Keeping Christ in Christmas

On Saturday December 12, I walked ten miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) with about 135 other people in the 56^th Annual Christmas Peace Pilgrimage. I’m not certain when I started participating in this yearly walk, but I’ve been doing it at least since 2002 (I remember hearing the speaker listed for that year on their website). I have only missed a couple of the walks since that time.  We walk on the shoulder of Route 191 most of the way. Some drivers beep to show their support; others call out positive comments. This year, just before our first rest stop, one driver called out “I hope you’re keeping Christ in Christmas.” I guess, for some people, if they see a large group of people with signs that read “Peace”, they assume those folks must be liberals, radicals, or socialists and most likely atheists. If there had been time, we could have told him that the walk is sponsored by a lot of Christian churches and religious groups; that we stop at three churches along the way to rest and enjoy some refreshments; that we end the walk at the Central Moravian Church in Bethlehem, where we sing a couple Christmas carols. Here’s a picture of the group getting ready to move on from the second rest stop at First Baptist Church, which provided us with hot chocolate.

Every year when I get to the end of the walk my feet, legs and hips are hurting quite a bit and I wonder whether I should do the walk the next year. And as the date approaches for the next walk (2^nd Saturday in December), I wonder if I really want to put my body through that again. But, I always push those thoughts aside and head out for the walk. I do it for 3 reasons. First, more than 100 people walking down Route 191 just before Christmas carrying signs that read “Peace” is a good witness to the Christmas message of “Peace on earth, good will to men [and women]”. It was especially relevant this year with all the political talk about bombing ISIS and refusing entrance to refugees and all the fear being spread by some politicians. Second, as I walk, it is an opportunity to think about the importance of peace in our world and to consider ways that I can help foster that peace. Third, it is an opportunity to get together with others for whom bringing about peace is important. I always see people whom I recognize from previous walks. But there are also people participating for whom this is their first time doing the walk. During this year’s walk, I spoke with people I know and people I had just met. Here’s a link to the Christmas Peace Pilgrimage website. You can see pictures from this year’s walk by clicking on the Gallery link.

On Sunday, my wife Pat and I spent much of the day at the Christmas Market at Assumption Church in Morristown, NJ. This was another good Christmas season event. Pat had been asked by our friends, Sergio and Johanna Burani, to come to sell some of the books she has written. The catch? Vendors were asked to donate 50% of their profits to Africa Surgery. Sergio and Johanna are regular fundraisers for Africa Surgery and all the profits from Photos bySergio go to support Africa Surgery. Pat and I had read information about this charity on its website, so we knew that the organization helps coordinate surgery for children and adults living in Sierra Leone. On the website, we watched the video “The White Man on the Bicycle” about Tom Johnson, the founder. And at the end of the Christmas Market, we had the opportunity to talk with Tom about his organization. Tom had spent time in Sierra Leone as a Peace Corps volunteer. We usually think of Peace Corps volunteers as being right out of college. However, Tom told us he was 38 years old when he joined the Peace Corps. After leaving the Peace Corps, he returned to Sierra Leone a number of years later and at the end of his trip, he left some money to help a couple people obtain surgeries they needed. That was the beginning of a mission that has helped hundreds of people there. Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world and has been devastated by years of war. Tom showed us pictures of a child with a severe curvature of the spine related to tuberculosis. Untreated, this condition could result in paralysis. But, with the help of Africa Surgery, this young man will be able to lead a pretty normal life. Tom spends most of his year in Morristown, raising money and obtaining supplies for Africa Surgery. But he told us he spends 4 to 5 months a year in Sierra Leone, coordinating resources to provide the needed medical services. In fact, he told us he was leaving within the week to go there. Africa Surgery provides essential services to some very needy individuals. I like the idea of donating to a charity that I have a direct or indirect connection to. At the Christmas Market, Pat donated all of her profits to Africa Surgery. Although the Christmas Market is a relatively small operation, it raised $8000 for Africa Surgery. I encourage you to take a look at Africa Surgery’s website.

