How a Catholic Family Can Prepare for Christmas

Families start to prepare for Christmas at Thanksgiving. Maybe before Thanksgiving. This year I went home for Thanksgiving. And priests do this kind of musical chairs thing. We all kind of move around and take care of each other’s parishes so we can get home and see each our families on the holidays. So I was saying Mass at the parish where my parents live when I went home for Thanksgiving. On Thanksgiving night I got an emergency call. This is not uncommon.

We get these calls where we have to go to the hospital and give someone the last rites. No big deal. I am used to going out at 3 o’clock in the morning to do this. A lot of people think that we would be tired, but we’re not tired. The Lord is really good. He gives us the grace, we get the call, and off we go. When He calls, we’re ready. Normally, this is not an issue in the middle the night. So I’m in my car at 3 AM on the way to the hospital and I am saying to myself, “Where did all this traffic come from? This is the day after Thanks . . . OOOH!” There were literally lines at all the lights and all of them heading to the mall. And I was feeling so profoundly grateful that I was not among them. I was so thankful to the Lord because I was on a hospital run. I was absolutely flabbergasted that there were this many people out at this time of the morning to go shopping. And I was very profoundly thankful because, while the world moves in a certain motion, my life is so different.

It takes the radio, it takes TV, it takes getting up at 3 AM on Black Friday morning to make me recognize the pattern the world undertakes. And I am so thankful for that because all of us Christians are called to live lives radically different from the world, to set our priorities different. Now I am not saying that all those people who got up at some ungodly hour to go shopping were sinning. I can say I think you are nuts, but you were not necessarily sinning. Necessarily. 

In Advent we are all called to set ourselves apart. The world is in the commercial Christmas mode during Advent. Christmas music is playing. Everything is starting. Shopping is ramped up. Everything is going into Christmas mania. But the Church, and God through the Church, is asking you to draw back. To draw back before we go and get sucked into the culture and sucked into all of the things that are, in a sense, good things. Before that happens, the Lord wants us to remember first the ultimate thing. When Christ came thousands of years ago to save us, he came as a little child. But there is an equal reality that he will indeed come again. And when he comes again, he will not come as a little child. He will come as Lord and Savior and judge.

One of the readings in Advent says this.

I am the LORD, your God, who grasp your right hand; It is I who say to you, “Fear not, I will help you.” Fear not, O worm Jacob, O maggot Israel; I will help you, says the LORD; your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. I will make of you a threshing sledge, sharp, new, and double-edged, to thresh the mountains and crush them, to make the hills like chaff. When you winnow them, the wind shall carry them off and the storm shall scatter them. But you shall rejoice in the LORD, and glory in the Holy One of Israel.

The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain, their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. I will open up rivers on the bare heights,
and fountains in the broad valleys; I will turn the desert into a marshland, and the dry ground into springs of water. I will plant in the desert the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive; I will set in the wasteland the cypress, together with the plane tree and the pine, that all may see and know,
observe and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it. (Isaiah 41: 13-20)

Did you hear this? "O worm Jacob, O maggot Israel." That is quite a shocker, isn’t it? Man! Harsh words from the Lord! That is gross. Yuck. What is the Lord trying to say? Doesn't the Lord like Israel anymore? No! It's not that the Lord doesn't like Israel anymore. What he is saying is, “Wake up, Israel! You are nothing without me. Without me, you are not the chosen people. Without me, you will have no good things in your life. Without me, you can do nothing. You are as helpless as a maggot. You are as weak as a worm.” 

And that is a message for us today, that without God we can do nothing, but with God everything is possible. You hear that in this passage. "The afflicted and the needy seek water in vain, their tongues are parched with thirst. I, the LORD, will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them." They can't  get water themselves. God will give it to them.

Now in this reading, God does not stop there. He goes on to talk about all these different kinds of trees. And what is the deal with all of those trees? Listen again. " I will plant in the desert the cedar, acacia, myrtle, and olive; I will set in the wasteland the cypress, together with the plane tree and the pine, that all may see and know, observe and understand, that the hand of the LORD has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it." He was saying that he is going to plant those trees in places where they ought not to be able to to grow, but he is going to grow them because he is the Lord God and anything is possible. That is the number one thing we need to remember from this passage. Without God we are nothing. Without God, I am just Jacob Meyer. Poor little Jacob Meyer. I am nothing. Without God, where is my hope? Without God, where is where is my strength? Without God, where is my best friend who is always there for me? Without God, we are all no better than maggots. 

But we all sometimes live our lives as if God does not matter. We live our lives as if God is not a part of them. There are days when we wake up and we live our day and we go to bed and we never even think of God and how he loves us, how he sustains us in our day. What the Lord is saying is that is the greatest tragedy--to go a single day without thinking about God and about how much he loves you. For you to go a single day without asking him for help--that is a tragedy. Because he is there and is waiting to hear from you. We have to love him. We have to ask him. 

Whoever has ears ought to hear, says the Gospel. The Gospel says that John the Baptist is Elijah, the one coming into the world who will prepare the way for the Lord. Everyone who has ears ought to hear. Does anyone not have ears here? No one is earless this morning. Which means you want to hear. Which means you want to listen and pay attention.  John the Baptist came into this world and he said to prepare the way of the Lord. The ultimate thing is that the Lord came and we need him because without him, we are nothing.

