Pope Benedict XVI’s Lent 2009 Message
February 23, 2009
Originally posted at http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/messages/lent/documents/hf_ben-xvi_mes_20081211_lent-2009_en.html
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
At the beginning of Lent, which constitutes an itinerary of more intense spiritual training, the Liturgy sets before us again three penitential practices that are very dear to the biblical and Christian tradition – prayer, almsgiving, fasting – to prepare us to better celebrate Easter and thus experience God’s power that, as we shall hear in the Paschal Vigil, “dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace and humbles earthly pride” (Paschal Præconium). For this year’s Lenten Message, I wish to focus my reflections especially on the value and meaning of fasting. Indeed, Lent recalls the forty days of our Lord’s fasting in the desert, which He undertook before entering into His public ministry. We read in the Gospel: “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted for forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was hungry” (Mt 4,1-2). Like Moses, who fasted before receiving the tablets of the Law (cf. Ex 34,28) and Elijah’s fast before meeting the Lord on Mount Horeb (cf. 1 Kings 19,8), Jesus, too, through prayer and fasting, prepared Himself for the mission that lay before Him, marked at the start by a serious battle with the tempter.
We might wonder what value and meaning there is for us Christians in depriving ourselves of something that in itself is good and useful for our bodily sustenance. The Sacred Scriptures and the entire Christian tradition teach that fasting is a great help to avoid sin and all that leads to it. For this reason, the history of salvation is replete with occasions that invite fasting. In the very first pages of Sacred Scripture, the Lord commands man to abstain from partaking of the prohibited fruit: “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die” (Gn 2, 16-17). Commenting on the divine injunction, Saint Basil observes that “fasting was ordained in Paradise,” and “the first commandment in this sense was delivered to Adam.” He thus concludes: “ ‘You shall not eat’ is a law of fasting and abstinence” (cf. Sermo de jejunio: PG 31, 163, 98). Since all of us are weighed down by sin and its consequences, fasting is proposed to us as an instrument to restore friendship with God. Such was the case with Ezra, who, in preparation for the journey from exile back to the Promised Land, calls upon the assembled people to fast so that “we might humble ourselves before our God” (8,21). The Almighty heard their prayer and assured them of His favor and protection. In the same way, the people of Nineveh, responding to Jonah’s call to repentance, proclaimed a fast, as a sign of their sincerity, saying: “Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not?” (3,9). In this instance, too, God saw their works and spared them.
In the New Testament, Jesus brings to light the profound motive for fasting, condemning the attitude of the Pharisees, who scrupulously observed the prescriptions of the law, but whose hearts were far from God. True fasting, as the divine Master repeats elsewhere, is rather to do the will of the Heavenly Father, who “sees in secret, and will reward you” (Mt 6,18). He Himself sets the example, answering Satan, at the end of the forty days spent in the desert that “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4,4). The true fast is thus directed to eating the “true food,” which is to do the Father’s will (cf. Jn 4,34). If, therefore, Adam disobeyed the Lord’s command “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat,” the believer, through fasting, intends to submit himself humbly to God, trusting in His goodness and mercy.
The practice of fasting is very present in the first Christian community (cf. Acts 13,3; 14,22; 27,21; 2 Cor 6,5). The Church Fathers, too, speak of the force of fasting to bridle sin, especially the lusts of the “old Adam,” and open in the heart of the believer a path to God. Moreover, fasting is a practice that is encountered frequently and recommended by the saints of every age. Saint Peter Chrysologus writes: “Fasting is the soul of prayer, mercy is the lifeblood of fasting. So if you pray, fast; if you fast, show mercy; if you want your petition to be heard, hear the petition of others. If you do not close your ear to others, you open God’s ear to yourself” (Sermo 43: PL 52, 320. 322).
