Deacon Bob Huber

Receiving and Giving

As Christians, we are called to live under a very simple principle; for all that we have been given, we must give not expecting repayment. And then ironically, the repayment we receive is far more abundant that what we might expect under the world’s rules.

All three readings today bear out the truth of this basic principle. In our first reading from the Book of Genesis, Abraham and Sarah give of themselves by offering hospitality to strangers. They do not expect repayment but they receive from God something more important than the food they have offered to strangers; they receive the gift of life as one of the strangers foretells the birth of their son in the future.

All three readings today bear out the truth of this basic principle. In our first reading from the Book of Genesis, Abraham and Sarah give of themselves by offering hospitality to strangers. They do not expect repayment but they receive from God something more important than the food they have offered to strangers; they receive the gift of life as one of the strangers foretells the birth of their son in the future.

In our second reading from St. Paul to the Colossians, Paul regards service to others as a part of a loving God’s stewardship to all human beings. Paul understands that the mystery of God’s love is service. We receive in turn the abundant life of God, a life in which we receive in fuller measure we have provided. We come to understand that the joys of this life are not our possessions but we have done for others.

And finally in our Gospel, Jesus chides Martha for focusing on the parts of service that can be drudgery. He tells her the better part is dwelling on all that God has done for us. For everything we have comes from God; the air that we breathe, the material possessions we think we own. What we really do possess, and the only thing we ultimately possess is the love of a God who loves so much God shared humanity with us and offers to share divinity with God.

Unlike the economy of our country or any country, the economy of salvation is not run by the economic principles invented by human beings. In Christian terms, the greatness of any country is not measured by how much material wealth is generated or how callous a country can be to its poor, marginalized or unemployed or how many countries that country can invade. Greatness comes from the joy of giving; it comes from the joy of faith that whatever we give we will be repaid far more handsomely in the currency of grace that brings us peace in this life, and salvation in the next. Our country, whose birthday we celebrated a few weeks ago, was born and has been sustained by the individual sacrifice for the many.

Now these words all sound good. But how do give in order to receive? The answer can come to us at times from some very surprising sources. One day a young boy told his mother that he was going out to play for the day. His mother told him to be back before dark.

The little boy had not told his mother the whole truth about his intentions that day. For it was a Monday in summer and on Sunday the family had gone to church. The homily at Mass was about how God lived among us. The little boy had taken the homily just a bit too literally. So he decided he was going to travel to meet God.

The little boy had also heard that God lived in heaven, so he figured it would be a long journey. He packed his small suitcase with Twinkies and a six-pack of root beer. He slipped out the back door without his mother noticing what he was carrying.

When he had gone about three blocks, he met an elderly man. The man was sitting in the park just feeding some pidgeons. The boy sat down next to him and opened his suitcase. He was about to take a drink from his root beer when he noticed that the man looked hungry, so he offered him a Twinkie.

The man gratefully accepted it and smiled at the boy. His smile was so pleasant that the boy wanted to see it again, so he offered him a root beer. Again the man smiled at him. The boy was delighted! They sat there all afternoon eating and smiling, but they never said a word.

As it grew dark, the boy realized how tired he was and he got up to leave. But before he had gone more than a few steps, he turned around, ran back to the man, and gave him a hug. The man gave him the biggest smile ever.

When the boy opened the door to his own house a short time later, his mother was surprised by the look of joy on his face. She was curious about the suitcase and asked him, “What did you do today that made you so happy?

He replied, “I had lunch with God.” But before his mother could respond, he added, “You know what? God’s got the most beautiful smile I’ve ever seen!

Meanwhile the elderly man, also radiant with joy, returned to his son’s home where he now lived. The elderly man had many of the ailments of old age that had taken their toll on the old man’s outlook on life. So his son was stunned by the look of peace on his face and he asked, “Dad, what did you do today that made you so happy?”

He replied, “I ate Twinkies in the park with God.” However, before his son responded, he added, “You know, he’s much younger than I expected.”

