Pastoral, Liturgical, Teaching, and Social Justice Moments brought to you by DignityUSA.

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It is so easy to lose the meaning of Christmas in its hustle and bustle. It can be so tempting to see Christmas as our own private celebration of love and family. But the scope of the Incarnation is much grander than our individual acquaintances. Instead, the celebration of Jesus’ birth inexorably challenges us to enlarge our love, not in the numbers or costs of our gifts, but in whom we are willing to acknowledge as fully sharing in the dignity of being a child of God.

December 25, 2021, Christmas 
Isaiah 62:11-12 
Psalm 97:1, 6, 11-12 
Titus 3:4-7 
Luke 2:15-20 
 
Simplify Christmas, Celebrate Christ  
A reflection by David Jackson 

            Eating seafood with my family in Weslaco, Texas, on March 13, 2013, when the restaurant finally went quiet, I heard that our (Catholic) Church had a new Pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who would be called Francis. As the many books and encyclicals on my shelves testify, I have been an avid follower of Pope Francis ever since. I can’t resist beginning my reflection for this Christmas with words from his Christmas homily 2017. 

So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary. We see the tracks of entire families forced to set out in our own day. We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away but, driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones. In many cases this departure is filled with hope, hope for the future; yet for many others this departure can only have one name: survival. Surviving the Herods of today, who, to impose their power and increase their wealth, see no problem in shedding innocent blood. 

In the Child of Bethlehem, God comes to meet us and make us active sharers in the life around us. [God] offers God’s own self to us, so that we can take [Love] into our arms, lift [it] and embrace [it]. So that in [Jesus] we will not be afraid to take into our arms, raise up and embrace the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned (cf. Mt 25:35-36). “Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ.” In this Child, God invites us to be messengers of hope. [God] invites us to become sentinels for all those bowed down by the despair born of encountering so many closed doors. In this child, God makes us agents of … hospitality. 

Moved by the joy of the gift, little Child of Bethlehem, we ask that your crying may shake us from our indifference and open our eyes to those who are suffering. May your tenderness awaken our sensitivity and [help us] recognize our call to see you in all those who arrive in our cities, in our histories, in our lives. May your revolutionary tenderness persuade us to feel our call to be agents of the hope and tenderness of our people. 

How eerily like the experiences of so many families today is Jesus’ family: anxious about the future; their lives disrupted by events and decisions over which they have no control; having to leave behind familiar places and people they love to seek safety. 

Despite the threats and sorrow, the heart of this family was nourished by the unimaginable love that bound them together. That is true of most families. We strive for the kind of love we hear of in Paul’s letter to the Colossians: “Put on, as God’s chosen ones … heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. … And over all these put on love, that is the bond of perfection.” 

Jesus is born on a journey for a journey. Pope Francis has said quite often: “We are not living in an era of Change, but in a Change of Era.” Christmas is a time to pause on our life journey so that we can journey to Bethlehem. We return to the place where God is homeless, but we are at home with God.  We make the journey to Bethlehem each year to rediscover our own roots in the gift of Jesus. 

The Gospel story is an old one which we know quite well, but what newness does it bring for us now during this celebration of Jesus’ birth? Is it announcing new hope? Christmas provides evidence for our hope that new life is possible. But retelling and rehearing the story is not enough. The Gospel writers make clear that Jesus was the awaited one of ages and generations, but the birth of Jesus is not to be just a past event. It is to be for us a present reality. Sin and error have been part of our lives, and yet we hear the promise of a new sense of self-worth. In our weariness we feel the promise of a new hope. In our darkness we see the promise of everlasting light. In our fears we experience the promise of courage. We enter this new era - even amid Covid 19 – and we look to it with new hopes. We watch our guiding stars, trust our guiding dreams, and attend to our angels of announcement. Jesus was born and wants to be born in us and our world again, (and again and again) so that we can live in the newness of God’s Love – and share that love with everyone else. 

p.s. The title of this reflection "Simplify Christmas, Celebrate Christ" could have been posted at the First Sunday of Advent, but even today it can challenge us. What have I done to celebrate the love of Christ this Christmas? And where have I allowed the madness of consumerism to take over?