In our own day, fasting seems to have lost something of its spiritual meaning, and has taken on, in a culture characterized by the search for material well-being, a therapeutic value for the care of one’s body. Fasting certainly bring benefits to physical well-being, but for believers, it is, in the first place, a “therapy” to heal all that prevents them from conformity to the will of God. In the Apostolic Constitution Pænitemini of 1966, the Servant of God Paul VI saw the need to present fasting within the call of every Christian to “no longer live for himself, but for Him who loves him and gave himself for him … he will also have to live for his brethren“ (cf. Ch. I). Lent could be a propitious time to present again the norms contained in the Apostolic Constitution, so that the authentic and perennial significance of this long held practice may be rediscovered, and thus assist us to mortify our egoism and open our heart to love of God and neighbor, the first and greatest Commandment of the new Law and compendium of the entire Gospel (cf. Mt 22, 34-40).
The faithful practice of fasting contributes, moreover, to conferring unity to the whole person, body and soul, helping to avoid sin and grow in intimacy with the Lord. Saint Augustine, who knew all too well his own negative impulses, defining them as “twisted and tangled knottiness” (Confessions, II, 10.18), writes: “I will certainly impose privation, but it is so that he will forgive me, to be pleasing in his eyes, that I may enjoy his delightfulness” (Sermo 400, 3, 3: PL 40, 708). Denying material food, which nourishes our body, nurtures an interior disposition to listen to Christ and be fed by His saving word. Through fasting and praying, we allow Him to come and satisfy the deepest hunger that we experience in the depths of our being: the hunger and thirst for God.
At the same time, fasting is an aid to open our eyes to the situation in which so many of our brothers and sisters live. In his First Letter, Saint John admonishes: “If anyone has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, yet shuts up his bowels of compassion from him – how does the love of God abide in him?” (3,17). Voluntary fasting enables us to grow in the spirit of the Good Samaritan, who bends low and goes to the help of his suffering brother (cf. Encyclical Deus caritas est, 15). By freely embracing an act of self-denial for the sake of another, we make a statement that our brother or sister in need is not a stranger. It is precisely to keep alive this welcoming and attentive attitude towards our brothers and sisters that I encourage the parishes and every other community to intensify in Lent the custom of private and communal fasts, joined to the reading of the Word of God, prayer and almsgiving. From the beginning, this has been the hallmark of the Christian community, in which special collections were taken up (cf. 2 Cor 8-9; Rm 15, 25-27), the faithful being invited to give to the poor what had been set aside from their fast (Didascalia Ap., V, 20,18). This practice needs to be rediscovered and encouraged again in our day, especially during the liturgical season of Lent.
From what I have said thus far, it seems abundantly clear that fasting represents an important ascetical practice, a spiritual arm to do battle against every possible disordered attachment to ourselves. Freely chosen detachment from the pleasure of food and other material goods helps the disciple of Christ to control the appetites of nature, weakened by original sin, whose negative effects impact the entire human person. Quite opportunely, an ancient hymn of the Lenten liturgy exhorts: “Utamur ergo parcius, / verbis cibis et potibus, / somno, iocis et arctius / perstemus in custodia – Let us use sparingly words, food and drink, sleep and amusements. May we be more alert in the custody of our senses.”
Dear brothers and sisters, it is good to see how the ultimate goal of fasting is to help each one of us, as the Servant of God Pope John Paul II wrote, to make the complete gift of self to God (cf. Encyclical Veritatis splendor, 21). May every family and Christian community use well this time of Lent, therefore, in order to cast aside all that distracts the spirit and grow in whatever nourishes the soul, moving it to love of God and neighbor. I am thinking especially of a greater commitment to prayer, lectio divina, recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and active participation in the Eucharist, especially the Holy Sunday Mass. With this interior disposition, let us enter the penitential spirit of Lent. May the Blessed Virgin Mary, Causa nostrae laetitiae, accompany and support us in the effort to free our heart from slavery to sin, making it evermore a “living tabernacle of God.” With these wishes, while assuring every believer and ecclesial community of my prayer for a fruitful Lenten journey, I cordially impart to all of you my Apostolic Blessing.