Brothers and sisters, we can sometimes forget that God walks and speaks to our world through each one of us. When we realize the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, we realize that God really does live among us. He lives in us and others.

So give in order to receive. And if it gets tough, think of the little boy and the old man.  Ask the Lord for help.  After all, He gave more than anyone.  And look what we can receive if we follow Him.

Greater Intimacy with God

We celebrate Trinity Sunday tonight (today). There is an old joke among Catholic clergy we wind up preaching more heresy about the Trinity than just about any other concept.

Part of the reason is the idea of three persons in one being seems odd to us. But if we think about it, there are actually many examples in the universe of multiple organisms attached to a single body. There is a legend after all; that St. Patrick taught the Irish about the Trinity by showing them the three leaves on a single stem of clover. There are many branches, but only one tree. Cells by the billions divide with one body. So maybe when we preach about the Trinity we just try too hard. Instead of seeing the Trinity or things like it in the universe, we focus too much on the literal. It reminds me a little of that old commercial for Contadina tomato paste. The commercial claimed that there were eight great tomatoes in that little bitty can. But only theologians I guess when confronted with this would actually try to stuff the eight tomatoes into the can literally.

So why is the Trinity important? Well from the dawn of human life, why we are here, what and who is God, and what is the relationship between God and ourselves are three of the oldest questions with which human beings have had to grapple. We have often been taught that the divine world and the world of humans were distinctly different. Humans could not share the life of the divine in this life, only in the next.

But despite the fact that Christians may believe this to be true, it is a distinctly un-Christian point of view. For Christians believe there is but one God, and God is a God of love. God created the earth as a gift of all gifts, a gift of love by God the Father for God the Son. The Holy Spirit proceeded from that incredible love, an incredible love that spread  throughout universe, throughout the earth. The Holy Spirit is a spirit of truth and love as noted in our Gospel from John tonight. As our first reading from the Book of Proverbs reminds us, we come to know God as a God of truth and love through the Holy Spirit. Three persons in one God, the Trinity, was present from the beginning of time.

But for the Trinity to matter to us, we must go deeper into this idea because there is much at stake. Because God is an all-loving God, God beckons us to share the life of the Trinity. God wants us to live God’s life, the life of Jesus, the Gospel life.

So God shares divinity with us. Think about it. The Trinity at its very basis is relational love. And how is life preserved among humans? Through relational love. When we think about it, this relational love of humans and the relational love of the Trinity are directly and intimately linked, much as God and humans are directly and intimately linked.

This means that unlike pagan theology, secular humanism, and many other belief systems, all of which have perhaps captured a piece of the mystery of God and humans, the Christian belief in God captures the relationship between God and humans in a most effective way. We are one with God. God is a Trinity, and the means for the continuation of the human race is also a trinity. God is very close to us and we can be very close to God if we so choose. We experience God not as object, not as a faraway distant god separated from us. Rather, God is in our midst. As St. Paul says in our second reading God has poured out his loved for us through our hearts. So how do we experience God’s Trinitarian love?

First, because of the loving nature of God, who desires the closest of intimacy with us, God is closer to you and me that we are to ourselves. God is one with us. God dwells in us, as part of our being that can be filled, if we choose, by prayer, sacraments, Scripture and service with the Trinity of God who brings us into union with God. This unity is a union of wills, something comparable to the experience of sexual oneness, but it is a  union of divine and human bodies that is even more intimate than sexual oneness among humans.

Second, we should always keep clear in our minds and hearts that God loves us. His love is unconditional. God cares for us at all times and in all circumstances. God loves me and you as God loves God. For we are indeed one in self with God. Does this mean evil things will not happen to us or to others? No it doesn’t mean that. We have seen enough natural and man-made disasters lately to know better. Here the mystery of God takes over.

