Reading II
1 Cor 1:3-9
Brothers and
sisters:
Grace to you and
peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to
my God always on your account for the grace of God
bestowed on you in Christ Jesus, that in him you were enriched in every
way, with all discourse and all knowledge, as the testimony to Christ
was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual
gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ. He will
keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus
Christ. God is faithful, and by him you were called to fellowship with
his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
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There
are
29 days until Christmas. I’m sure many of us just thought, “29
more …
shopping days until Christmas.” I love
Christmas. I really do. A lot of my affection for Christmas
is from
my childhood memories. I grew up in New York City and even New York City
is beautiful at Christmas, especially when it snows. The snow is
white, for about two hours. But I remember the sights and going
down to Manhattan, to Rockefeller Center,, the Great Tree,
the skating rink,
the music, and the smells. “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire .
. .” See, I
can sing better than you! No school,
snow, no school, Santa Claus, no school.
Without fail, I always found where my mother hid the presents.
I also
remember Christmas
as being sometimes sad and a
time of some tension and stress in the family, as well. Now, I am
convinced, some of you won’t know
what I am talking about. You really
haven’t experienced these problems at the holidays; Ozzie and Harriet,
Rickie
and David, and a few others. But most
families, I think, would agree, that the holidays can be
stressful. I’d like to address that tonight because I
don’t think it should be that way. I
think the holidays should be a wonderful time, a time of peace and
happiness,
and gratitude.
We
begin Advent because we
need to prepare for
Christmas. Actually, Advent has two
different parts to it. From now until
the 17th of December, we are preparing for Christ’s coming at the
end of time, the Judgment. The
scriptures read, “Watch.” There is a
warning tone to them. From the 17th
of December until Christmas Eve, the focus changes to the coming of
Christ at
Christmas. 29 days to prepare for the
great feast, the great event of Christ’s coming, a season of prayer and
penance. Contrast what that is to what
happens out there. Did you watch the
news about the sales yesterday morning?
Did you see that big fight? I
don’t know where that was but it was a brawl, I think, at a Wal‑Mart
somewhere. Was it in Michigan? There were fist
fights. Is
that where that was? A lot of the
stores, even locally, opened at 5 AM. The people were
lined up around
the
corner to get a $20 gift certificate.
They must need money bad. Five
o'clock in the
morning. Fighting and
struggling to buy stuff. They’re sick. If you were out
there with them, get help, there’s something wrong
with you. As for myself, I was on the golf course
yesterday.
I hear
this every year, I
heard it again on one of the news
network shows, “The success of Christmas depends on preparations made
before
Thanksgiving.” They’re of
course talking about
commerce. But the success of
Christmas depends upon the birth of Christ and it has been a success
for 2000
years. They remind us that in many
businesses, half of their annual business is done in November and
December, in
just these two months. So it is
important. We need to support the
economy. Go and spend money. Don’t
die with any money because your kids will fight over it. Spend
it, or give it to the church, we’ll
accept it.
By the
way, I did my
Christmas shopping in an hour and
fifteen minutes. I bought 31 gifts. Online. Most of
them are already gift wrapped. And then I got 20 of them but they
weren’t
marked which was which. So, I had to open them, and I got mad
because you know I could never
put them back together again. How did I
know? Anyway, that’s my problem. It was a very stressful
moment. I know how you feel.
Christmas can be a time of family tension. I will
never forget the time
in the Army when I was working in the National Military Command Center
at the Pentagon.
It’s known as the War Room. You've seen it in movies. Each
Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, I would volunteer to work because
my family,
my mom and dad, my sister, niece and nephews, were here in New Mexico
and I was in Washington. I didn’t have
any immediate family
close by and so, I would volunteer for one of the married
guys, or gals, to take his or her place, and that way they could be
with their families. This one time, I asked this fellow, “I know
you
have the swing shift, the day shift. I’ll trade with you. You
take one of my shifts next month or
something.” he said, “Oh, no. I was happy when I came out
on list.” He said, “It will be the first Christmas in
20 years that I can relax.” Can you imagine? At
work. In the War Room! It was more peaceful for him there
than it was at
home. Now again, maybe this doesn’t
apply to your family. But it sure
applied to mine. And it doesn’t have to
be that way.
Psychologists
tell us this
is the most distressing time of
year. This joyful, beautiful, wonderful
season, is the most psychologically stressful time of the year. I
Googled up “Christmas stress”; got 14,400
hits in 0.33 seconds. It’s a huge
problem and it doesn’t have to be that way with us. And why is
it? I think there’s lots of reasons. I suspect that people
prepare for something
to be beautiful and wonderful, and then it’s not because they prepare
for the wrong thing. They prepare for a day that’s
perfect, with a great meal, the perfect presents, friendship all around
and it doesn’t turn out that way. Perhaps, in some of your
families, you have a
difficult relative or two. They will
be there to try to ruin the day. But
don’t let them! Love them anyway. They are an occasion of
grace for you. They’re not going to change. It’s up to
you.
The
problem is, people
prepare for the wrong thing. Advent tells us we should be
preparing for the coming of Christ in our lives. If you can, on
Christmas Day or Christmas Eve, if you can look in the mirror
and say, “I am ready to meet Christ,” and really mean it, if you can
say, “If
Christ comes now, I’m ready,” I guarantee you will have a great
Christmas because that’s the most important thing. We
can decide this evening how our December is going to be. It’s up
to each one of us how will we spend these next 29 days and set our
priorities accordingly. Don’t worry
about gifts.
St. Paul told us in the second
reading,
“You
are not
lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our
Lord, Jesus
Christ.”
That’s
the gift of Christmas,
the en-fleshment of the Living God in a human person, Jesus
Christ. A human person that can touch us in this
Eucharist, give us His love, love that we can pass on to one
another. That’s the greatest gift ever given. It’s ours for
the taking.
St. Paul tells us,
“Brothers
and sisters, may the Lord make you increase in abounding
love to strengthen your hearts, so that you may be blameless in
holiness before
our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ, with all
His Holy
Ones.”
Through
Christ, Our
Lord, Amen.