It’s now less than a week until Christmas day. We’ve done most of our shopping. Practically all the credit for that goes to Pat, who has spent a lot of time on-line ordering gifts, shopping in stores and wrapping gifts. While giving gifts to our loved ones is an important part of the season, I’m happy to have had the opportunity to spend some time thinking about the more spiritual aspects of Christmas and to be reminded that we are all God’s children and that Jesus came to show God’s love to all of us. Merry Christmas to all.

The Good Pope

I just finished reading the book The Good Pope by Greg Tobin. It is subtitled “John XXIII and Vatican II – the Making of a Saint and the Remaking of the Church”. A number of the actions and character traits portrayed in the book reminded me of our current Pope, Francis.

Angelo Roncalli, who later became Pope John XXIII, was born in 1881, in a town in northern Italy to a peasant farming family. Tobin writes “The Roncallis seldom even had bread, but made do with polenta (a dish made from corn meal). Despite this, they always had room at the table for one more.” As a boy, Angelo worked in the fields with his father. He went to the Bergamo junior seminary when he was 11 years old and, later in his seminary training studied at the Pontifical Roman Seminary. While still in the seminary, he and many of his classmates were drafted into the Italian army. After a year, he returned to the seminary. After his ordination, he returned to the Pontifical Roman Seminary to study Canon Law.

Later, he returned to Bergamo as secretary to the new bishop, Giacomo Radini-Tedeschi. Bishop Radini-Tedeschi had been involved with the Opera dei Congressi, an organization for social action groups. The bishop was a “firm believer in social justice and Catholicism as a spiritual force that could change the lives of the poor and less fortunate”. Radini-Tedeschi became Roncalli’s mentor.

In May1915, Italy declared war on Austria and Father Roncalli was once again called up to serve in the Italian military as a medical corpsman. He did both hospital orderly work and tended to the patients as a priest. In March 1916, all priests in the Italian army were made chaplains. He continued to serve in that capacity for the next 3 years.

In January 1921, he was appointed by Pope Benedict XV to oversee missionary work for the Vatican. In 1925, he was appointed apostolic delegate to Bulgaria and made a bishop. This was followed by diplomatic assignments in Turkey and Greece in 1934 and France in 1944. During these appointments, his diplomatic skills were very successful, probably because of his willingness to reach out and talk with the political and religious leaders of those countries, even those of different faiths. His efforts in this regard were not always in accord with the views of the Vatican, but he pursued them anyway. He also was very involved in charitable relief efforts in response to different situations in those countries.

In 1953, he was named the patriarch of Venice and made a Cardinal. Tobin writes: “The administration of a diocese and the thousands of demands on his time and attention were, to him, secondary to the primary task of tending to the spiritual needs of the people, ‘into which he flung himself with all the energy and ardor of his nature. He was, in fact, joyfully fulfilling a spiritual need of his own.’” Tobin also writes that “As in Paris, he did not shut himself away in his magnificent marble residence. Instead he spent a good deal of time in public, where he enjoyed traveling on the vaporetto, the water bus, rather than the Fiat provided him by the diocese.” And “He sold the patriarch’s summer palace to pay for a new seminary and used personal funds to support charities for the poor.”

John XXIII convened the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II). His intention was that the Council would address how the Church should interact with the modern world. Tobin writes: “The repository of belief that all Catholics shared, the pope said, ‘should be studied and expounded according to the methods of research and literary forms of modern thought.’” Although some previous popes had criticized “modernism”, John supported the humanistic values involved in modernism. Tobin continues: “This meant that historical and scientific studies of the Church and the Bible, in particular were welcome in John’s world; he wasn’t afraid to shed rational light on the mysteries of faith.  … the updating John had in mind was not merely window dressing or a useful slogan but a profound change in the way Catholics practiced their religion and viewed themselves and their Church.” Even though he died before the second of four Vatican II sessions, the Council he convened significantly changed the Church.