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time – Disclosing Tablets
February 22, 2009
Have you ever gone to the dentist and gotten disclosing tablets? They’re little pink things, about the size of a pill. You chew them and then swish them around in your mouth and the places where you have plaque on your teeth turn red. It’s a neat idea, because we don’t always realize that when we brush our teeth, we forget some parts. I’m not sure any of us enjoys flossing our teeth, but when we see those red stripes between our teeth, we realize that maybe we’ll have to start flossing more than once a month. So the disclosing tablets show us how to do some things better (like brushing in different places), and they also give us incentive to do things that maybe we haven’t been doing (like flossing).
I’m sure the dental hygienists especially enjoy using the disclosing tablets for people who aren’t entirely honest when they come to the dentist’s office. You know – the people who state categorically that they brush and floss every day, but when they chew on the tablets, their bright red teeth tell a very different story. The dental hygienist doesn’t give these people disclosing tablets so the patients can fine-tune their brushing and flossing technique. Instead, when they hold up the mirror in front of the patient, they’re letting the patient know that they are well-aware that the patient hasn’t been truthful.
Now whether we’re good or bad at brushing and flossing, and whether we’re honest or dishonest with the dental hygienist, the dental hygienist is using the disclosing tablets to get us to change something we’re doing – to do something different – something new. We get a similar message in the readings today and the readings are very appropriate as we approach the season of Lent that we begin this Wednesday.
In the first reading, God is talking to his chosen people, the Israelites. They were in captivity in Babylon. God made passing reference to the fact that he had brought them out of Egypt when they were held captive there many years earlier. That event, the great Exodus from Egypt, was very important to the Israelites and they remembered it often. But now God told them to forget about those wonderful things, because he was going to do something even better: “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth.” God was telling his people that his generosity is limitless. Yes, he delivered them from Egypt, but he would deliver them again. And he said that he would do this even though the Israelites had turned away from him.
It was like God had his own disclosing tablets. He knew that they had sinned – they couldn’t hide it. But unlike the dental hygienist who actually seems to enjoy holding that mirror in front of us to show us where we’ve failed, God said that HE was burdened with their sins, and then he blotted them out – he wiped away their sins.
In the Gospel we hear about Jesus doing something new. We are still early in Mark’s Gospel, and to this point, Jesus had been healing many people who had a whole host of physical and mental problems. We’ve heard over the past couple of weeks that Jesus cast out demons, he cured Peter’s mother-in-law, and we heard that wherever he went, there were crowds of people who were sick, and who came to him for healing.
The story we heard today of the man who was paralyzed always brings a smile to my face. Imagine the dedication of his friends, hauling him up on the roof and cutting a hole so Jesus could heal him. It sounds a bit like an Indiana Jones movie. But it gives you a sense of how many people came to be healed by Jesus. This man’s friends couldn’t even carry him through the door.
But Jesus did something different with this man. Jesus obviously saw the man’s physical problem, but he could see that the man needed spiritual healing. And so he forgave the man’s sins. This was something new – and as we heard, the scribes got very angry about it: “Why does this fellow speak in this way? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And then to show them that he was acting with authority when he forgave the man’s sins, Jesus also healed the man physically: “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” And the people said: “We have never seen anything like this.” Jesus was truly doing something new.
In the first reading, God could see the sins of his people. In the Gospel, Jesus could see the sins of the paralyzed man. In speaking to the Israelites and in speaking to the paralyzed man, God, and Jesus, were holding up a mirror to them so that they could see where there problems were – and they were also holding out forgiveness and healing.
In a couple of days we begin Lent. These next few days are very important to us. They give us an opportunity to chew on that spiritual disclosing tablet, hold up our mirrors, and find out – truly and honestly – how we’re doing. And if we’ve been like that person who claims to be brushing and flossing every day, but has a mouth full of red-coloured plaque – this is the time to resolve to do something different – something new. But we have to look in the mirror.
As I’ve been preparing for Lent – a time when I want to do new things – I’ve found myself like the patients we’ve been talking about. In some instances, I’m pretty much on the right track, but I need some fine tuning. If I listen to the Holy Spirit, I can find those areas of my life where I need a little help, and I can find the strength to change. Then there are other areas where I’ve been like the dishonest patient. I realize that there are things I should be doing differently, but I brush them off (no pun intended). And it’s only when I pay attention to my conscience – my own personal disclosing tablet – that I understand that I need to change.
