December 26, 2020
Editor’s note: This reflection was originally published on Fr. Mark-David’s Facebook page.
The year we moved from inner city to rural suburbs
Was the fulfillment of my parent’s dreams.
Literally they mortgaged everything they owned
And their future as far as they could imagine.
My Dad always working overtime
and my mother, a nightly shift.
That first year in our beautiful new home
furniture was spotty,
tempers were tight and money was sparse.
I remember because that year
All our Christmas presents were wrapped in
Plain white butcher paper.
My parents “forgot” to buy wrapping paper, ribbon and bows.
On Christmas Eve, my parents took me to Midnight Mass:
Solemn High Mass, Choirs, Musicians, Pews of altar boys
Whose ranks I joined for the first time, it was a big deal
and a complex Latin ritual I was to pray,
“Ad Deumm quilaetificat juven tutem meam
Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus…etc.”
My older sister Susan volunteered
To stay behind to tend our much younger
toddling sister, Celeste, who,
would have sung or cried
all the Solemn out of the Mass.
Several hours later,
past two o’clock on a cold frosty morning,
we returned,
Our Christmas tree glowing through the bay windows.
I have a distinct memory of opening the front door
Turning left into the living room
And seeing a miracle!
Every single package,
the tall and the small-brightly adorned.
My sister, who would continue as artist,
Used her paints and chalks and pencils
Decorating each package
With Santa, sleighs, reindeer, Christmas trees,
Elves, Snowmen, Angels, Stars and Saints;
Ribbons and bows painted by her brush
So real you saw them sparkle.
I stood entranced by the riot of color and joy
Beneath the tree.
My mother and father holding each other, quietly cried
Something I never saw them do.
Susan was upstairs, sleeping, cuddled with Celeste.
Christmas morning, she explained that
Santa painted each package as he magically
Put the presents inside.
That was her story and she stuck to it.
Christmas is when we celebrate
God entrusting us with love.
This divine trust, putting into our hands, God’s Son.
Born truly at Bethlehem,
God’s Son present in the life that surrounds us,
In those we love and who love us, and those who do not.
The Christ present in those as unknown to us
As He was unknown to the people of Bethlehem,
The Christ of every skin color, language and way of life,
The Christ in the poor, naked, homeless, unemployed
The Christ in the lonely, imprisoned, the sick and the dying.
The Christ the Holy Spirit has poured into us.
Each of us has an ability, unique to us,
To draw God’s glories on everything and everyone
The world has left plain, unadorned, unnoticed, neglected.
With the Love of God made flesh at Christmas
We have been entrusted with the ability
To make precious all those the devil
Has convinced are unloved and unnecessary,
Whose right to live to the full is denied.
It is hard to see that grace in us,
Just as hard as it was to see
the Christ in Jesus born in Bethlehem.
Hard does not mean untrue;
Born he was, and full of grace we are,
If we allow ourselves to believe-to trust
in God’s love.
St. Augustine said the birth of Christ is always happening
But what difference does it make
If Christ is not born in me?
What matters, is that Christ be born in me.
My sister’s prayer was to create beauty for others.
My younger sister, hospitalized with Covid-19
she caught from her patients
is once again treating infectious patients.
Her prayer is to give breath.
We each have prayer, a means by which
We return thanks to God by making beautiful
The lives and the planet God loves.
To us, and to others, our particular grace, our unique worship
may be seen as weak, even useless
compared with the power of Caesar Augustus.
That is what they thought of Jesus born in Bethlehem.
And if we are honest, we too, at times,
see Jesus as insignificant, irrelevant and helpless
In the face of all that troubles us.
That, brothers and sisters, is why we stir
each other’s faith by celebrating Christmas,
Celebrating the Christ born in Bethlehem
Celebrating the Christ who seeks room in us
To make the world in love with Love.
Merry Christmas! Amen.
Paulist Fr. Mark David Janus is president of Paulist Press.