Seasons of Grace

Pope Benedict XVI, in addressing the College of Cardinals and the Roman Curia today, offered a pretty sobering year-end status report about the Church in Europe.

The Continent, he warned, is facing an ethical crisis which has been fueled by an economic and financial crisis. Most importantly, Europe is facing a crisis of faith.

As evidence of that faith crisis, the Pope cited the diminishing number of churchgoers and their increasing age, the decline in the number of vocations to the priesthood, and the rise of skepticism and unbelief.

“If we find no answer to this,” he warned, “if faith does not take on new life, deep conviction, and real strength from an encounter with Jesus Christ—then all other reforms will remain ineffective.”

Not to say that there wasn’t some hopeful news.

• Initiatives emanating from the Vatican included the newly instituted Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization, and the Year of Faith which will begin in Fall 2012.
• The Church in Africa is growing rapidly—as noted during the Pope’s recent visit to Benin.
• And World Youth Day showed a vigor and a sense of solidarity among young people in the Church. The noteworthy characteristics of this more youthful form of Christianity, Pope Benedict explained, include:

1. A new experience of catholicity, of the Church’s universality;
2. A new way of living our humanity, our Christianity, in a spirit of service to others;
3. A profound spirit of adoration, most evident during Mass and exposition of the Blessed Sacrament;
4. A renewed interest in sacramental Confession, “which is increasingly coming to be seen as an integral part of the experience” of World Youth Day; and
5. An active sense of joy.

In contrast with this is the selfish attitude which is too common in the secularized Western world. Pope Benedict explained this selfishness by citing the Scripture story of Lot’s wife who, after disobeying God and looking behind her, was turned into a pillar of salt. “How often,” Pope Benedict reflected, “the life of Christians is determined by the fact that first and foremost they look out for themselves, they do good, so to speak, for themselves. And how great is the temptation of all people to be concerned primarily for themselves; to look round for themselves and in the process to become inwardly empty, to become ‘pillars of salt.’ ”

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Sometimes the news is so painful, you just don’t want to know.

A few days ago, I wrote about tiny Melinda Star Guido who, at four months old, is finally healthy enough to go home for the holidays. Melinda weighed only 9 ½ ounces at birth, and doctors really didn’t expect her to survive. She was a fighter, though, and after successful treatment for an eye condition and surgery to repair an artery, Melinda faces a bright future.

But today I read about another tiny child, Joseph Bradbury. Joseph, who was born at 23 weeks, was a little bigger than Melinda—he weighed 1 lb. 6 oz. at birth.

Joseph’s parents, Scott and Sarah Bradbury, had been trying to start a family for ten years; but Sarah was facing a medical condition, and every time she became pregnant, she miscarried. In fact, Sarah suffered eight miscarriages before giving birth to her “miracle baby boy” in August.

Beating the odds, baby Joseph has thrived in the care of his loving parents.

But now the bad news: Scott and Sarah live in Portland, near the English Channel in the county of Dorset, in the United Kingdom. Last week they attended an Advent reconciliation service at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Weymouth, intending to go to confession before the Christmas holiday.

Talking about his wife later, Scott reported, “Just as she went into confession she gave me a cheeky smile.” Sarah walked into the confessional alone; but as she was telling Father Stephen Geddes how well her premature baby Joseph was doing, she began to feel ill and collapsed. A doctor who was present for the penitential service tried to resuscitate her until paramedics arrived; but Sarah died in the hospital from an undiagnosed gastro-intestinal bleed.

Little Joseph, the miracle baby, made Sarah very happy in his short life—but now, he and his father Scott face life without Sarah. “All Sarah wanted to do,” said Scott, “was to become a mother.”

Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.

For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

-Isaiah 55:8-9

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Alas, 2011 has been the year of “Happy Holidays.”

In my circle of family and friends, people still invoke the Lord’s blessing as they sit down to eat, still say “God bless you” when someone sneezes.

It’s almost possible, barricaded in the dining room with the people I love the most, to forget that outside my door, it’s a different story—that for many, the season that reaches its zenith on December 25 is about rank commercialism, and not at all about Jesus.

But this year, when I hit the mall or drive down a city street, I have a sense that something’s missing.

• Where are the sparkling lights that used to cover every home on the block? Now in my neighborhood, maybe one in ten houses is festooned in lights. Are people too busy or, like my atheist neighbors next door, have they simply ignored the glorious feast we celebrate in just a few days?
• Where are the hymns and carols that blasted from speakers in the mall, encouraging tired shoppers to press on in pursuit of the perfect gift? I remember hearing the strains of “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful” ad infinitum when I was younger; this year, the shopping center plays the same old rock music from which I’ve taken flight the rest of the year.
• Where is the “Merry Christmas” greeting that was standard in bygone days? Today, store clerks and waitresses say “Happy Holidays!” or, even worse, “Have a Nice Day.” At McDonald’s they topped that: “Have a Wonderful Day!” said the server, just three days before the holiest of silent Nights.

