.  They can find no lodging, except a stable.  There the woman gives birth.  

We’d love to be able to assist – being the mid-wife, or holding a lantern to interrupt the darkness, or running to get some warm water and clean clothes for Jesus and Mary, to help in some way.

The woman wraps her newborn in clothes that are snug and warm and then, for lack of anywhere else, she lays the child on a bed of straw. So simply, even poorly, does God choose to come into our midst.  It is no wonder that so many on this Christmas day are going to help at soup kitchens and homeless shelters.  

It is no wonder that so many more give generously to Catholic Charities in their home dioceses and to Catholic Relief Services that reaches those in need around the world, or to other agencies that are dedicated to help the simple and the poor.

Isaiah the prophet kept saying that the Lord would send a Savior who would make things right in our world, who would bring about a totally just and peaceful world.  Obviously, a world in which justice and peace prevail has not happened yet, and it doesn’t seem at all likely that it will happen soon.  But we people of faith don’t give up our hope that it will happen.  We just acknowledge that we don’t know the time it will happen.  We leave that to God.  The future is God’s future.

In the meanwhile we try to do as St. Paul instructs in his Letter to Titus. We try to live temperately, justly and devoutly now while we await the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, because we are very sure that He will come again, this next time in glory, and that then everything will be brought to its fulfillment, our whole world and our individual lives too.   

May God give us the strength to go forward, and persevere patiently in faith and hope and love.     
 
God bless you all and Merry Christmas!

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