The ultimate knowledge of good and evil belongs to God in the Trinity, not to us. What we can understand however, is what we humans should be DOING about suffering and evil. In the face of many evils, we should use the gifts of God poured out to us in the Trinity to do things like using science and technology to predict earthquakes, to build houses that do not collapse, to construct dikes to prevent flooding, to save water to mitigate against drought. Our own social justice efforts here at St. Hubert are actively seeking the best means to help in respecting the dignity of the human person and our physical environment, to make poverty history, to help dismantle structures of oppression, to promote cooperation between business and government so man-made disasters don’t occur in the first place, to share with all in the common good created with God in the Trinity.

Third, because God’s interrelational love is personal, God is a subject not an object. God is the universal subject. In trying too hard, sometimes theologians over the centuries have indeed done damage to ideas about the Trinity, far more damage than stuffing tomatoes in a can. For the Trinitarian God is not a God for who torture, killing, and oppression is justified. The Trinitarian God is not a  punishing judge. The Trinitarian God is not the great egoist who imposes the will of God on everyone. Nor is the Trinitarian God an all-powerful manipulator who sends us earthquakes, floods, and other disasters. God in three persons is rather a loving universal subject and we are born in God’s image and likeness. We are therefore part of the same subject, and share in the same Trinity.

And because God loves human beings so intimately, God wants us to love each other in the same manner. It should come naturally out of a joyous sense of the love God gives us.  Sadly, it often does not. To love others requires first that we love ourselves for if we do, then loving others is much easier. If we see ourselves as subjects who are loved by God with all our faults, then it reduces the chance we will see others as objects to be manipulated, punished, tortured, and killed. Putting oneself in another’s shoes is critical here. For it enables us to establish subject to subject relationships. It is enables us to develop the kind of intimacy with others that God has in the Trinity of persons, and with us. When we see everyone as a subject, not an object, it is possible to bring Trinitarian-level intimate love given to us to the whole world. We are all one flesh. Whatever we do to anyone, we do to God. And what is best for everyone is best for us.

Taken in its entirety, the message of the Trinity in Christian faith is both challenging and ultimately joyful and liberating. It is also the ultimate meaning of God’s love poured out for all through the Trinity.

The Incredible Power of Jesus’ Divine Mercy

Today we celebrate the Second Sunday of Easter. Our late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II designated the Sunday after Easter Sunday to be Divine Mercy Sunday. Prayers for the intervention of Jesus’ Divine Mercy in human affairs are emphasized. There are many such prayers, most notably the Chaplet of Divine Mercy. This prayer was given by Jesus to Sister Maria Faustina, a Catholic nun who lived in Poland in the first part of the twentieth century. The Church promises that those who pray the Chaplet and receive the sacrament of Reconciliation will receive extraordinary graces. The Chaplet is prayed here at St. Hubert’s on Saturday mornings. All of you are welcome to join us.

God’s mercy is an active mercy. We need only look to our readings this (evening)(morning) to see the powerful effects in the early Church of God’s Divine Mercy. In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, the apostles overcome fear and doubt by healing the sick and driving out demons. Once wracked by doubt and fear when Jesus walked among them, the Resurrection and Pentecost had given them the courage to receive and practice Jesus’ Divine Mercy.

In our second reading we also see the apostle John paralyzed by fear and doubt. John is describing a revelatory encounter with Jesus. This encounter comes at the end of his life when he was in political exile and hard labor on the punishment island of Patmos. John’s revelation frightens him. Jesus responds in John’s revelation with His ever-present Divine Mercy. He reminds John, as he reminds all of us through this Scripture passage, that God has been and always will be with His people. His response to John’s fears and what John believes will be the doubt of his readers is simple but incredibly powerful: “Do not be afraid.”

Finally, in our Gospel from John, we have the classic story of doubting Thomas. Here Jesus’ Divine Mercy goes the extra mile. All that Jesus has done for the Apostles is not enough for the apostle Thomas, Thomas does not believe Jesus has risen from the dead. Seized by fear and doubt in the aftermath of the Crucifixion, he demands a private revelation.  Jesus’ love for his disciples leads Him to appear to Thomas. He offers His Divine Mercy to Thomas with the words “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed.”

