Christmas Birthday Plans

 

I called into a Catholic radio talk show the week before Thanksgiving, and mentioned to the call screener how I had noticed that the local Adoration Chapel was largely empty on Christmas Day last year, so I was planning on spending part of this Thanksgiving holiday in the Adoration Chapel, to personally give thanks to the provider of all our feasts, and I also mentioned that I’d provide dinner to people who had to work that day at my local 7-11.  I suggested the station air my comments for the consideration of others, which it did.  While I didn’t speak on the air (as I wished not to), the radio show host spoke favorably of my comments --- and mentioned my first name and city.  That was enough for a friend I hadn’t seen in a while to guess it was me, and get in contact.  It was another thing I had to be thankful for that day.

Another thing I did on Thanksgiving Day was to haul all my Christmas decorations up from the basement.  I will celebrate my 74^th Christmas this year, the 48^th in this house.  Some who know me would ask: “So, when are you going to wash the windows?”  (I am not a slob, but not a neatnik either.)  The artificial tree I assembled is showing its age, and I noticed an ornament dated 1980.  When I tested the lights, not a single strand lit, so I purchased all new ones.  Perhaps this might be my last year of hauling up all those containers.  I haven’t celebrated Christmas with friends around that tree in quite a few years.  If I’ve been in town, I’ve gone out to friends or, as this year, spent a goodly amount of time with the person whose birthday we celebrate, at His house.  That seems appropriate.  Perhaps next year I will purchase a smaller tree, to stand on a table in front of the living room window. It will also be easier to store and haul out each year.

In two of the containers I hauled up from the basement, I found the boxes of the Heritage Village Collection, hand-painted pieces shown below:

You can see, it is about a dozen pieces of the village, along with some characters, including Scrooge.  I think I’ve put those on my stairway landing each Christmas for about 30 years now.  Know anyone who’d like them?  This year I think I will just haul them back to the basement.  They remind me of A Christmas Carol, the wonderful play I saw performed at a local playhouse each year for many years, until Covid arrived.  I believe they are starting the play again this year, but I won’t be attending.  I will ease my cautions at some point, but not yet.

We received a smattering of snow in Michigan today.  With the outdoor Christmas lights and decorations already up around my sub-division, I can almost start to hum “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas …”  I’ve ordered most of the books I plan to give as presents, my usual gift to friends and neighbors, and their children.  And, for the most part, the books are about our Christian faith.  They may not get it in school or anywhere else, but the kids I gift will know whose birthday we celebrate that day, and why.  Now there’s just the wrapping, and shipping.  Oh, and then I have to write my annual Christmas letter, to enclose with the cards I send to long-time friends and relatives around the world, to let them know I am still here and what I’m up to now.  (I wonder if any read it?)

Well, that about summarizes my Christmas plans.  I’m sure yours are probably more involved.  Just remember whose birthday we celebrate that day, and plan to at least say Happy Birthday to Him. 

Retirement Planning

I believe that most Christians who “give my life to Christ” know that they have been given a unique purpose for their life.  Some wrestle with finding that purpose.  Some wrestle --- as I did --- with the parable of the talents: Am I using all the blessings God gave me to the maximum extent, to be who He created me to be?  But I believe that in general most Christians don’t wrestle very hard; not seeing a clear goal or victory in sight, they “just do the best I can”.  They accept the general statement “I try to be a good person,” as being good enough.  I might say they trust in God’s mercy, but they don’t really take the time to know Him, or His mercy.

The Gospels, the key lessons Jesus wanted to teach us and so the Holy Spirit-inspired authors wrote, only cover 10% of Jesus’ life, his last three years.  The other years were spent fulfilling His unique EARTHLY PURPOSE, as the son of Mary and Joseph.  Oh, He did grow in spiritual purpose also --- He had to be about His Father’s will in the temple --- but it was in His latter years, when He reached full maturity and completed His earthly purposes and began preaching and teaching a focus on ETERNAL LIFE, that are recorded as MOST important time in the Gospels.  In our lives, we call those latter years of our life a “retirement” from our key earthly purposes.  Why don’t we treat those years with the same importance that Jesus did?

It seems to me that many people treat retirement years as a time to get the most out of this earth before we die: the most experiences, the most enjoyment we can buy.  We save money for 90% of our life so we can spend it in that last 10%, spend it without worry.  Or some save so they can leave it to their children, so they don’t have to save (why not?).  They equate money with happiness; they want to end their life happy --- yet, strangely, will admit that money cannot buy happiness.  And, equally strangely, they will admit they can’t take the money with them, nor will they take the earthly experiences and enjoyments.  Christians have a large focus on preparing for retirement from their earthly obligations, but --- strangely, to my mind --- spend little time focusing on their heavenly eternal obligations.

Jesus spent the years, when He retired from His earthly obligations, focused on His heavenly obligations.  He lived out His retirement years focused on loving God and loving neighbor, to the best of His abilities.  And He attained heaven.  This was His example, so important it was recorded in great detail, on how we should live our retirement years.  Retirement years aren’t meant for closing down our earthly years with some kind of well-deserved reward, but for planning our heavenly years, the eternal reward for our lives.  Even as our youth was spent gaining strength and education to maximize the results of our earthly purposes, our retirement years’ new focus is meant to maximize the results of our heavenly life.  The final summation of who we become, spiritually, during this earthly life defines who we will become in our heavenly life.  That life will be our ultimate experience and enjoyment, far better than anything we can experience here.

