The Hope of the World is Our Hope

Mercy is an incredible thing.

During Christmas we remember Jesus coming among us. He comes for the poor, and for the Gentiles, and for Israel--for the whole world. He comes to seek out and save what is lost. He comes for sinners.

Jesus loves the worst sinners, the people we would consider disgusting. He has not given up on them. He loves them, He goes out in search of them, He gives Himself completely for them.

He wants sinners. He wants the most awful people, the disgraceful people, the people we don't want anything to do with. He wants to change their hearts by His grace, to bring them to repentance and conversion, to heal them, to forgive them, and to enable them to love Him. He wants them to be with Him forever. His heart burns with love for them: the ones we look upon as gross, horrible people--not just "ordinary sinners" but really bad people.

This should be a cause for great hope. For who among us looks in the mirror and sees a face with no cause for shame? The hope of the world is our hope. Jesus wants to awaken in us and draw forth from our hearts a true sorrow for our sins, and then He wants to fill our hearts with His love and transform us and make us beautiful.

On the Cross, in the Church, in the sacraments, and in these beautiful days of Christmas that we celebrate, He shows how He has given Himself to us, and how He longs for us.

He wants us to pray and to open our hearts to Him in trust. We must pray, "Lord, make me the person You will me to be. Shape me, change me, lead me. I believe in Your love for me. I trust in You."

On the Fortieth Day of Christmas, We Finally Took Down the Tree

Very early in the morning, on the LAST day of Christmas, February 2, 2013

When I woke up very early in the morning, as I usually do, I went out into the living room to see the glorious lights glowing one last time. And Mary and Joseph, the manger, the baby Jesus, the wise men spreading out their humble court one last time on the top of the entertainment center (note: that is not an HDTV; that's a flat screen dinosaur from the "aughts" [i.e. 2000s]...true poverty, American style).

I looked wistfully at the ornaments. Some go back to my own childhood and even before. Some are quite fancy, but my favorites are the one with the bride and groom that says "First Christmas, 1996" and the various home made ornaments given to us as gifts by the children when they were very small. I noticed that the star that I made for the top years ago was leaning to one side. It was beginning to fall apart at last. Even durable tape has its limits.

Ah, but the wonders of an artificial tree! It doesn't shed, it doesn't need water, it doesn't die. You can keep it up through January, and then disassemble it and put it in a box and store it away until next year. The human race has lost the tree of paradise, and the trees of this earth must die. The best we can accomplish with all of our arts is an imitation, a plastic copy that does not die because it was never alive.

Yeah yeah, sure. But it works. Its hypoallergenic. It looks good. Its fireproof. What the heck, we use electric lights on it anyway. Stop being such a philosophical grump, JJ. Its our Christmas tree. We love it.

And it has lit up the dark mornings of the whole month of January. A forty day Christmas season helps prevent Seasonal Affective Disorder. And it gives a maximum of procrastination time for getting out those Christmas cards! (Those "what"? What is a Christmas "card"? Haha, obviously we didn't send any....)

Its good to let things last. Christmas is not just a big-bash-and-then-its-over. The light has come into the world. The light shines in the darkness. And He is, as Simeon reminds us again on Candlemas day, "the light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel" (Luke 2:32).

Now, everything is boxed up and put away. Our house is ready for Lent, which begins in less than two weeks. But the desert is not gloomy, because Jesus is there.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).

Right Now, Right Where You Are....

Think, think, think, write, write, write, read, read, read, think, think, think, doubt, doubt, fear, fear, think, think, read, read, read, think, read, write, doubt, FEAR....

Really, its as simple as Teresa popping into the office and asking for an apple slice.

He is here.

I can't hold myself together with a comprehensive understanding of myself, or with stuff, or with anything that I try to capture with my conniving and my worrying.

Instead something happens. Someone comes. Someone Else is here.

This is what Christmas teaches me. Of all the billions of people born in human history, there is one who -- right now -- says to me, "I am the meaning of your life."

"I am what you are searching for, what you keep trying to make for yourself, in an effort that leads to desperation again and again, because you know that what you're looking for is beyond all your thinking and understanding and expression; you know its out of reach...."

"Don't be anxious. I have come to dwell with you. I am here, right now, right where you are. And I love you."

Whatever darkness you suffer, remember that He is here.

Whatever sorrow, confusion, guilt: He is here.

He wants to bring you through. He loves you.

"I have come into the world to be its light" (John 12:46).

Rejoice! Its the Christmas season. Happy Christmas Season!

We Are Not Left to Ourselves

God has left His Heaven and come down to earth for man...

taking on human flesh and becoming man like us.

Advent invites us to follow

the path of this presence

and reminds us again and again

that God is not removed from the world,

He is not absent,

we are not left to ourselves,

but He comes to us in different ways,

which we need to learn to discern.

And we, with our faith, our hope and our charity,

are called every day to see and bear witness to this presence,

in an often superficial and distracted world,

to reflect in our lives the light

that illuminated the cave of Bethlehem!

Benedict XVI

Mary is a "Yes" to God

Statue of Mary at Mission San Juan
Bautista, California (six months ago!)

I love these days. These are "Mary's days," beginning with this great celebration of the beginning, of that radical moment when God did something new. In the silence of St. Anne's womb, the new creation began, the definitive victory of Divine grace burst into history for the first time.

From the very beginning, Mary is all about grace. She reveals the love of Jesus, the power of God to change everything. She is called to be the Mother of the Word who dwells among us, to "embrace God"  totally and entirely because it was from her concrete, human historical reality that He would take flesh. From the moment of her conception, Mary is nothing but a "yes" to God.

He knows that the "yes" of Mary goes all the way to the Cross. That "yes," by God's redeeming grace, fills Mary totally, from the beginning.

She is also called to be close to each one of us, with all of our sins. Because she is without sin, there is a place in her heart for all of us sinners.

There is no limit to the "yes" that she says to her Son, and to each one of us.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you.

He Communicated Himself to Us

"He has made [His plan] known

by engaging with man,
to whom He has not only revealed something,
but His very self.
He has not simply communicated a set of truths,
but He communicated Himself to us,
to the point of becoming one of us,
to being incarnate.
God not only says something,
He communicates with us,
draws us into the divine nature,
so that we are involved in the divine nature,
deified.
God reveals His great plan of love,
engaging with man,
approaching him
to the point of becoming Himself a man."

Benedict XVI