God and Dog lovers

Haiti

Obviously, what happened in Haiti is horrific. Tragedies like this punctuate our responsibilities not only as Christians, but as Americans in possession of most of the world's wealth and resources. Christ commands us to feed, clothe and care for our brothers and sisters in need. It is simply imperative that we live our Christian values. I agree with almost none of President Obama's opinions, policies and decisions, but his decision the other day to send our troops and $100,000,000 in aid made me extremely proud to be an American. He said that we will stand with Haiti and help them recover. He did not put any conditions on the help; just a steely resolve to do the right thing and I suspect more will be done as the gravity of the tragedy unfolds. Parishes all over America are taking second collections today. Let's follow the example set by our President and share our treasure with Haiti.

The Secret is in the Preparation

I always dreaded the "Christmas Season" and when people asked me why, I told them that the meaning of it had lost out to commercialism and secularism. Maybe, but I think the real problem was me and my lack of preparation, so I approached it differently this year with good results. I changed my focus from Christmas to Advent. After all, life's pleasures for me have always been in the anticipation just as much as the in the thing anticipated, so why not Christmas too? Advent is all about preparing our hearts, minds and homes for Christmas, so I made Advent spiritually real and meaningful for the first time.

I made it a point to wish folks a "Happy Advent," to go to daily Mass more often, receive the sacrament of Reconciliation, as well as some little things like setting my cell phone alarm to remind me each noon to pray the Angelus. The Angelus is a prayer about the Incarnation which is really, if you think about it, what Christmas is all about. I mean, the birth of Christ is awesome, yes, but it is awesome because it is the manifestation to the world of the Incarnation. That is what we really celebrate -- the making of the Word into human flesh from which flows our redemption and salvation.

In the Angelus prayer we say, "The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." It was made flesh at the time Jesus was conceived in Mary's womb, but it began to dwell among us, change everything for ever, at the first Christmas. My favorite part is at the end where we say "Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of His Resurrection, through the same Christ Our Lord." There, in a simple sentence, is the story of salvation. We are saved by grace which is free for the asking and God was made man so that he could share our nature and redeem us so that we could partake of His nature.

Prayer is a strange and powerful thing. Saying and meditating on the words of the Angelus made Christmas meaningful this year.

Christmas is not Modern

I heard Christmas music on the radio and in the malls this year -- a day or so before Thanksgiving. I saw some weird lawn art too: Santa in a bass boat, the Grinch, and even an inflatable manger scene. I don't know where a person buys that stuff, but it all looks so tacky and silly to me. I know, it's for the little kids. Kids love cartoons, and tacky, silly stuff, so I chuckle and drive on resisting the evil temptation to unplug the blowers and douse the lights. My pastor commented on this subject in a recent homily that gave me a fresh perspective. The gist of it was that all the lights, music and silly lawn art was nevertheless a reminder that this is ultimately and undeniably all about Christ's birth, so bring it on; the more, the merrier! The Christmas music before Thanksgiving was good too. After all, Advent was once a season that lasted a full 40 days.

The thing is that Christmas is not a modern notion no matter how hard folks try to secularize, modernize and commercialize it. I've been told that all the clerks in the stores are required to say "happy holidays," but I bet 90% of the responses I heard were, "and a Merry Christmas to you too." Not a small number of the clerks responded with a "Merry Christmas." Also, I was thankful for that little double standard amongst retailers that seems to survive year after year -- none of them in my town sold "holiday trees" this year.

Christmas forces us to look backwards in time to the first Christmas. More folks attend Mass (or go to their church) on Christmas. Why? There is, I submit, a longing for something relevant, meaningful and ancient that people inevitably find, even if just a little bit, in their many and varied Christmas traditions each year. Some of it is subliminal and unwitting, even unconscious.

G.K. Chesterton (died 1936) loved Christmas. Here is some of what he said about it: "Christmas is an obstacle to modern progress. . .. Born among miracles reported from two thousand years ago, it cannot expect to impress that sturdy common sense which can withstand the plainest and most palpable evidence for miracles happening at this moment. . ..Christmas is not modern. . . . Christmas is medieval. . .. Christmas is a survival of the past."

No matter how much progress we see in our world, Christmas is unchanging. All the trappings, even the silly, tacky stuff, just serve to remind us all the more. I like to fly fish. I think I'll go to Wal-Mart and see if they have any after Christmas specials on inflatable fly fishing Santas -- hopefully one with waders on. Merry Christmas!