For us, Jesus’ Divine Mercy can be just as powerful in overcoming our own doubts and fears. For Jesus’ Divine Mercy is a mercy that not only has as its root charity and forgiveness but also the key element of a change of heart in us that enables us to both receive and accept forgiveness and mercy. In this regard, I offer this story for your consideration.

The country of Rwanda is a small central African country of about eight million people. About 99% of the population belongs either to the Hutu tribe (about 85%) or the Tutsi tribe (about 14%).  The country was a Belgian colony and is overwhelmingly Catholic, whether one is of Hutu or Tutsi background.

 

For much of Rwanda’s history, the two major tribes have had a difficult relationship. In 1994 a radical Hutu faction overthrew a coalition government and implemented a horrible genocide against the Tutsis.  Out of a population of eight million, 800,000 were slaughtered. Whole families were frequently hacked to death by machetes, swords and just about anything else on which Hutus could get their hands. Bodies lay in latrines and fields all around Rwanda. Even Catholic priests and nuns participated in the massacre, sometimes taking in fleeing Tutsis on the promise of sanctuary, and then turning them over the Hutus. Many other Catholic priests and nuns who refused to participate or were of Tutsi background were slaughtered as well.

The radical Hutu government was overthrown after a few bloody months and replaced by a new government of national reconciliation. But how to deal with the horrific massacres and their social and economic aftermath was and is a question the Rwandan government has grappled with ever since.

Responding to Pope John Paul II’s special devotion to the power of Jesus’ divine mercy, Catholic Relief Services has for a number of years now been promoting reconciliation and peace among the people of Rwanda. CRS staff had themselves been killed in the massacre, and the CRS presence in Rwanda had been devastated. In 1998, to prepare for the Great Jubilee Year of 2000 in the Catholic Church, the Rwandan bishops and CRS instituted a series of peace and justice commissions. Thousands of leaders have trained by CRS and the Rwandan dioceses to facilitate the work of the commissions. The commissions urged those who were responsible for the massacres to come forward and seek repentance, and those who were victims were called to forgive them.

Remarkably, neighbors who had lived side by side and then were caught up in the massacre on both sides began to visit each other. Jesus’ Divine Mercy was showered on the people of Rwanda, and Rwandans began to shower that mercy on each other. Throughout the country, because of the trust CRS and the Church still had, men and women confessed to brutal killings and lootings. All were required to ask for forgiveness in public and then visit the homes of survivors and ask for forgiveness directly.

To be sure, the process is not perfect. Nor is it a complete substitute for traditional punishment of such horrific crimes. But what is most remarkable is the reconciliation that HAS occurred. The killers and those who had family members have in some instances become friends. Jesus’ Divine Mercy is clearly present in many of the accounts.

For example, one woman named Drocella, a Tutsi, was separated from her children during the genocide. They stayed at home while she left to do errands in a nearby town. When the genocide began, Drocella returned home as quickly as she could. By the time she arrived, her eight children were dead. They had fled to their Hutu godfather’s home. They had hoped he would protect them. Instead, he gave them up to the killers. Drocella also lost several extended family members in the genocide. However, in the intervening years only one person came forward to confess and ask forgiveness, a man named Philippe. Her journey to forgive started much like the others. She recalled:

“After the genocide, I found myself alone. Everyone around me had died. I said, “Why don’t I go back to church and pray so that I can live again? My heart was very dark and broken. The priest encouraged me and others like me to forgive. I said, “I can’t go through this business of forgiving because of this man Philippe. I see him here. He was the first one to work with us in the church, to help the poor, to do all of the church activities which brought us together. But he was also the first one to kill my people.”

