Pastor’s Note

The problem with the story of Christmas is that we know it by heart. We can tell it with our eyes closed.  Everybody knows the Bethlehem details.  We try to splash it up every season, to give it a new twinkle and meaning for another year.  But, what do we particularly need from Bethlehem this year?

When you ask a child to draw the story…new details start to emerge. Creatures and people start to appear in it that Luke’s story might have included if he’d consulted with our kids.  Memory is important.  I read recently that the problem is our “rememberer and forgetter are broken.”  Maybe “by memory” or “by heart” mean something different. By heart is to know something in your bones about the deepest things, the human aches and pains…we followers of Jesus have some opinions on these things. Bethlehem says them. 

“He has pitched his tent among us,” says the Gospel of St John. “And of his fullness we have a share…love following upon love.” I love to chant that.  It is the Gospel of Christmas morning instead of shepherds and manger and angels.  We are connected to a great mystery that brings the best out in human beings.  We have seen his glory.  That is the deepest thing that makes us stand out in the human community.  Mystics…We have seen something in the night sky and it gives us hope.

I love the line…”I don’t go to church anymore, Father. It is just a bunch of hypocrites.”  I, too, get frustrated with the Body of Christ on a regular basis.  I hear this complaint about hypocrites sometimes.  But around Christmas time people often put that complaint aside.  We treat each other better.  The only thing that makes us unique is the glory of an only son coming from the father—we bear a great secret.  We are accompanied and adored. There is one who has loved us.  EXACTLY AS WE ARE.  Exactly where we are. And he has decided to stay in our midst.

There is a story of an Arizona Sheriff who turned on his flashing red light to stop a motorist who was going a little too fast. The driver didn’t notice the flashing signal, but his daughter did.  She exclaimed, “LOOK DADDY, A CHRISTMAS TREE IS FOLLOWING US.”  That is the message we take into the new year of 2017.  A Christmas tree, and with it a call to star light, a call to be God’s children, and a call to brotherhood and sisterhood of all creatures and people of the planet.

From all the friars and staff of St Mary’s Basilica, warmest greetings and prayers for the new year come to you. Gratitude to all who gave so much to bring these tender days to life in our midst this year.  There is a Christmas tree following you!

A tender week,
Fr. Michael Weldon, OFM