As I was setting up our Nativity Scene last week, I
couldn’t help but notice how everyone and everything in our household is drawn
to the manger. My family loves to help
set it up, each of us with our favorite pieces, and for some strange reason, our
cats LOVE the Nativity Scene. Every morning
without fail, I find the telltale signs that our cats had spent the night in
and around the manger – pieces knocked over, straw tracked across the rug and cat
hair on Mary’s dress. Why should she be any
different from the rest of us? It seems
that both man and beast are called by God to come and adore him, and that’s the
message of today’s readings.
In our first reading, a faithful woman named Hannah returns
to the Temple after the birth Samuel to praise and thank God for the gift of a
son in her barrenness. Our psalm speaks
so beautifully of how our soul “yearns and pines for the courts of the Lord”
and how our “heart and flesh cry out for the living God.” And in our Gospel, we find the Holy Family on
a Passover pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem, where Jesus lingers a while
longer in his Father’s house. Together,
these readings teach us what we already know in our hearts: there’s something in our very being that draws
us to God.
Philosophy and Theology agree that “man is a
relational being.”[1] As Aristotle put it so succinctly, “man is by
nature a social animal.”[2] This fact is played out in our family
relationships, in our friendships, in our cultural and political structures and
in our associations through organizations and corporations. Why are we social beings? Well, we’re created that way. Our social nature comes from our creation in
the image and likeness of God, who is himself in relationship in the divine
Trinity. So “[t]he desire for God is written
in the human heart.”[3] We’re created to be in relationship with God.
As Saint John reminds us in our second
reading, we’re all children of a God who created us to share in his divine life. For this reason God draws close to man at
every time and in every place. He calls us
to seek him, to know him, [and] to love him with all our strength.[4]
Our relationship with God is our first and most
fundamental relationship. If our relationship
with God is disturbed, “then nothing else can be truly in order.”[5] So our relationship with God has to be
nurtured. It needs care and feeding
because we need care and feeding. And where
can we get that care and feeding? In prayer
and liturgy. Prayer, of course, “is the elevation
of the mind and heart to God in praise of his glory.”[6] Through prayer we enter into dialogue with
God, we share our inner most thoughts and concerns, and we listen for God’s
response. Liturgy is the work of the people
where we join together in fellowship as Christ our High Priest continues the work
of our redemption through the celebration of the Paschal Mystery. In liturgy we’re nourished by God in his Word
and in the Eucharist. In prayer and
liturgy, we respond to God’s call to come and adore him. Through prayer and liturgy we receive all that
we need to live in wonderful relationship with God and with each other.
Unfortunately, we don’t always take the time to pray
and to go to Mass. We’re too distracted
and too busy. This problem has become so
severe that today only about 30% of people regularly attend religious services.
In my opinion, that sobering statistic explains
many of the problems we face today because when our relationship with God is neglected,
then everything else in our lives becomes disordered. When our relationship with God is set aside like
the latest toy in which we’ve lost interest, we become spiritually anemic, we
become slaves to a routine of drudgery, and we give little thought or care to
the true meaning of life and our purpose in it. Worse yet, we lose hope.
As if that weren’t bad enough, we’re raising a
generation of children who’ve never set foot in a Church. The sad fact is that a day will come when those
poor children will face the challenges of this life without their parents to
shelter them, and they’ll think that they’re all alone. Without a relationship with God, they’ll stand
hopeless in the face of sickness and death, and they’ll never find the truth and
happiness they yearn for because they were never taught that truth and
happiness can only be found in God.
Fortunately, there’s good news because with God there’s
always good news. The good news is that
God never stops calling us. God never
stops trying to be in relationship with us. You may have noticed that the Church was a
little more crowded than usual on Christmas. Well, before we condemn the infrequent fliers
who fill the pews just a few times a year, let’s congratulate them for
listening to God’s call and welcome them home to God’s house. I love a packed Church, even if it happens
only once or twice a year, because it’s proof that God never stops calling us
to come and adore him. And when we do
come, we advance in the wisdom and understanding that we’re never alone. God is with us, and that, of course, is the
message of Christmas.
Readings: 1 Samuel 1: 20-22, 24-28; Psalm 84; 1 John 3: 1-2, 21-24; Luke 2: 41-52
Click here for a moving rendition of O Come All Ye Faithful sung at Midnight Mass at the Vatican
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