“So every time they started talking about the commission, I felt like my heart was ready to burst. It was heavy, and I wouldn’t get the message. But there was a very dynamic priest here. When he came to my parish, I would bend my head, because I knew why he came. He was coming to tell us to forgive. After the Mass, the priest would walk around and ask, “Where is she? Where is she? I would say, “Why is he looking for me? I lost all my people; my heart is almost going to burst; what does he want me for?

“The Word of God was very helpful to me. My heart is no longer as heavy as it used to be. I felt relieved and then I told one of the people who came to teach us, “You know I think I am going to forgive. I feel ready to forgive.”

Remarkably, through the power of Jesus’ Divine Mercy, and the human dignity work of CRS, Rwandans are the first people in human history to rebuild a nation composed of the perpetrators of genocide and the surviving victims. They still have a long way to go. But if people, brothers and sisters, who once killed each other in cold blood can now reconcile, and seek and provide forgiveness and mercy, cannot we also do so in our families, in our community, and in our world?

Brothers and sisters, let us all reflect on the lessons of Rwanda. Let us pray that we may all overcome our fears and doubts about Jesus’ Divine Mercy. May we practice an active mercy in our own lives, one that reflects Jesus’ Divine Mercy, a mercy that is a signpost on the road to salvation.

Jesus, the Ultimate Gift

The celebration of the solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord brings the Christmas season to its liturgical end. The deeply symbolic act of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus is one of the Biblical proofs for the sacrament of Baptism, which we share with Jesus. This act of the Baptism of the Lord is a fitting end for the Christmas season. Jesus’ entered into the world at Christmas, and His baptism at the earliest stages of his public life show us that not only did God show up on this earth, he beckoned us through Baptism to join Him in a new lifestyle. This lifestyle is one of loving God and loving others. It is the critical means of salvation for all of us.

But enough theology for one Mass. By now, as we know all too well, the Christmas season will be over for us in different ways, ways that we might indeed be glad are over.  Let us review the “can’t miss” rituals:

There was the joy of stringing lights and trying to get them to flash, leading to back pains, pulled muscles, and lights that devilishly flash when you hold them in your hand, and then refuse to when you put them on the tree;

There was the obsession over ornaments, how many, what kind, and how they hang from the tree, trying to balance their display on the tree only to have them fall off the tree when someone walks by;

As we go shopping, there was the joy of finding for a parking place, only to have someone else dive in front of you and snap it up, while you have to settle for a parking place a half a mile further away;

There was the joy of standing in a long line to be checked out after you have found that “perfect gift.”  As you get close to being able to pay for your purchases, the person in line in front of you is trying to buy something for which there is no mysteriously no price, leading to more delays as beleaguered clerks call for help that usually does not come.

There was the joy of holding a very fragile gift in your hand as someone’s unattended children about half your height dash right in front of you as you seek to get on an escalator.

And last but not least, as you leave the mall parking lot to go home, you discover three parking places very close to the stores you just left.

Brothers and sisters, while all this was going on, the ultimate perfect gift was  standing in front of us, there all along. No, it is not shopping on the Internet. It is the gift of Jesus Christ.

In our Gospel today, as John the Baptist was baptizing Jesus as well as others in the Jordan River, he reminds people that “one mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals.”  It is hard to imagine truer words ever being spoken.

One of the greatest joys we have as Christians is the reality that our God loved us so much that He pierced the veil between heaven and earth so that he could be with us.  But Jesus as God and man did not come into our world because He was curious about us.   He came into the world to conquer sin and death.  He gave us everything we have. He showed us how to live. He showed us the means to follow his example and conquer sin and death ourselves.  He opened the gates of heaven, and blazed a trail for us so that we could get there, too.

Even when we fail, when we reject Him, He beckons us through prayer and the sacraments to get ever closer to Him.  And he forgives us, over and over again, desiring above all else that we be with Him.  He is with us always. He watches over his flock, as the prophet Isaiah says, feeding us and gathering us in His arms.

