December 25th, 2020
Dear parishioners and Christmas guests of St. Mary:
A blessed and joyful Christmas greeting to all of you, and to your families and your friends as well! We all definitely know by now what a strange year it has been this year, to say the least – difficult, frustrating, and painful for countless many, including perhaps most of us right here at St. Mary. But thanks be to God, Christmas finally is here, and hopefully the blessing and joy of Christmas will be a hopeful sign of things to come for the new year.
For myself, much of the blessing and joy of Christmas here at St. Mary is because of you, our parishioners and guests. Despite the many sufferings that we were made to endure this year, I am convinced that our amazing parish has weathered this storm with miraculous and heroic grace. I have observed a very saint-like faith in our parishioners coming to Mass or participating online from home, as well as in the faithful parents and other volunteers of our school ministry. So many of our parish groups, though unable to operate as normal in these difficult days, nonetheless have remained active and in service.
For all of this, and for so much more besides, it is beyond what words I can say how thankful I am for all of you.
A special welcome and joyous Christmas greeting to all of our many guests! Though we are limited in seating capacity for Mass these days, it is our joy, honor, and blessing that you are with us here at St. Mary for your Christmas celebration this holy season. As I keep saying, we are a truly amazing parish here at St. Mary, faithful and very active. Our zeal for celebrating our Catholic Christian faith, in our worship here and in our service in the world out there, brings us together in our common Catholic Christian vocation: the universal call to holiness that belongs to all the baptized.
And for all of us, parishioners and guests alike, I dearly hope that our home here at St. Mary is a most welcoming encounter with Christ and His Church. And I have a special gift for you: a rather amusing (and, I think, hilarious) story that is all about the wonderful Christmas traditions that every family always seems to have. Enjoy!
My friends in Christ, may Christmas Day (and every day) be a blessing to you, and may the Light of Christ shine upon you all the days of your lives.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Jeffrey R. Lewis, Pastor
(This story comes from the book Chicken Soup for the Soul: Christian Kids, reprinted as an article in Catholic Digest)
Gold, Common Sense, and Fur: A Christmas Story (by Linda C. Stafford)
My husband and I had been happily (most of the time) married for five years, but hadn’t been able to have children. I was doing some serious praying about it and promised God that if He would give us a child, I would be a perfect mother, love it with all my heart, and raise it with his word as my guide. Soon after, we were blessed with a son. The next year we were blessed with another son. The following year, yet another son. The year after that we were blessed with a daughter.
My husband thought we’d been blessed right into poverty. We now had four children, and the oldest was only four years old. I learned never to ask God for anything unless I meant it. As a minister once told me, “If you pray for rain, make sure you carry an umbrella.”
I began reading a few verses of the Bible to the children each day as they lay in their cribs. I was off to a good start. God had entrusted me with four children and I didn’t want to disappoint Him.
I tried to be patient the day the children smashed two dozen eggs on the kitchen floor searching for baby chicks. I tried to be understanding when they started a hotel for homeless frogs in the spare bedroom, although it took me nearly two hours to catch all 23 frogs.
When my daughter poured ketchup all over herself and rolled up in a blanket to see how it felt to be a hot dog, I tried to see the humor rather than the mess.
In spite of changing over 25,000 diapers, never eating a hot meal, and never sleeping for more than 30 minutes at a time, I still thank God daily for my children.
While I couldn’t keep my promise to be a perfect mother — I didn’t even come close — I did keep my promise to raise them in the word of God. Though I knew I was missing the mark just a little when I told my daughter we were going to church to worship God, and she wanted to bring a bar of soap along to “wash up” Jesus, too.
Something was lost in the translation when I explained that God gave us everlasting life, and my son thought it was generous of God to give us his “last wife.”
My proudest moment came during the children’s Christmas pageant. My daughter was playing Mary, two of my sons were shepherds, and my youngest son was a wise man. This was their moment to shine. My 5-year-old shepherd had practiced his line, “We found the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes,” but he was nervous and said, “The baby was wrapped in wrinkled clothes.”
My 4-year-old “Mary” said, “That’s not ‘wrinkled clothes,’ silly. That’s dirty, rotten clothes.” A wrestling match broke out between Mary and the shepherd and was stopped by an angel, who bent her halo and lost her left wing.
I slouched a little lower in my seat when Mary dropped the doll representing Baby Jesus, and it bounced down the aisle crying, “Mama, Mama.” Mary grabbed the doll, wrapped it back up, and held it tightly as the wise men arrived. My other son stepped forward wearing a bathrobe and a paper crown, knelt at the manger, and announced, “We are the three wise men, and we are bringing gifts of gold, common sense, and fur.”
The congregation dissolved into laughter, and the pageant got a standing ovation. “I’ve never enjoyed a Christmas program as much as this one,” the pastor laughed, wiping tears from his eyes. “For the rest of my life, I’ll never hear the Christmas story without thinking of gold, common sense, and fur.”
“My children are my pride and my joy and my greatest blessing,” I said as I dug through my purse for an aspirin.