To me, John XXIII stands out from other recent popes because of his emphasis on people rather than on the rules and the institution of the Church. There were times before he was Pope when he acted in ways the Vatican powers would not have approved. And he used the resources of the Church to help people in need (e.g., those affected by natural catastrophes or war, Jews escaping from the Nazi regime). He also interacted with and reached out to religious leaders of different faiths and political leaders of different political views. He believed that we are all God’s children and was a big supporter of ecumenism. Pope Francis reminds me of Pope John XXIII in his emphasis on people, especially those who are in need, and his not embracing the finer things that usually come along with being a bishop, cardinal or pope. I remember reading in The Good Pope about John XXIII leaving the Vatican to visit people who were ill and in prison (although I was unable to find that specific passage in preparing this blog). I did find a reference in Wikipedia to his making visits to children with polio in some nearby hospitals and visiting a reformatory school for juvenile delinquents. He also visited the Regina Coeli prison. Here is a youtube video about that visit. The Wikipedia entry also refers to his “frequent habit of sneaking out of the Vatican late at night to walk the streets of the city of Rome.” Regarding Pope Francis, we have seen stories of him visiting the poor, ill and those in prison; even washing the feet of young people in a detention center during Holy Week. On his birthday, he had breakfast with 3 homeless men who live on the streets near the Vatican. It has also been reported that he will sneak out of the Vatican at night to visit homeless people. Just as John XXIII had a profound affect on the Church, it seems possible that Francis will “shake up” the Church with his emphasis on caring for the poor, ill, disabled, imprisoned, homeless, etc.

During this Christmas season, let us be thankful for the Good Pope, John, for his efforts to modernize the Church and his concern about people of all faiths and nationalities. And let us pray that our new Pope, Francis, will continue to direct the Church toward brotherly love for all people, especially those in need.

As I end this blog, my wish for all of you echoes the words the angels sang at that first Christmas and John XXIII used as the title of his last encyclical  – Pacem in Terris (Peace on Earth)!

Putting Christ in Christmas - 2012

If you were to ask me “What was your favorite month of Epistle readings at Sunday Mass?”, I would immediately answer that it was September 2012.  During that month, the second readings at Sunday Mass were from the Epistle of St. James.  Here are some samples:

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

“Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?”

“Come now, you rich, weep and wail over your impending miseries.  Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you; it will devour your flesh like a fire.  You have stored up treasure for the last days.  Behold the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts.”

“What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone says he has faith but does not have works. … If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, eat well,’ but do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?  So also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

The second readings at Sunday Mass usually don’t get a lot of attention during the homilies.  Typically, the first reading (Old Testament) and the Gospel reading share a common theme and it’s easier to focus on them in preparing a cohesive homily.  But I think the readings from St. James include very important messages.

During the Christmas season, we focus on God taking on human form, in the person of Jesus.  We celebrate that the Almighty came to earth and lived among us.  But, we can also look beyond that to a key theme of Jesus’s life.  God could have chosen to come among us in glory and majesty, born into a wealthy and influential family.  But he did not.  He was born in a manger, to a carpenter and his young wife.  The Holy Family fled to Egypt, to avoid the wrath of Herod.  During his public ministry, Jesus reached out to the poor and needy, healing the sick, the blind, the lame, the lepers.  He preached about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting those in prison and said that, when we have done this for the least of his brethren, we have done it for him.  He told the wealthy young man that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.  Certainly, as God and as a charismatic preacher, Jesus could have built an earthly empire and acquired much wealth, influence and power.  Instead he chose to give his life for us, dying on a cross between two common criminals.  He was a King, but his Kingdom was “not of this earth”.

At a time when the income gap between rich and poor keeps widening, when politicians argue about whether to cut social safety net programs that needy folks rely on (unemployment, Medicaid, heating assistance, the Women, Infants and Children program, etc.), let’s remember how our Savior lived his life and the things he preached about.  In thinking about how we deal with the problems of our society, let’s ask ourselves “What Would Jesus Do?”.

Have a very merry and blessed Christmas!