Lent gives us a wonderful opportunity to look at ourselves and to try to become better Christians and better people. Not to be better than other people, but to become better than the person we are. Not to dwell on past mistakes, but to look forward to a better future.
You may want to try this. I’m assuming that you brush and floss each morning and evening. So while you’re doing that between now and this Wednesday – Ash Wednesday – think about what you would see if you rinsed your soul with a disclosing tablet. What things that you do – or don’t do – would turn your soul red? And importantly, what new thing can you do during the 40 days of Lent to get rid of those red spots. They say that it takes 21 days to form a new habit – we have 40. What a wonderful opportunity!
And if we use this opportunity, we may find that on Easter Sunday we can welcome the risen Lord with a cleaner soul and a beautiful smile.
Conversion of St. Paul
February 2, 2009
I’m sure many of you know of Jacques Parizeau. Mr. Parizeau led the Parti Quebecois during parts of the 1980s and ‘90s, and was the Premier of Quebec for a few years. In the mid-90s, he led the movement for the separatist referendum in Quebec. He thought that Quebec should be independent from Canada. Many people in the rest of Canada were very angry with Mr. Parizeau. Most Canadians wanted to keep the country together – they were called Federalists. And for the Federalists, Jacques Parizeau was the face of separatism.
Now imagine that Mr. Parizeau is driving from Montreal to Quebec City one day, and he sees a very bright light that blinds him. He runs his car into a ditch, and when the other passengers ask him if he’s OK, he tells them he can’t see. After a couple of days, he regains his sight and starts talking to the people around him about how he truly believes that Canada should stay together – all of the provinces and territories. And he believes it so strongly, that for the rest of his life, he travels across Canada – North to South, East to West, speaking passionately – encouraging people to see Canada as a single, unified country.
Perhaps that gives you some insight into the shock and disbelief that people felt when they heard St. Paul preaching about Jesus. St. Paul, who was then known as Saul of Tarsus, was the arch-enemy of Jesus’ followers. He actually killed Christians. About a month ago, we celebrated the feast of St. Stephen. St. Stephen was one of the first deacons and he was our first martyr. He was stoned to death after a trial in front of the high priest – a trial that resembled Jesus’ trial before Pilate. So we read from the Acts of the Apostles: “Then they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him; and the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. [This is the Saul who would become St. Paul.] While they were stoning Stephen he prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out in a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he died. And Saul approved of their killing him. That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.”
So you can understand why, in the first reading, when Jesus spoke to Saul, he said: “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And then when the Lord spoke to Ananias, asking him to help Saul regain his sight, Ananias answered him saying: “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.” And what did Jesus say to Ananias? “Go, for he is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and kings and before the people of Israel.”
Again, this would be like Stephen Harper picking Jacques Parizeau today to travel the country to promote Canadian unity. Couldn’t Jesus have picked someone better? Was someone sleeping at the switch in Jesus’ human resources department?
Before I continue, I should clarify that while Jacques Parizeau promoted an agenda that many Canadians found offensive and hurtful, I’m not suggesting that his actions were comparable to those of Saul of Tarsus, who became St. Paul. Mr. Parizeau was not having Quebec Federalists stoned on street corners in Montreal. By comparing these two people, I’m trying to help you understand the phenomenal transformation in St. Paul after he was blinded on the road to Damascus. And I think we can take away two thoughts. The first is comforting, and the second is challenging.
The comforting thought is that Jesus chose the most unlikely person to spread his message to the world. If you’ve been attending Father Paul’s sessions on St. Paul on the first Monday evening of each month, you’ve gained an appreciation of the critical role that St. Paul played in establishing Christianity. The first reading today began: “Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord…” If Jesus could trust such an important job to someone who hated him and his followers, then don’t we have a chance? Won’t Jesus forgive us when we mess up? Can’t Jesus trust us with an important job?
