Christmas 2020

 I wrote three homilies for this Mass. The first two didn’t mention the coronavirus or anything else to do with the difficult circumstances of Christmas this year.

We needed a break from the pandemic, I thought. And Christmas is a time for cheerful thoughts, not heavy ones.

My idea was completely wrong. It took only a few days for the Word of God to set me straight and I tossed out the other two tries.

Our first reading says, “the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” Isaiah tells us that light has shone on those “who lived in a land of deep darkness.”

Who are those people in 2020? Aren’t they those living in this gloomy time in history, especially those suffering most from the isolation of the lockdowns and those most vulnerable to the virus?

And I was going to give a homily without mentioning that?

At first glance, the Gospel seemed perfect for the cheery homily I had planned. It’s the best known and best loved story of the birth of Jesus. The full cast of characters are there, including the angels and the shepherds.

 But here, too, harsh reality intrudes. There is no room for Mary and Joseph at the inn. Jesus is born to parents who are temporarily homeless. There is some possibility that the shepherds, the first to hear the good news, were even permanently homeless if they were “living in the fields.”

The first Christmas night didn’t feel much like a Christmas card. The shepherds weren’t just afraid: St. Luke says they were terrified. There was terror alongside the shining star, the angelic choir, and the child lying in the manger – just as there is fear in our world today, probably as much as there’s been in recent history outside of wartime.

Once I took all this in, it didn’t take long to realize that a Christmas homily in 2020 must not – cannot – ignore our present situation.

Jesus came to earth in the very real circumstances of the world in which He was born. We should celebrate His birth in the very real circumstances of our world today.

And those include a worldwide epidemic. A few people have asked me why God permits such things. I don’t have an easy answer, but history tells us that the Church is no stranger to plagues and pandemics.

An American sociologist has even argued that the  courage and compassion of Christians during plagues in the first centuries of the Church helped the faith to spread. Some of those who were helped personally or who witnessed Christians in action decided to convert (Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity, quoted in Stephen Bullivant, Catholicism in the Time of Coronavirus.)  

During these historic plagues, charity certainly motivated Christians to care for the sick. But it wasn’t just charity: faith gave them strength to overcome their fears. Today, we usually don’t need volunteers to look after the sick, but I can’t help but think about the Filipino and Filipina caregivers, many of them Catholics, who have stayed on the job in nursing homes despite the presence of COVID outbreaks.

People of faith are not people without fear. But they have a kind of vaccination against it. By consistently placing their trust in God, seeking his peace, and accepting his will, we develop antibodies against the attacks of excessive anxiety and paralyzing fear.

In a preface to Catholicism in the Time of Coronavirus, Professor Stephen Bullivant’s helpful new book, which you can find in the Faith Resources page of our website, Bishop Robert Barron wrote that the coronavirus has reminded us of something we don’t usually think about: namely, that everything in life is unstable. Nothing about our human experience is certain, not health or wealth or life itself.

When we are shaken up, “this truth manages to break through our defenses.” And then we start to look for what is ultimately stable – for something that doesn’t depend on circumstances.

Where can we find that stability but in God himself, God with us, whose coming we celebrate tonight?

I’m not trying to make a pun here, but someone did in the caption to a cartoon I saw the other day. The cartoon shows Mary, Joseph, and Jesus in Bethlehem under the words “the world needs a stable influence.”

The world needs it more than ever, and that is the promise of Christmas: stability that can’t be shaken by anything; a peace that the world cannot give.

The word stable turns my thoughts to the manger immediately behind me. I wasn’t that keen when our talented decorating team proposed moving the Christmas crib to the front of the altar so it could be seen on the livestream. I thought it might be distracting during the liturgy.

Thank heavens I came around to their idea. I knew it was the right call the minute I walked into the church. But I didn’t know what a truly brilliant idea it was until I found out St. Augustine had made a connection between the altar and the manger some 1600 years ago.

If that isn’t authority enough for placing our Christmas crib against the altar, I should tell you that I discovered what Augustine said thanks to a little book by Pope Benedict.