I fear that we’re seeing just a glimpse of a societal capitulation, and that in the future Christmas will be relegated to the churches, while increasing numbers of business establishments simply ignore the holiday for fear of offending a non-believer.

The affront against Christmas comes from more than one source.

Earlier this month Lisa De Pasquale, reporting in Human Events on “How Walgreens Stone Christmas and Got Off Looking Like Snow White,” complained about Walgreens Drugs. The pharmacy chain, in its Thanksgiving weekend flyer, used the term “Holiday” 36 times but never mentioned Christmas, prompting one conservative organization to call for a boycott. “In other words,” Lisa wrote, “bring your money, but leave your icky Jesus-talk at the door.”

A friend recently sent me a video in which a radical Islamic cleric says, “Saying Merry Christmas is worse than fornicating, drinking alcohol, or killing someone.” I’m sure that the majority of followers of Islam would not support this Islamist extremism; but there is a common misperception that because some people do not follow the Christian faith, the majority of Americans who do must restrict their holiday greetings to hushed whispers.

And then there is the perpetually aggrieved Freedom from Religion Foundation. When the group Wisconsin Family Action erected a manger scene in the Wisconsin State Capitol rotunda, the Wisconsin-based FRF’s co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor expressed the group’s dismay in an article which appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal: “It’s distressing to me that we have a manger scene on top of all the religion at the Capitol. Every day it’s religion, religion, religion.” The Freedom from Religion Foundation is now planning its own “slightly blasphemous” Capitol nativity display celebrating the winter solstice.

In southeastern Michigan, where I live, the city of Warren has been in the news because the Freedom from Religion Foundation is demanding that an atheist banner be installed alongside the Nativity scene in Warren’s City Hall. The banner reads: “At this season of the Winter Solstice, let reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” The other side reads: “STATE/CHURCH: Keep Them Separate.”

And now, Catholic News Service has reported that the Capitol Christmas Tree, a 63-foot Sierra White Fir on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, includes a prominently displayed ornament which says “I ♥ President Obama” but includes no ornament readily visible to a person standing near the tree’s base that uses the word “Christmas,” or includes an image of the Nativity, or bears the name or image of Jesus Christ.

In these United States of America, where our Constitution guarantees the “freedom of religion” (and not freedom from religion), the 85% of citizens who follow Christ seem to be losing the battle in the public square, and with that, losing a joyful heritage. Christmas, that day when we fall in silent awe before the Babe in the manger, is in jeopardy.

We can’t let that happen.

From our family to yours: MERRY CHRISTMAS! And may the Babe of Bethlehem smile on you and grant you the peace of the season.

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It was only fitting.

Last week Pope Benedict XVI got to light that great Christmas tree, the “world’s largest” tree, on the Italian hillside….

So it was good that an excited little boy got to press the button to light the towering 82-foot Ukrainian spruce that marks the 2011 Christmas season at the Vatican.

And what a celebration it was—especially for the people of Ukraine, who had given this great 60-year-old tree to the Holy Father. They crowded into St. Peter’s Square, dressed in their national colors and carrying Christmas stars.

Earlier in the day, the Holy Father had received a delegation from Ukraine and had expressed his appreciation for the gift. “A Christmas tree,” he said, “is a significant symbol of Christ’s Nativity because, with its evergreen boughs, it reminds us of enduring life.”

“Over the centuries,” he continued, “Ukraine has been a crossroads of different cultures, a meeting point for the spiritual richness of East and West. By tenaciously adhering to the values of the faith, may it continue to respond to this unique vocation.”

At the tree lighting ceremony Archbishop Giuseppe Bertello, President of the Governatorate of Vatican City State, welcomed the leaders of the Church in Ukraine: His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, Major Archbishop of Kyiv-Halyc; Archbishop Mieczyslaw Mokrzycki of Lviv of the Latins, and Bishop Milan Sasik C.M. of the eparchy of Mukachevo of the Byzantine rite, as well as members of the Orthodox Church led by the Archbishop of Poltava and Myrhorod.

And then Archbishop Bertello was joined at the podium by the young boy, who had the honor of lighting the Vatican’s Christmas tree. Placed near the central obelisk in St. Peter’s Square, the tree is adorned with 2,500 gold and silver baubles. Kinda makes you think of this jolly tune from “Rudolph the Reindeer”—doesn’t it?

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In 1897 Francis Pharcellus Church, who had been a war correspondent during the Civil War, was working as an editor at The Sun, a prominent New York City newspaper.

In 1897 an eight-year-old girl by the name of Virginia O’Hanlon asked her father whether Santa Claus really existed. Her father—Dr. Philip O’Hanlon, a coroner’s assistant from Manhattan’s Upper West Side—encouraged her to write to The Sun to ask the question. “If you see it in The Sun,” he said, “it’s so.”

Francis Church answered Virginia’s letter—and he reached beyond the question to consider the deeper philosophical issue. His response, titled “Yes,Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” has touched hearts ever since.

In 1998,Virginia’s original letter was appraised on Antiques Roadshow at $20,000 to $30,000.

“DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
“Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
“Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

“VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
“115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.”

 

 

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now,Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

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