I don’t know if you notice that before I come to read the Gospel, I get a blessing from Father Paul. On my way over to the ambo, I stop in front of the altar and look at the crucifix for a while. As I look at the image of Jesus on the cross, I feel sorrow, because I put him there. Because of my sins, it was necessary for him to suffer and die. I feel unworthy to proclaim his Gospel. And yet I feel joy that despite my sinfulness Jesus has forgiven me. Despite my unworthiness, Jesus has chosen me to proclaim his Gospel to you.
So that’s the comforting thought. The challenging thought is that before St. Paul could preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he had to undergo a conversion, and his conversion was so dramatic – and so vital to the establishment of the Church, that we celebrate it every January 25th. This is not the feast of St. Paul. We celebrate the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul on June 29th. But the Church feels so strongly about importance of this event – Paul’s conversion – that it has its own feast, and this year, because it falls on a Sunday and because we are celebrating the Pauline year, it even surpasses the usual Sunday celebration – and that doesn’t happen very often.
Our challenge is to experience our own conversion. Conversion means letting Christ enter into our lives. When we do that, we become a different person – a new creation. Now I don’t think any of us routinely go around stoning Christians – at least I hope we don’t – so our conversion won’t be as dramatic as St. Paul’s, and maybe not as noticeable, but it will be just as important – to us.
After St. Paul’s conversion, he stopped persecuting Christians and began baptizing Christians. What would conversion look like to you? What would you do differently if you truly let Jesus into your life? Instead of gossiping about someone you know, you might look for kind things to say about that person. Instead of cursing and using God’s name when you’re angry, you might find other, less offensive words – heck, you might not even get angry as often! Instead of loading your closet with new clothes every season, you might organize a clothing drive for the less fortunate. Or if you tend to judge people by the clothes they wear, you might look beyond those externals, and try to find the good.
And if you had really experienced a conversion, none of these things would feel forced – they wouldn’t feel like an obligation or a burden – they would just feel like the right thing to do – and they would bring you joy!
I pray that each of you experiences conversion – I pray that each of you experiences the joy.
Epiphany
February 2, 2009
I think many of you have heard of the book: “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.” The author talked about differences between men and women. I especially remember that he talked about differences in the way men and women communicate – not just how they communicate, but why they communicate. When I read that part, I remember telling my wife: “I’ve just had an epiphany!” There was something about the author’s ideas that immediately made sense to me. I suddenly understood something about the different ways that Laura and I communicated – and it’s helped me to communicate better with her – well, most of the time.
When I used the term “epiphany,” I was using it in the secular sense, not in the religious sense. In the secular sense, an epiphany is a sudden understanding of the meaning of something, usually something important. The Epiphany of the Lord that we celebrate here today is a little bit different. The word “Epiphany” comes from Greek words that mean “to manifest,” or “to show.” And in the early Church, this celebration had been linked to Jesus’ baptism, and the miracle at Cana, as well as the visitation of the Magi (as we celebrate today). In each of these events, Jesus was manifested to the world. And for people who were able to understand, each of these events would have been an epiphany – in both senses of the word. The events would have shown or manifested Jesus, the Son of God, to the people, and those who were able to recognize this would have had an immediate understanding of something very new and different – they would have realized that this was the long-awaited Messiah.
It must have been difficult for the Magi to fully understand the significance of the Epiphany. Because they were not Jews, they would not have grown up with the expectation of a Messiah. And yet, we heard in the Gospel that: “On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.” They weren’t honoring the adult Jesus who was a gifted teacher and a miracle-worker – they were honoring an infant. But in doing this, the Magi were clearly having an epiphany of their own – a sudden and profound realization of an important truth. This was no ordinary child.
It’s interesting to compare the response of the Magi to the response of Herod, the chief priests, and the scribes – these were the political and religious leaders of the time. The Gospel tells us that they were frightened. They were probably worried about losing their positions of authority and status.