So why not plan to maximize that?  As our earthly obligations wind down --- whether successfully or not --- why not focus on our spiritual obligations?

As Christians, we recognize we are body and spirit.  With Baptism’s grace, our “hearts” have both earthly and heavenly connections.  We’re supposed to grow both those connections, but the earthly connections are thrust upon us; the heavenly connections grow with our deliberate focus, they are not as forcefully given or noticed as our earthly experiences, but they are given.  The Church, the Sacraments, and the Bible are all like crutches to help our spiritual walk, until we can walk and run on our own.  We can always fall back on them, but when our hearts become focused on grace, on God’s will for us, we can go to the author of those supports directly.

Love God, and love your neighbor.  Remember them as you live your earthly purposes; you are not alone here on this earth.  But put a new focus on those words, make them your life’s focus, and you will be living your retirement years to their fullest, and with optimum planning for your eternal future.

In a class I’m taking, we recently spoke about the crises --- critical changes --- which occur in our lives, and how long it took to recover from the shock.  It varied from person to person, whether the death of a loved one, divorce, financial loss, or some other event took the longest to recover from.  No one mentioned aloud, however, what I wrote, nor did I.  I wrote that my death to self was the crisis which absorbed the longest period in my life, and still does.  “Putting on the mind of Christ” so “it is not I who live but Christ who lives in me” is no easy change in our life.

No one ever said preparing for eternal life was easy.  God Himself had to come to show us the way.  It just sounds easy, but you have to work at it.  I’ve found it helps if you get to know Him, and can talk it over with Him.  If you learn to listen, He’ll show you the way.  If you can die to self, He’ll fill your heart with His heart.  And you’ll not look back with any regrets over earthly experiences you had or didn’t have, but look forward to future experiences with Him

My Jesus, I trust in You.

20-20 Vision

During this Christmas Season, I have had some thoughts about time. (No, read that again:  I did not say “it’s about time I had some thoughts”.)  Strangely, I thought of Christ’s birth in terms of calendar time. Although the calendar system we now use was created many years later, yet under that system we would say that Christ was born in the year zero.  We always think of years as numbers, and always think that that one is the first number, but at least in time, zero is.  Zero is the starting point when it all began.  It’s like the foundation to a house, only it is the foundation to time: Year Zero.  It begins with the year Jesus Christ was born.

And from that foundation of time, time marches on, never to return.  On that foundation, in some year we ourselves were born, and in some year we will die.  We look back at what Jesus did, from year 0 to 33AD, and say: “That is who He is,” the sum of His Life, the example on which to model our life, during our years.  But we don’t think often enough that our years will also be the sum of our life.  Who we are, who we will be defined forever as, is also who we will have become at the end of our lives. How we use this life, who we become in this life, is eternally important.

Time passes and does not return.  God has assigned to each of us a definite time in which to fulfill His divine plan for our soul; we have only this time and shall have no more.  In eternity, time will be no more; we shall be established forever in the degree of love which we have reached now, in time.  No further progress will be possible when time has ended.  “Therefore, whilst we have time, let us work good to all men. (Gal 6:10)”

O Lord, if I look back on the year just passed, a year given me by Your divine Providence in which to increase my love of You, I can only grieve over myself and say to You: How little I have loved You, my God!  How badly I have spent my time!”  … Well do You know, My God, that in the midst of all my miseries I have never ceased to recognize Your great power and mercy.  May it prove of avail to me that I have not offended You in this.  Restore the time I have lost, my God, by granting me Your grace both in the present and in the future, that I may appear before You wearing the wedding garment.    

                                                --- Divine Intimacy, Meditation 35, December 31^st

We forget the examples Jesus gave us on how to live our lives, use our years.  We are to grow in holiness; our life is a cumulation, like we are sewing a garment --- one he describes as a wedding garment, for us to wear to the eternal marriage feast we are invited to attend, with our eternal King.

But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment; and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?”  And he was speechless.  Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.”  For many are called, but few are chosen.  (Mt21:11-14)

This is the end of another year, another decade.  What will 2020 bring?  As I look back on my years’ past, I am glad that the sum of my life is not a tally of how may I led to Christ versus how many I led astray.  No, my life is a cumulation to the point I end up; who I am then, that is who I will be for all eternity, and so until my last year, my last day, I want keep sewing my wedding garment, to grow in holiness, grow in love, in my imitation of Him.

Lord, help me to follow You, to be Your messenger to everyone in my life.  You are so gentle with me, Lord.  You always forgive; You always nudge; You always wait with infinite patience.  Thank You.  Make me more like You.  I want to be Your light and Your goodness to everyone around me.  I want to attract them to You, however far away they may be, as the star of Bethlehem attracted the wise men.  Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart more like Yours.     --- The Better Part, Meditation 239, Jn 1:1-18

Happy new year, my friends.  Happy new decade.  May you live it well, and grow in holiness.  Don’t just let time pass; put on your glasses, see with 20-20 vision; this time is eternally important.