When Christ came thousands of years ago to save us, he came as a little child. But there is an equal reality that he will indeed come again. And when he comes again, he will not come as a little child. He will come as Lord and Savior and judge. And we need to prepare for him.

So what are you doing to prepare the way of the Lord? What are you doing? Hopefully you are praying more. Hopefully you are going to go to confession. Clean up the soul. Make ready the path for God. Ultimately how about being an instrument of peace. Is this is a stressful time right now? Kids have tests before Christmas break. Teachers are trying to get caught up on school work. Kids have their mothers at them for cleaning the house because company is coming over. You got Christmas parties. You gotta get ready for Christmas. You got all these different things to do. You got to bake or help bake Christmas cookies but you are not allowed to eat them yet, Oh, the injustice!

All these things you have to do. But do not forget that in the midst of doing all these things, there are more important things. What is the state of your soul right now? What is the state of your heart right now? In all of that stress, are you going to be an instrument of peace? Or you going to be an instrument of consternation? You have a choice, don't you? If you are a kid, you can be the kid who is trying to be peaceable with your siblings, who is trying to be kind and generous and faithful and good. Or you can be a hellion. "No, that is my Xbox! No, it's mine!" And then what? Your parents have to get involved. Kids, think about your parents. Will you do this for me because I have all these other things going on? Will you do the dishes and take out the trash? Kids, are you going to say yes enthusiastically and go do it or you going to give mom a hard time? These are your choices. 

Prepare the way of the Lord. Do not put obstacles in the Lord’s path. Try kindness, generosity, charity. Try to bring calm and peace among the siblings. Try to be that wonder kid toward your parents. It will go well for you. Because the happier your parents are, the better Christmas will be. And you know that that is true. You have a vested interest in this, my friends. A vested interest and ultimately, it is your choice. Because without God we are not nothing. But with him we are the most blessed of all peoples.

We are called to think about this reality during Advent. We have work to do. God became a little baby at Christmas to start the work, and it is only finished through each of us. For each of us, our salvation began at the Incarnation, but for each of us it will not end until we become clay in the hands of the Potter, until we make ourselves moldable so that the Lord can make us into what He wants us to be. Just think about it right now. Parents, you are all transforming all of your worlds and your homes to look like little Christmas Wonderland’s. There are utterly insane lights going up at all angles on every building. You are climbing on ladders to transform the present landscape into something that is magnificent. The Lord wishes is to do the very same thing in our lives. He wishes to mold us. He wishes to enlighten our lives to change so that we might be the creation that He calls us to be.

We need to be a watchful people, be ready for when He comes again. How do we get ready? How do we become watchful? Many of you have had times in your life when you are trying to stay awake. Little kids, maybe it is when you are waiting for Santa. For us older people, it might be many different things. Maybe it is waiting for the ball to drop on New Year’s Eve. Whatever it is, we were trying to stay awake. If you are trying to stay awake, you gotta have a game plan. You need coffee. Mountain Dew. You need an uncomfortable chair. You need anything but your bed because if you go about the things that you normally would, you become comfortable and the natural things of the world take over and you fall asleep. 

Similarly if we are to watch for Christ, we must do things out of the ordinary to keep ourselves awake. What are those things that are out of the ordinary? Fasting. Prayer. Now this is going to make teenagers very nervous. I think the one thing you need to do to be watchful and ready is to have a blackout on TV and your phones. There is nothing that will change the regular pattern of your life like that. These things have become surgically attached to us so that we do not know ourselves without them. They are like our new puppy that we take everywhere with us. How many times do you check CNN? 14 a day at least. There should be a blackout on this. Your family can decide what the blackout time is. Mom, collect the phones, turn off the TV. I don’t particularly care what you do at that point. I would love it if you spent that time in prayer, but you are probably not going to spend all the time in prayer. But even if you have a short prayer to begin it and then you just go about your time with a greater sense of contemplation, with just a sense of silence, you will have created moments when you can be clay in the Potter’s hands. We need to give God a chance to work on us, to show us where to go. 

We pray the Our Father often, at Mass every Sunday at least but, hopefully, every day. And we pray “Thy Kingdom come.” We are anticipating the second coming of Christ. We are praying for the second coming. Or do we say, “Thy Kingdom come but not today?” Or “Thy Kingdom come but just not yet. I’m having too much fun.”

Do you mean “Thy Kingdom come?” Are you alert? Are you awake? Does your heart know that someday you will meet your Savior and your judge? So here is what to do. Blackout your TV and phones and schedule your confession time. Today. Today schedule it. You are going to go to confession to make your heart ready to receive the Lord. And from now until Christmas, set aside a time every single day when you can have personal prayer. Maybe a set blackout time. Maybe not. This does not have to be long. From now until Christmas, set a specific time each day when you can pray, “Lord help me get ready. Lord, help me to be more faithful. Lord, help me be vigilant.” Then as the world continues around you, as the world becomes like 3 AM on Black Friday morning, you can have that understanding that this world is not what I was made for. I have a Savior who loves me so much that, not only does He love me, but He will come to take me with Him, and when that happens I want to be ready. 

--Father Jacob Meyer, Visitor, Confraternity of Penitents