How do you react to the Epiphany – the manifestation of the Son of God, born as a human person? Is your reaction like the Magi who immediately knelt down before the child? Or are you threatened like Herod and the Pharisees? I’m not suggesting that the Epiphany will threaten our positions of authority and status (if we have them), but it can, and should, make us question many things about our lives, and that can be very threatening. How can we continue to be motivated by selfishness and greed when Jesus was first shown to the world in such humble circumstances? How can we worry about our position or status when our Saviour spent his first night as a human person in a manger – a place meant to hold animal food?
The Epiphany of the Lord should cause each of us to have our own epiphany. I told you that when I read that book about communication between males and females, something immediately made sense to me – it changed the way I saw things and how I acted. Well, the way that the Son of God was shown to the world should have the same effect. We should be able to look at it and see things in a different way – a way that makes new and perfect sense to us. It should challenge us to see our lives through different lenses – and question the things that we think are important.
And if our individual epiphanies bring us new understandings, we shouldn’t feel guilty about the person we are or the person that we have been. I think Father Paul said once that Catholics didn’t invent guilt, we just perfected it. But the Epiphany and our reaction to it should not be about guilt, but joy. Jesus – the creator of the world – came to earth as a human person in humble circumstances. He was shown to wealthy and educated Magi, and to poor, uneducated shepherds. If these events make us realize that we need to change our lives in some way, that’s no cause for guilt – we should rejoice that our salvation is possible, in spite of our faults. So instead of wallowing in the guilt of past mistakes, we can look forward to something new – different – better.
We heard that the Magi knelt and offered the baby Jesus homage and gifts – but they did something else – they protected him. Remember that Herod wanted the Magi to tell him where Jesus was, so that he could harm or even kill him. The Magi returned to their country by another road to protect Jesus. Maybe that should be part of our response to the Epiphany – to try to protect Jesus.
But how would we do that? How can we protect Jesus? In the Gospel, we see Jesus as an infant – poor and powerless. In the same way, we see Jesus today in the poor and the powerless. As a parish, we are currently sponsoring 50 poor, young children at a school and 35 more at an orphanage in Jamaica. We are also giving $500 a month to run a food bank at our sister parish in Jamaica. We will see in the bulletin soon that our Jamaica fundraiser brought in more than $12,000 to support projects that we’ll be undertaking in Jamaica this spring. Surely, this is a way that we, as a parish, are protecting Jesus.
We also see the poor and powerless in our schools and workplaces. Standing up for someone who is treated unfairly at work is a way of protecting Jesus. Helping a student who’s been victimized by a bully at school is a way of protecting Jesus. Taking the car keys from a friend who’s had too much to drink is a way of protecting Jesus. There are many more examples that you can think of. The poor and powerless are all around. But understand that these actions are ways of responding to the Epiphany not out of guilt or a sense of duty, but out of joy.
A few days ago, we celebrated Christmas – the most amazing event in the history of the world; God became a human person. Today the child Jesus was shown to the world. The different reactions of the Magi and the political and religious leaders were a preview of the kinds of responses he would receive throughout his life on earth. And this mix of responses mirrors the kinds of reactions that we can have to the manifestations of Jesus in our lives. In the Epiphany, we celebrate the act of Jesus being shown to the world. Well, he’s still here, and we see his face especially in the faces of those in greatest need. I pray that when you see his face, you will respond – not from guilt, not from a sense of duty – but from joy. In short, I pray that each of you has your own “epiphany.”
Christmas 2008
February 2, 2009
I’ve got a question for you. What do you like better – giving gifts or receiving gifts? Now seriously – think about it. What do you enjoy more? If you enjoy giving gifts more, raise your hand. Now, if you enjoy receiving gifts more, raise your hand.
It’s a little unfair. It’s one of those questions that has only one socially acceptable answer. But even so, I’m sure many of you – probably most of you – really do get more joy from giving than receiving. Why do you suppose that is?
A few years ago I bought a new car. Whenever I do that, I usually pass the old car to one of the kids. It was my son’s turn to get the car, but he already had one of my older cars, and I asked him what he wanted to do with the older one. I suggested that he could sell it. He was a university student at the time and could have used the money. His answer completely floored me. He said: “I’d like to give it away to someone who really needs a car. Is there someone at your old church – Good Shepherd – who would need it?” So I put him in touch with someone at the parish office.
