The CatholiCity Message
Volume XI, Number 14 – December 21, 2007
CHRISTMAS QUOTE
"We must also take care lest to our great injury it should happen that just as there was no room for Him in the inn at Bethlehem in which to be born, so likewise now, after He has been born in the flesh, He should find no room in our hearts in which to be born spiritually."
On The Duty of Spiritual Nativity
Catechism of the Council of Trent
Dear CatholiCity Citizen,
At the conclusion of this message, we have for you a reflection on the Man in the Story, first published several years ago, which our tens of thousands of newer readers will find jolting, consoling, and fresh (we hope), along with a simple Christmas Prayer for you to pray with tens of thousands of CatholiCity Citizens reading this in every corner of the planet. But before that, we have some fun and funky thoughts on...
1. GOD THE FATHER AND CHRISTMAS GIFTS
The older we are, the faster time passes. Isn't this true? Remember how Second Grade seemed to last forever? Anyone older than forty knows that our second *decade* seemed to pass in the blink of an eye. Oh, 2007, we barely knew thee, and now you are gone, but like all years, you leave in the very best way, despite the ever-darkening day: Christmas, a season when even anti-Christians exchange gifts, unable to resist aligning themselves with the amazing template God the Father established by making a gift of His Son to the world.
Even as they contort themselves to strip Christ from the name, they cannot help but to play God's favorite game.
Yes, our Christmas traditions, iconography, music, and liturgies rightly focus on the Christ child and His mother. He is the Gift. She is the Gift Bearer. Of course. Yes! But have you ever pondered how Christmas gift-giving also reveals the character of the Holy Trinity? When you give a beloved in your life a Christmas present, you are imitating God the Father. When you shop for a Christmas present by seeking out a gift which will hopefully "tap into" the soul of the person who shall receive your gift, you are, in a way, imitating the Holy Spirit.
Before the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, there was the Holy Family of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
2. ARISTOTLE, TIME, AND GETTING OLDER
As for time passing more rapidly as we age, it is helpful to recall that Aristotle defined time as "the measurement of objects moving through space." In other words, time does not exist the way your computer or an ice cream cone exists. It is a ruler. A measure. Time exists the way an "inch" exists. As such, Time has a plastic, malleable quality.
With this in mind, one can't help but grow in the suspicion that time increases in velocity as we age because our subjective measure of time, our age, extends the length of our "personal ruler," thus making it more accurate. In other words, if an inch equals a year, then each inch on our personal ruler becomes smaller as a percentage of the overall ruler. As second graders, we really haven't experienced what a "decade" feels like. As sixty year olds, we understand that the decades add up quickly.
Gradually, all those readings we hear at Mass about how short our time on earth is, and how man is a "shadow who passes away" become not only more relevant, but more accurate. Therefore, one of the benefits of growing in age should be the deeper experience of the reality of time, as well as a mature appreciation of the value of time. Your greater sense of the incredible speed of life as you grow older is not an illusion. Rather, you are commendably losing your youthful delusion that time passes slowly. Statistically, only 1 in 30,000 people live past one hundred years of age. Heaven or hell, in terms of Time, is not far from us. It never was.
3. A PRAYER
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit...
"Beloved Creator, You Who Holds Us in Existence, thank you for our life. Thank you for every second of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year of every decade of our life. Give us the grace, guidance, protection, enlightenment, and governance to imbue every moment with as much Divine Love as possible. Amen."
4. THE MAN IN THE STORY
We ask you to see Joseph. Jesus had the angels, Mary, and the shepherds, as well as the anonymity of being born off the grid--unknown in a filthy barn. But without Joseph, Jesus would have been murdered. Herod went on a satanic killing spree. Tiny little hearts were pierced by the sword, and mothers and fathers everywhere in Israel after that first Christmas began their new year with a funeral and endless months of emotional agony over their loss.
And Joseph, warned by the angel in his dream, took his family on the run to a foreign land. Instead of heading back to Nazareth, they rushed off, just the three of them, into the unknown. Sometimes we wonder about that journey...
All the pictures and programs show Joseph with Mary riding on a donkey with the child in her arms. Few details are ever given, and it is usually a pleasant scene, almost warm and tender, with the camera angle showing them from a gentle distance, walking under the stars.
Yet the reality must have been so harsh. We don't know for sure that they even had a donkey. We'll wager they were forced to walk, and this, after a long journey to Bethlehem for the Roman census. The roads of the ancient world were stalked by thieves and brigands.
Joseph was afraid.
Some of us are fathers. We know what it is like for women after giving birth, even weeks later. Joseph must have carried his baby most of the time as they trudged along, mile after mile. He gave Mary most of the food he scrounged to make sure she could give milk. Carefully hiding valuable gifts from the wisemen, not knowing how long he would have to make them last, or how much would be needed to establish a home in Egypt, he surely took as little for himself as possible.
Joseph was hungry.
Travel was not easy and not safe back then. As they rested by the side of the trail at night every little sound in the darkness must have perked up Joseph's ears, alert for danger; he prayed for protection. Hoping, during his short, furtive naps, for another dream to guide him. Wondering if there would ever be another dream.
Joseph was tired.
The year that Jesus was born must have been the hardest year of Joseph's life. Trying to find work and a place to live in Egypt, not knowing the local language, wondering when God would call them home. He wasn't perfect. He was flesh and blood. He didn't know what would come next.
Joseph didn't know the details of the future.
Yet, during quiet moments, he held Mary's hand, and she gripped tight in return, and her smile gave him strength in a hard, cold world. When his wife and son were asleep, Joseph would often stay awake, despite his fatigue, trying to figure out what to do next.
Joseph trusted in God.
Joseph raised himself up on an elbow, one hand on his beard, and in the light of a full moon, beheld the two lovely faces of Mary and the baby, asleep, and his heart practically burst at the beauty of it. He did not want to awake them.
Joseph was silent.
Maybe, just maybe, during our most difficult times, when we're asleep, God shows Saint Joseph our faces, and we're beautiful, too. His heart swells. And, Joseph silently vows again to carry us during our darkest times, when we are strangers and sojourners in cold and forbidding lands.
Joseph is with us.
Thank you. May you have a Happy and Holy Christmas and a Grace-filled 2008.
With Baby Jesus,
Your Friends at CatholiCity
