December 12, 2021
Editor’s note: This reflection was originally published on Fr. Mark-David’s Facebook page.
Yesterday a tornado
Swept away lives, homes, hopes,
And what is thought of as “Merry Christmas.”
Suffering and losses of limitless descriptions
Will do this year the same,
perhaps to you, certainly,
to someone you know.
From his prison in Philippi, St. Paul-
His future anything but certain, writes:
“Rejoice in the Lord…I shall say it again rejoice!
Here is an invitation
to a level of meaning deeper
than the place we usually live.
For most often you and I rejoice
as the result
of happy circumstances.
We rejoice when we win,
when we have fun,
when we are favored,
when we are rich in family and friends.
We rejoice because blessings abound.
This is not the rejoicing imprisoned Paul speaks about.
Gaudete – rejoice, he says
not because of the how and when and where
you find yourselves,
Rejoice in the Lord whose love is with you
in prison, in hospital, in heartbreak, in debt,
when ill and when alone.
Rejoice, because there is no where you can be,
and nothing that can be done to you
that stops God from loving you.
This is a deeper level of meaning,
a deeper of level of existence because
it is not dependent
on our exterior circumstances,
nor our internal state of happiness.
It depends entirely on the reality of faith:
a trust that dares to say
Almighty God was born on a cold dark night,
born to a young couple whose relationship
was anything but ordinary.
a couple that was homeless and would,
when all stars, angels and shepherds vanished,
become refugees and then immigrants.
If you believe that the Christmas story is real,
that God actually came to the worst of places,
in the worst of circumstances
then why cannot God be here now,
in the midst of the worst you live?
God is either Emmanuel,
God with us,
God with those who grieve,
God with those who are alone and unloved,
God with those in debt,
God with those unemployed,
God with those lost,
God with those homeless,
God with those sick and dying,
God with those alone,
God with those depressed,
God is either with all of these people,
or there is no God,
no Christmas at all.
As I said, sisters and brothers,
this is a deeper level of meaning
than we usually live in.
It is not possible without
a radical act of trust
in the love that is God.
It is the radical act of faith
that Mary had to make,
that Joseph had to make,
that shepherds and magi had to make.
It is the radical act of faith
Christmas demands of us.
Amen.
Paulist Fr. Mark David Janus is president of Paulist Press.