The former Pope says that Augustine’s idea “at first seems almost shocking.” But he points out that it contains a profound truth: “The manger is the place where animals find their food. But now, lying in the manger, is He who called Himself the true bread come down from heaven, the true nourishment that we need in order to be fully ourselves. This is the food that gives us true life, eternal life.”

And so, the manger turns our thoughts to the altar, at which we are fed, from which we receive the bread of God. (Pope Benedict XIV, Jesus of Nazareth:The Infancy Narratives p. 68-69)

Many people who are not Catholic love to come to Mass at Christmas. It may be that they intuitively make this connection even if they are not themselves ready to partake of the Eucharist, the heavenly food.

For those of us who are Catholic, it is especially painful that we cannot be nourished this Christmas from the table of the Lord. But let’s not forget that we’re invited to receive other spiritual food, and to concrete actions that can bring us as close to him as the shepherds were.

The second reading says that the coming of Christ brought salvation to all – therefore, to saints and sinners, the devout and the doubters, the strong and the weak. But it’s a gift to which we must respond.

The grace of God, St. Paul tells us, changes how we live, trains us, redeems us, and purifies us from our sins. In other words, we need to let God work with us and in us.

This once in a lifetime Christmas offers opportunities that many of us did not have the time or inclination to pursue in the past.

The next few quiet days might give time to read the first chapter of all four Gospels and to reflect on what we’re celebrating. Evenings without parties may be a chance to watch the remarkable life of Jesus and his disciples presented in The Chosen films, described in this week’s bulletin. “Watching parties” begin on Saturday.

From time to time, I’ve met Catholics who wanted to know more about the faith, and non-Catholics who were sincerely interested, but just couldn’t find the time.

The slower pace of life in January and February might be exactly what you need to explore the answers that Catholic faith gives to life’s big questions. The Search is a series designed to be watched in small groups and to help viewers grow deeper in their relationships with each other and with God.

The Search begins in our parish January 14, as described on our website and in this week’s bulletin.  

Over the years, we’ve had a few folks who were seriously interested in becoming Catholics themselves, but who had serious difficulties attending our weekly RCIA gathering for those looking at joining the Church. Some had regular business travel while others had family obligations.

No one’s travelling for the next few months and I think many kids’ sports have been cancelled! On top of that, our RCIA program is online so you don’t even need to have the car Tuesday nights.  

We know that Christ has brought salvation to all. But we are all at different stages on our journey. At Christmas, God finds us where we are: watching and waiting like the shepherds, singing hymns to his glory, like the angels, kneeling before the stable, or still on the road.

Wherever we are, in the gloomy shadows or beneath the shining star, we are invited to “see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”

So, “let us go now to Bethlehem.”

Remember the Fleas!

Some remarkable women filled my thoughts as I looked at the readings for this third Sunday of Advent.

The first woman, of course, is in a category all by herself: our Blessed Mother. You may have missed her appearance in today’s readings because what looked like our responsorial psalm was actually Mary’s great hymn of praise, the Magnificat, from the Gospel of Luke.

Mary is our model of gratitude for the past and hope for the future. She looks back as she proclaims that the Mighty One has done great things for her, and she looks forward since not only will all generations call her blessed, but his mercy is from generation to generation.

My homily today is about how we can do that. I want to suggest that we can do what Mary did and what our second reading teaches. It’s possible, if not always easy, to rejoice always and to give thanks in all circumstances.

The other two women we’ll talk about today give amazing examples of this, even if no one can compare with Mary’s total trust as she rejoices in what God has done and what God will do.

These two 20th century women show that it’s possible for ordinary people to give thanks and rejoice in every situation, replacing anxiety with deep hope and reliance on God.

Corrie and Betsie ten Boom were Dutch Protestants who, together with other members of their family, were sent to the infamous Ravensbruck concentration camp for the crime of protecting Jews against the Nazis. If I could speak about them for an hour, I could tell you some of the most powerful stories of the Second World War, but since I can't, let me tell you just one. It's a story I read more than 40 years ago which has stayed with me ever since.