This brothers and sisters is the ultimate gift because, as St. Paul says in our second reading, it is so undeserved.  Despite our flaws, throughout history, Jesus has worked with people whose flaws were obvious to build up the communion of saints and the Body of Christ.

This patience with people, which I wish I had sometimes, is based on the Lord’s desire that none of us should perish but rather come to repentance.  Paul obviously understood this well. He, like many of the great saints, reject Jesus’ gift for many years of their lives.

How did Jesus respond to this rejection?  He forgave Paul. He went to extraordinary lengths, as He does for all of us,  to ask this very ordinary, flawed man to do extraordinary things in founding the Church and spreading the message of the Gospel life to all corners of the earth.  The rest, as we say, is history.

But Jesus’ undeserved gift is at work in our own time too. I share with you this morning a classic example of this. In 1923, a boy by the name of Joseph Whalen was born. He was the oldest of seven boys in a poor family that lived in the seafaring town of Quincy, Massachusetts. At the age of thirteen, Whalen was offered the chance by an uncle who was a bishop to enter study for the priesthood.  He said no without giving it much thought.  Like many of us, it was easy not to bother with the gift of Jesus Christ.

As he grew older, he began digging clams for a meager living. There he began to learn to drink with professional clam diggers.  It was a hard life. He began to drink more and more.  He also developed a two pack a day cigarette habit,  Camels straight up, with no filters. With his body still young and vigorous, he survived these habits and joined the Navy and eventually learned to be a pharmacist.  Often, he used his learning to make five-gallon jugs of instant gin out of ingredients for cough medicine. It was a clever way to serve his drinking habit and those of others.  The young man suffered blackouts, the “shakes,” and other classic symptoms of alcoholism.

After leaving the Navy, Whalen got married and had children in spite of his alcoholism.  He took on a high stress sales job, which only made his drinking worse.  His children were afraid to bring friends home.  His wife was constantly apologizing for him, as he staggered around and became increasingly obnoxious.  His marriage ended in bitter divorce, with all of his life savings swallowed up by a legal settlement.

But the Lord did not give up on Whalen. One day the man was introduced to a cloistered nun, who told him through her gift of knowledge from the Holy Spirit that he was going to become a priest. Whalen thought she had been wearing out more than just her Rosary beads.

And yet, she turned out to be correct.  When thinking about it further, tears streamed down Whelan’s face. Jesus’ amazing, one might say even stubborn, love reminded him of the offer he had been given more than thirty years earlier by his uncle.  Loaded down by guilt, anger, bitterness, and remorse, he was nonetheless rescued.  The nun’s friends recommended to him a recovering alcoholic priest.

For five years, this priest and others helped Whalen on a very difficult road to recovery filled with setbacks and eventual triumph.  Whalen finally accepted the freely given gift of the presence of Jesus in his life. He forgave himself and those who had hurt him over the years.  Through the prayers of many, he is a recovering alcoholic and he even kicked his smoking habit.

As his prayer life deepened, he began to have visions of God calling him again and again to the priesthood. He began to move toward God.  After receiving an annulment from the Church, Whalen was ordained a priest in 1989 at the ripe young age of 66. He had a flourishing ministry working with alcoholics.

Brothers and sisters, each day this week, as we stoop to undo the modern-day equivalent of our own sandal straps, let us think about the Baptism of the Lord, and our own Baptism. Let us think about the ultimate gift of Jesus.  We have a choice. We can chase after material gifts, with their fleeting joy and the tortured rituals that comes with getting them.  Or we accept the ultimate gift of Jesus: His joy, His peace, and the blessed assurance of eternal life. This is a gift that keeps on giving, not just during the Christmas season but always and forever.  Which gift will we choose?

Joy Amidst Despair

We celebrate today (tonight) the Third Sunday of Advent. In Church liturgies, this Sunday is also known as Gaudete Sunday. It marks the halfway point of Advent, a time when we continue our process of waiting for the Lord through greater commitment to prayer and reconciliation for the anniversary of the coming of the Lord at Christmas. The hope we feel that our wait will soon be over is symbolized by the wearing of rose vestments.

