Christmas Hope

O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature

And still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray,

That we may share in the divinity of Christ,

Who humbled himself to share in our humanity…

-Collect, December 25, 2016, Mass during the Day

When I was young in my Catholic faith, I often ignored the opening prayer of the Mass when it was prayed by the priest.  It was not intentional or meant in any disrespectful manner; it was the result of my lack of familiarity with all that takes place in the opening rites of the Mass.  But the collect is essential to the Mass.  *(I would argue that every word, rite, prayer of the Mass is essential)* 

I consider my father in faith to be Archbishop Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia.  While in Colorado, he made time to see me whenever he could.  He would often preach that if you wanted to understand the readings for the Catholic Mass, just go to the opening prayer and read it. 

Being Catholic is a struggle.  Being Christian is a struggle.  The struggle is trying to live virtuously.  Webster tells us that virtue is conformity to a standard of right or a commendable quality or trait.  For me, the discipline I try to adopt is to think of others more and myself less.  This sounds like a good practice but the reality is often more difficult.  Every day, I wake up and my body reminds me that it must be attended to.  I’m hungry.  I’m dirty.  I’m hot.  I’m cold.  I’m late.  I’m tired.  Virtue is undermined by human frailty (and, for me, some Oreos). 

Virtue, for me, is also undermined by desire.  Desire, by itself, is not a bad thing.  Desire is a deep attraction.  I speak often from the position of desire.  I desire good things for every person that I meet.  Because I desire good things for people, I often will say things that are true in the moment and very reflective of how I feel, but very difficult to follow through with.  I have friends (Jonah, Louis, Robert, Adam, and many more) that I explicitly tell them that I wish I could sit and have a beer and give but an hour with them.  More discernment would give me a better statement that reflects reality.  Moving to Alaska has made it difficult to make good on time commitments or at least expressions of commitment. 

Being Catholic is also my choice.  I choose it because hope is a virtue that I value.  Hope is the promise that there is something greater than me and that my life, despite my mistakes, eternity is a possibility because I am forgiven by God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  Catholicism is a faith tradition that is difficult because it has a book with stories that are thousands of years old.  Catholicism also has a book that a couple thousand paragraphs of the Church’s teaching.  There is a hierarchy and structure that reflects the wisdom of millennia.  These characteristics run counterculture it is neither vintage or new.  It appears to be restrictive of freedom.  Its ways are not “our” ways. 

Jesus is God.  God is love.  This teaching of the Church specifically gives me hope.  Jesus taught about the dignity of the person without regard to race, creed, or sexuality.  And thus, it is so that Christmas is sacred to me. 

I was speaking via Facebook Messenger with a friend who recently lost his father and I was lamenting on the loss of my sister many years ago.  He noted that time probably makes it easier.  I appreciated his words of comfort but I spoke of my grief differently.  I noted that my grief did not get easier with time but rather changes with time from sadness to heartfelt longing.  Because my hope subsists in the divinity of Jesus, the celebration of the nativity of Jesus marks the beginning of the manifestation of God’s precious promise that He will come to his people. 

I will fail in my Christian walk.  But Christmas is a time to renew our commitment to virtue.  For Catholics, it is a time to remember that God came to save us.  There is hope.