When Corrie and her older sister Betsie first found themselves in Barrack 28 at Ravensbruck they were appalled by the conditions. Nice middle class women—they worked as watchmakers—they were horrified by the cockroaches, lice, and non-existent sanitation.

In her book The Hiding Place, Corrie recounts the moment that fleas were added to their miseries.

After her first of many fleabites, she wailed “Betsie, how can we live in such a place?”

 Betsie bowed her head. “Show us how,” she prayed.

Within moments she looked up and urged Corrie to find the Bible passage they’d read that morning and read it again. It included the words we just heard in today’s second reading, Paul’s command to rejoice always and give thanks in all circumstances.

“That’s what we can do,” Betsie cried. “We can thank God for everything about this new barracks.”

Looking around the foul-smelling, vermin-infested room, Corrie responded “Such as?”—with or without sarcasm, she doesn’t say, but I can guess.

Her faith-filled sister answered immediately: “Such as being assigned here together,” to which Corrie replied with a prayerful “Yes, Lord Jesus.”

Betsie added that they were richly blessed to have a Bible with them. Again, Corrie joined her in thanking God, and she added a prayer of gratitude for being in such close quarters with so many women with whom they could share the Gospel.

But when Betsie thanked God for the fleas, that was too much for Corrie.

“Betsie,” she said, “there’s no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”

Her sister was not backing down. “’Give thanks in all circumstances,’ she quoted. Fleas are part of the place where God has put us.”

And so, they gave thanks for the fleas.

There the story could end, a remarkable story of taking God at his word, of taking God’s word seriously. But it wasn’t the end of the story.

As Betsie and Corrie shared their faith with the hundreds of women in the barracks, it became one big ecumenical Bible study. For some reason, their prayer services were never interrupted by the guards. In fact, the guards never set foot in the barracks. Eventually, the sisters figured out why: the fleas. The guards were afraid of the fleas.

The thing for which Corrie so reluctantly thanked God became a tremendous blessing.

St. Paul’s words are timeless, advice in good times and in bad, in each and every circumstance. They are sound scriptural advice in this time of pandemic; an antidote to the discouragement and fear so many are feeling; a great comfort in whatever misery we’re experiencing; and a way of magnifying the joys that are by no means absent.

Grateful prayer is also a remedy for our anxiety. In another letter, Paul puts his teaching in these words: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6).

Dear friends if you know me you know I don’t always practice what I preach. I talk about scriptural teachings I’m not very good at—for example, I am very poor at “praying always,” which is something else St. Paul tells us to do in this reading.

But I’m pretty good at giving thanks in all circumstances, the pandemic included. It’s probably because this verse is a cousin, if not a sibling, to Romans 8:28, where Paul writes that God works for good in every circumstance, that God can bring good even from the greatest evils.

Throughout these difficult months, I have done my best to thank the Lord for his work in our parish despite the many unhappy aspects of the current crisis.  I have thanked him for the technology that allowed me a final visit by iPad with Jim Pocklington, our first and only parishioner to die from the coronavirus. The iPad also allows Father Jeff or me a weekly visit with an elderly parishioner who calls us from her care facility.

I have thanked God for your astonishing generosity, which has kept our parish afloat despite the church closings and limited congregations. The virtual collection baskets have never been empty.

God does not want his people to be sad.  Not now, not ever. There’s something much greater than our circumstances.  As we heard in Mary’s song of praise, no sadness can obscure the Lord’s mercy, the mercy he offers so freely, to generation after generation—to young and old, to every one of us.

Would yesterday’s Day of Mercy have been the same a year ago? I doubt it. Father Jeff and I heard confessions for a combined total of 13 hours. God filled the hungry with good things and looked with mercy and love on our lowliness and need.

Maybe you felt too low or discouraged to take part in the Day of Mercy yesterday. But maybe the Word of God this morning will give you the courage to come to confession next Sunday when both of us will be waiting in our safely distanced confessional spaces at the usual times of Saturday at 9:30 and Sunday at 4.