A couple of weeks before Christmas that year, he delivered the car to a young couple who had a small baby and no transportation. The couple gave him a letter, and a family picture that still hangs on my son’s fridge. Among other things, the letter said that my son’s gift had inspired the young father to use the car to help deliver food to the hungry on Christmas Eve.
I called my son last night to ask him the same question I just asked you: “What was a better experience, getting the newer car (it had lots more bells and whistles!) or giving the older car to that family?” There was no hesitation. He said that giving away the older car was a much more rewarding experience. In fact, giving away that car had changed his life.
Why is that? It seems so backward. Aren’t we supposed to want lots of things for ourselves? Aren’t we supposed to spend our lives accumulating stuff? Then why did my son give the car away and feel so good about it? Why is it that so many of you raised your hand, telling me that you were more excited about giving presents than receiving presents? Why is it that at a funeral eulogy, you never hear a word about how much money the person made during their life, but how much they gave to other people?
We need look no farther than the first chapter of the book of Genesis: “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.’” You see, when God made us in his image and likeness, we were “hard wired” for giving – because God gives – and gives in abundance.
And that’s what we celebrate on Christmas: God’s amazing gift to us – his son, Jesus. But just like my son’s decision to give away the older car caught me totally by surprise, the arrival of Jesus is, in many ways, the opposite of what you would expect. The Saviour of the world didn’t descend from the clouds as a full-grown warrior king – he was born a helpless child – totally dependent on the very people he created! He wasn’t born in a fancy palace – he was born in a barn. I think we sometimes look at the nativity scene and romanticize how wonderful and quaint it must have been. Well imagine giving birth in a run-down garage in a back alley in Edmonton – in the winter! There’s nothing so quaint about that. And you mothers, can you imagine riding on a donkey for days when you’re nine months pregnant?
We heard that Jesus’ birth was first greeted by shepherds. Again, when we hear “shepherd,” we get visions of Jesus, the Good Shepherd and think how wonderful is must have been to have the shepherds there. Well, shepherds weren’t held in such high regard back then, and I would guess that coming straight from the fields, they didn’t even smell very good. The Magi, now that made more sense – they were highly-regarded people. But the FIRST to see Jesus were the lowly, uneducated, and probably smelly shepherds.
How do we make sense of this? Clearly, God’s ways are not our ways. Was God trying to teach us something by bringing his son into the world in such humble circumstances? Well, possibly, but I think it’s more likely that God was just being God. Power, as we judge power – is not important to God. Possessions are not important to God. Status is not important to God. What’s important to God is LOVE – none of the other stuff mattered!
And love is more than attraction, more than affection, more than passion – it is pure self-giving. When you truly love someone, you want only to give – not to get something in return – just to give!
And that’s why so many of you raised your hands when I asked whether you were more excited about giving than receiving presents. There’s a part of all of us that understands at a very basic level that we are made in God’s image and likeness – and there is a spark of the overwhelming love and self-giving of God in each one of us.
Abbott William of Saint Thierry said it this way in the 12th century. He was talking about the mystery of God’s son being born as a human person: “And this is clearly the reason: you first loved us so that we might love you – not because you needed our love, but because we could not be what you created us to be, except by loving you.” We reflect the image and likeness of God when we give and when we love. We connect with the goodness – the God-ness – in us. And it is in connecting with the God-ness in ourselves that we become truly human.
Last year, I asked you to help me close the Christmas homily with a celebration of love. I would like to do the same this year. Heck, maybe we’re starting a tradition.
So please, do something for me.
Turn to the person next to you – even if you don’t know that person very well – and say: Merry Christmas – I love you.
And now, turn to the person on the other side and say: Merry Christmas – I love you.
And now, say after me:
People of Holy Trinity – Merry Christmas – I love you.
People of Canada – Merry Christmas – I love you.
People of the World – Merry Christmas – I love you.
God, our heavenly Father – Merry Christmas – I love you.
Jesus, our brother – Merry Christmas – I love you.
I think you understand!
Merry Christmas to all of you – I love you.