I NEED CHRISTMAS (AND SO DO YOU!)
By Robert Fontana
I shared a bedroom with two brothers, Francis (older) and John (younger). On Christmas Eve, we three Santa Claus believers were on high alert listening for any signs of St. Nicholas. I clearly remember one night when we almost jumped out of our pajamas believing we had heard the jingle of bells outside, signaling the arrival of Santa and his sleigh. We rushed to the window and scanned the sky for signs of Santa. (Can you guess which one I am in the photo below?)
I’m not sure when we learned that Santa was just a fun story and the gifts that showed up after Midnight Mass came from Mom and Dad. But in that transition, I learned that the real reason for the “Christ – Mass” at midnight was the birth of God’s beloved Son, Jesus. That story carried me for a while with a child’s faith. I said my prayers at night – Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be – and during every football game my brothers played in.
My child’s faith, which was basically the faith of my parents, was transformed into my own personal faith when I was in 8th grade. Mom and Dad had been having marriage trouble. Rather than going to divorce court, they went to a prayer meeting; and each had a personal experience of Jesus that changed their lives. Their transformation transformed me. Dad shared his faith with me, and I had a burning in my heart to know God’s love and friendship as he did.
That made all the difference in my high school years. I struggled with all the same adolescent issues that others did, e.g. self-esteem, friendships, siblings, parental approval, sexual discipline, girls, college, academic challenges, athletic challenges, and developing the coping skills to handle all the emotional issues that come with teen life. Faith in Jesus offered me a healthy way to manage these difficult emotions and saved me from “going off the deep end.”
Not so for some of my friends who did not have the experience of faith that I had and coped with teenage life by dabbling in drugs, drinking, and sex. By the time college came around, these ways of coping were ingrained habits that nearly killed them. Thankfully, some found a path towards sobriety and loving relationships later in life. I believe I was protected from a similar path by God’s grace, and the Catholic Christian friends that I was meeting through the high school retreat program called Search.
I learned early on that “I wasn’t good because I loved God,” to quote Fr. Richard Rohr, “I was good because God loved me.” And I needed God’s love and the love of friends to continue working at being good and doing good. That was true in my youth, and it is true today. Pastor Rick Warren, the founder of Saddleback Church, once said, “Under the right circumstance I’m capable of any sin and, so are you.” When I heard that, I said to myself, “and so am I.”
I need Jesus and a community of faith in my life to help me live a healthy, holy, humane life this side of heaven. In fact, this is one of the reasons for Christmas. Jesus, God’s beloved Son, born of Mary, came to give men and women a better way to live, as summarized in the Great Commandment: love of God and love of neighbor. In following the Jesus way of living, we get a taste of heaven before heaven. Not perfectly, not without pain and suffering. Yet, the path of faith, hope, and love, embraced as a way of life, does yield the fruits of the Spirit described by Paul in Galatians, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Wouldn’t that be a taste of heaven if we had these qualities as a pattern for our lives?
That brings me to Christmas. Jesus is the reason for Christmas, and his legacy of unselfish love of neighbor animates this time of the year even in its secular form. We see the evidence beyond the lights and glitter of commercial Christmas: family and friends laying aside hurts and grudges and gathering in homes for song and merriment; Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul volunteers collecting money, toys, and clothing for those in need; neighbors reaching out to each other with a plate of cookies or gingerbread; and strangers offering one another a cheery “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays.”
The power of Christmas to animate the culture was most eloquently expressed in Charles Dicken’s story A Christmas Carol.
Scrooge, arguing with his nephew Fred about Christmas, is emphatic that Christmas, because it has not made Fred a richer man, has done him no good. Here is Fred’s response:
“There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, — apart from the veneration due to its sacred origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that, — as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow travelers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, Uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”
I need Christmas, and so do you. “God bless it!”
PS: I’m the one wearing the goggles. Francis is sitting next to my dad. John is the little guy with the white shoes.