In some sense, the trials of the pandemic have drawn some people closer to Jesus as they experience the loss of other things on which they used to rely. We’ve all heard wartime stories of the same thing.

Of course, the restrictions on parish life may lead to some people falling away, despite our best efforts; there are those who aren’t unhappy that they don’t have to go to Mass; there are likely some who won’t return when things get back to normal.

That’s a very disturbing thought. But like the ten Boom sisters, I will find a way to give thanks even for that. God works for good in all things, and perhaps those parishioners who will no longer walk with us on Sundays will come to realize their need to walk with greater purpose on the discipleship path and will be granted a deeper conversion down the road.

As I have said before, perhaps God is allowing the smaller but holier Church that Josef Ratzinger spoke about long before he was Pope Benedict.

And let’s not forget that we’re called to rejoice in all circumstances, not just the trying ones. God also wants us to rejoice in the good things around us. Although the pandemic has been hard for me in many ways, to date it’s been bookended by joyful events hard to describe without getting emotional.

The last weekend before the lockdown in March, I officiated at the marriage of my niece in this church. And three days ago, I was one of the ten people attending the priestly ordination of Richard Conlin at Holy Rosary Cathedral Friday night.

My niece’s wedding wasn’t the first family wedding I celebrated here. Thirty years ago, I married her parents at the brand-new Christ the Redeemer Church. But in thirty years we haven’t seen the ordination of a parishioner; Father Richard, the son of Brian and Monica of our parish, was the first.

To have an ordination during the pandemic, when so many family members and friends could not attend the ordination, was sad. But as a thirtieth anniversary gift from God to the parish, it made 2020 “a year of the Lord’s favour,” not just a time of discouragement and loss.

I’ll be thanking God for the sight of the newly ordained Father Richard shining—I mean shining—with joy long after the clouds of the pandemic have lifted.

And I’m grateful for the tears that rolled down his cheeks as he magnified the Lord for his goodness during the homily at his first Mass.

I’ve spoken about some of the things for which I’ve given thanks during the pandemic. What about you? What are the hardships you can bring to the Lord this morning, praying with thanksgiving in obedience to his word, even if you don’t feel like it?

Can you give thanks for some negative things that have been turned to positives in your life? Has the impossibility of travel allowed more family time this Christmas? Is the impossibility of Christmas parties making the season more reflective and calm?

And are there some clouds that simply have no silver linings? A loved one in a hospital or care home you can’t visit? There’s no positive to be found there. But Paul doesn’t say “give thanks in most circumstances” or “give thanks for almost everything.” We pray in thanksgiving as a way of handing it all to God, in whom we trust, in whom we hope.

I leave you with three words of advice for your next experience of hardship, whatever it may be: Remember the fleas.

But most of all, let’s not forget what the Mighty One has done for us, that God has come as one of us, ready to give meaning to whatever joy and whatever sorrow we face at this most unusual moment our journey together as a family of faith.

The watercolour image at the top can be purchased at https://society6.com/product/give-thanks-in-all-circumstances_print while The Hiding Place is available at Indigo and Amazon (in a slightly more expensive, anniversary edition).

Advent Leads Us Out of the Wilderness (Advent 2.B)

 

Two very famous figures are on my mind this morning. Both have long beards and unusual wardrobes. The first, of course, is St. John the Baptist, who appears in today’s Gospel, dressed in camel hair and proclaiming the message already prophesied by Isaiah in our first reading.

The second is Santa Claus.

I wonder how many of our younger parishioners know that Santa Claus is really St. Nicholas? Santa is just St. Nick with some extra pounds from all the cookies and milk left for him on Christmas Eve.

Even the name of Santa Claus comes straight from his Dutch name, Sinterklaas.

Long before children received gifts at Christmas, they got their presents on the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas, which just happens to be today, December 6. And in some countries, such as Holland, this continues to the present day.

It reminds all of us, young and old, that everything about Christmas has roots in our faith and that we need to water those roots if we’re to experience fully the joys of the season.

The opening prayer for today’s Mass encourages us to stay clear of those things that obscure the real meaning of Christmas. We prayed “may no earthly undertaking hinder those who set out in haste” to meet the Son of God.