The message of the readings this weekend is two-fold. First, do not be discouraged and fearful about your lives. Rather, be joyful for God will guard your hearts and minds and give you what you need. The second message complements the first. Jesus tells us in our Gospel from Luke that for all we have been given we must turn aside greed, selfishness, and corruption and instead share what we have been given for the building up of our families, communities and our world.

The two-fold message of our Gospel might seem particularly difficult this Advent. Our country is going through its worst economic times since the Great Depression. Millions have lost their jobs; the disparity between rich and poor in country has never been greater. People are losing their homes and their health insurance by the hundreds of thousands.

But it is not my intention to dwell on what makes us afraid and discouraged. Instead, I would ask that we focus on what the Lord has given to us all. I would like to be optimistic, so optimistic that you might think that in addition to my rose-colored vestments, I am seeing the world with rose-colored glasses.

Let me ask that you consider the following:

In spite of the world’s many problems, in 1900, the world’s economic output was about two trillion dollars. In 2000, it was $37 trillion. And even though that wealth is not well-distributed, technical and social engineering and the success of Catholic social justice teaching has made it possible for vast numbers of people to raise their standard of living to levels that could only have been dreamed about a few generations ago.

If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world.

If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the worlds wealthy.

If you and your loved ones own a computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who do.

If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than those who live in chronic pain and those who will die today.

If you have never experienced the fear of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 700 million people in this world.

As we celebrate Mass this (evening) morning, let us remember that we celebrate without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death. In having the freedom to worship God, we are more blessed than three billion people in the world.

The joy of reflecting on what we have, rather than on our suffering no matter how real should also be accompanied by the clear command of our Lord in our Gospel this morning to share our joy, spiritual and material with others. And so I also wish to share some very practical suggestions how we can share what we have with others.

If it bothers you that the town in which you live doesn’t allow a scene depicting the birth of Jesus, place a small nativity scene on your own front lawn or porch. If all of Jesus’ followers did this, there wouldn’t be any need for such a scene in the town square.

Instead of writing protest letters objecting to the way Christmas is being celebrated, write letters of love and hope to soldiers away from home. Many of them may be terribly afraid and lonely this year and anxious to see the face of Jesus in strangers.

Visit someone in the nursing home. You don’t have to know them personally. They just need to know that someone cares about them.

Instead of giving your children a lot of gifts you can’t afford and they don’t need, spend more time with them. Tell them the story of Jesus’ birth and why He came to earth. Hold them in your arms and remind them that you and Jesus love them.

Pick someone who has hurt you in the past and forgive him or her.

Give everyone you meet a warm smile. Sometimes it can literally save a life.

When you do shop for Christmas presents, be patient with the people who work there. Give them a warm smile and a kind word.

Don’t go Christmas shopping on Sunday. If the store didn’t make so much money on that day they’d close and let their employees spend the day at home with their families.

Support missionaries, the people who take Jesus’ love and the Good News of his message to those who have never heard of Jesus.

Buy some food and a few gifts for the poor and marginalized; give them to charities that believe in Jesus so that such food can be delivered to the less fortunate.

Consider an alternative Christmas, giving gifts on behalf of friends to their favorite charities.

Take your faith into the public square, fighting for the right to life at every stage of life, fighting for universal health care as a right not a privilege, protecting God’s creation, defending the rights of workers, putting the poor first, defending and advancing human rights, including economic and social justice, seeking peace and avoiding unjust wars.

Above all brothers and sisters remember what Jesus said so many times: “Do not be afraid.” If only we lived those words. Be confident that the Lord of love will give us what we need even if it is not always what we want. Putting the Lord and others first is a central message of Advent, laying the groundwork for that message in other seasons. Christianity is a wonderful faith, but only if we go out and live it, not just on Christmas Day, but every day of the year.