Carrying the Christ Child

The traditional end of the Christmas season has come and gone with the Feast of the Epiphany yesterday. Upon reflecting on the season of Advent and Christmas, one of my favorite moments of this past season was the vigil Mass on Christmas Eve. We attended the 4:00 PM Mass as is our tradition and arrived at the church at about 3:00. I took my 16 month old out into the narthex before Mass to let her run around for a while (she has a difficult time sitting still for 2 minutes, much less 2 hours). As we were going back into the church to join the rest of our family, my pastor stopped me and asked if my wife and I would be willing to carry the baby Jesus statue from the church's Nativity in the opening procession. After a bit of discussion with Kari about what to do with the 5 kids as processed to the front of the church we decided to leave them in the capable hands of our 12 year old daughter. There were other families that we knew near them to keep an eye on them as well.


Kari and I headed to the back of the church where my pastor handed me baby Jesus. We stood there for a few minutes waiting for the opening processional song to begin. When the song began, I held the statue high over my head as we walked down the center of the church to the front, so that everyone could see. About half way down the aisle I was struck with the fact that I was carrying Jesus, the one we all worship. Not only was I carrying him, but I was holding him in such a way that all who were present could worship him as well. The thought gave me chills and I started to tear up as I walked down the center aisle.

Our Lord and Savior is much more than a statue. All too often we reduce Christ to a mere symbol or an ideal to strive for. While it is right and noble to strive to live up to the ideals that Christ lived out and symbolize for us, it is not enough. Christ, as a child in a manger or crucified on a cross, is not just a symbol. He is not just an ideal to strive for. Christ is living, present, and real. We cannot live up to the ideals he set for us through his birth, ministry, passion, and death until we realize this.

We are called to be Christ-like. However, we need to enter into a relationship with Christ in order to do this. Reading the bible and understanding the teachings of Christ is not enough. I can know all about a particular person in history that I admire, but in order to truly become like that person that I admire, I have to know him or her. You can read the bible cover to cover and every book about Christ that has ever been written. What you will end up with is a lot of knowledge about the person of Christ. But, it is not until you enter into a personal relationship with him through prayer and the sacraments that you can truly become Christ-like. Knowing about Christ is not the same as knowing Christ. We need to know him in order to be like him.

Are You Ready for Christmas?

Christmas is coming next Saturday. Being a father of 5, those who know me ask if my wife and I are ready for Christmas. They want to know if we've been able to do all the shopping, all the gift wrapping, all the preparing for Christmas morning. My response has been, "We're getting there. We've got most of the shopping done and have a few last minute gifts to buy."  We've even been able to wrap a few of the presents instead of waiting to do it all on Christmas Eve, like we've done in the past. We are actually ahead of schedule. So, it looks like we're ready....or are we?

Are we really ready for the birth of our Lord and Savior? That's the question we should be asking each other. That's how I should have been responding to the question of whether or not we're ready for Christmas. Are we ready to receive Christ into the world, and into our hearts? That is a more difficult question to ask, and answer. Amidst the craziness and chaos of the holiday season, many of us (myself included) have lost sight of preparing our hearts for Christ. Am I ready to receive Jesus? Do I really know and understand that God the Father loves me? These are the questions we should be asking this time of year (or, rather, all year long!). We need to be less concerned with gifts and parties and shopping and more concerned with preparing our own hearts to receive the Father's love. I, personally, have not done a very good job at doing that this Advent season.

We've got a week left. I've got a lot of work to do to get ready for Christmas. The Church gives us four weeks of Advent to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Lord, and I'm trying to cram all that work into one week. With God's grace, it can be done. I need to get ready for Christmas. And next year, when someone asks me if we're ready for Christmas, I'm not going to answer with the progress we've made on our shopping lists, but rather with the progress I've made with preparing my heart to receive the Lord.

(cross-posted at Catholic Dads)