Of course, if we take Advent seriously, we are a lot less likely to get mixed up about Christmas.

And this year, we might be just a little more open to a serious message since we’re not heading out to premature Christmas parties all through the season.

We often hear that Christmas is for children, and certainly we all want to have a child-like wonder before the infant Jesus laying in a manger. But we don’t want childish attitudes to rob us of the power and purpose of the Advent season.

Both today’s first reading and Gospel take us to a scary place—the wilderness. The wilderness, or desert, is “a place of deprivation, loneliness, and stripping away of comfort” (Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark, p. 32). It’s easy to get lost in the wilderness.

And “more than ever this world is a wilderness.” Over thirty years ago the great theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote that this wilderness is growing—“artificially, through the clearing of rain forests” and even more “spiritually, as the religious landscape turns into a vast overgrown prairie where men can scarcely hear the cry ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’”

He says that John the Baptist would have a much harder time of it today than two thousand years ago, trying to make his voice heard amid the cacophony of the media and the secularist agenda (Hans Urs von Balthasar, Light of the World, p. 151).

But even if the wilderness is scary, even if the desert is taking over more and more territory that once was fertile, the prophetic message is still lifegiving water for a parched generation.

Both Isaiah and John announce the forgiveness of our sins, and with that an end to fear and hopelessness. Isaiah promises Israel God’s compassion and tender care, despite her unfaithfulness.

This promise, of course, is fulfilled by Jesus, whose name literally means “He who saves” and whom we know as our Good Shepherd.

The message of today’s Gospel is, very simply, “get ready.” Don’t walk around in circles in the dry land of anxiety, don’t get lost in the thorny bushes of the wilderness of confusion. Prepare for the coming of the Lord by walking away from sin.

Isaiah and John point out a straight path for us. It’s the path of repentance and discipleship that lead us to Jesus. It’s the way to the fullness of life, to the baptism with the Holy Spirit that John promised his disciples and which Jesus promises us.

There was a time when Western society was soaked in Christian culture. Customs and rituals, at home and at church, helped people encounter Christ at Christmas. As I mentioned at the beginning, even Christmas gifts have their origin in celebrating the memory of St. Nicholas, a bishop and martyr renowned for his generosity.

These days every parent, every priest, every teacher must work hard at recovering the truth and meaning of Christmas for the younger generation as they wander the wilderness of social media. We can take nothing for granted as society continues to drain the spiritual riches out of this annual celebration.

There are many things families can do, from Advent wreaths to Advent calendars. There’s the Christmas novena, nine days of prayer leading up to the 25th of December. And we can use the internet to learn about the glorious “O antiphons” connected to each of those days. Last week's bulletin had other fine ideas.

But there’s one idea better than any other: a good confession before Christmas.

Last weekend a father and his young son walked together to church so that they could both go to confession. The walk was five kilometers each way. How’s that for making a straight path for the Lord? Or at least a path straight to the Lord!

Archbishop Miller has declared next Saturday a “Day of Mercy” and asked parishes to make the sacrament of penance easily available—because, of course, we can’t hold penitential services this year.

Our plan at Christ the Redeemer is simple: on Saturday Father Jeff and I are going to station ourselves in safe spaces around the church at 10, 12, 2, 4, 6 and 8.

It’s a schedule I learned in the seminary: we will hear confessions at those times for as long as people come, then we will go back to the rectory. It allows maximum convenience for parishioners without the priests spending a whole lot of time with no one there.

Although good St. Nicholas takes a backseat to the Second Sunday of Advent this year, I want to end by letting his long history with Christian children remind us of the challenges young Christians face in the world today.

We owe our young people the priceless gift that can’t be wrapped or delivered by Santa Clause—the gift of faith. We can’t abandon them in the modern wilderness without water or a map. And so, our parish helps our children and youth grow in faith in many ways, in part through the largest youth ministry program on the North Shore.

Let’s take a moment now to meet some of the young people who are such an important and hopeful part of our parish family…

( Please watch the video here!)