Mrs. Isabel Samuels, Mrs. Willie Evelyn Malone (St. Peter Villa)
Jenny Marshall (Willow Bend at Marion Ark Nursing Home)
Mr. Floyd Shavers (Metro Community Care Home)
Ill at Home
Mrs. Audrey Allen, Mr. Herbert Allen, Mr. Joseph Alsandor, Mrs. Annie Hines Atkins, Mrs. Essie Berry, Mrs. Monique Meacham Bethany, Mr. Gerald Bond, Mrs. Lula Crawford, Mr. Robert Crowley, Mrs. Judy Epps, Mrs. Wendy Funches, Mrs. Marshia Gilmore, Mr. Emory Gordon, Mrs. Lottie Gordon, Ms. Jacqueline Guerrero,Mr. William Harris, Mr. Darrell Hollimon, Mr. Willie Hollimon, Mrs. Helen Hoof, Mr. Robert Hooper, Dr. William Johnson, Mrs. Mary M. Jones, Mrs. Teresa Kimbrough, Mrs. Laura Kinchelow, Mrs. Mary Monroe, Mrs. Maurice McDonald, Mrs. Florine McMillan, Mrs. Bobby Redmond, Mr. Frank Reynolds, Mr. Stanley Robinson, Mrs. Allura Tate, Mrs. Forrestine Weed, Mr. Malcolm Weed, Mr. Johnnie Weaver.
Under the Acacia Tree - December 20, 2009
The
Under the Acacia Tree Blog is written by Father John J. Geaney, CSP. This blog appears as an article in the December 20, 2009, St. Augustine Catholic Church bulletin. St. Augustine Catholic Church is located at 1169 Kerr Avenue, Memphis, TN 38106. You can post your comments online. Click comments, below, and speak up!
It’s just around the corner and is probably the most prized time of the year. We’re all busy with getting our cards mailed, creating or purchasing our gifts, making sure all the usual "goodies" are being baked or delivered and generally exhausting ourselves as we prepare for Christmas. And while what we do at Christmas time is somewhat exhausting, it contributes to the sense of well being that Christmas often brings to us.
There is, of course, a deeper reality. That reality calls on us to think about God’s gift to us and the reason for that gift. Jesus is God’s love wrapped in flesh, blood and bone. Without God’s love there would be no Jesus. But God loved us so much he would not see us live in the sin which Adam and Eve created for us. So, through the new Eve, Mary of Nazareth, he sent the new Adam – Jesus of Nazareth that we might be free from our sins. What a gift we have in Jesus! The reality of Christmas is a simple reality of love, and maybe because love is so difficult for us to achieve at times in our lives we forget how much God loves us. But every time we forget, all we need to do is look around and recognize that Jesus came to us in love. And he came to us at night. Why do we celebrate Mass at Midnight on Christmas? Because on Christmas the long night of darkness gives way to a new era; darkness is transformed into glory. Heavenly choirs bring good news to the whole world especially to those who are poor and forgotten by the rest of society. In a sense, night is transformed into day as the Prince of Peace appears.
And who gets the message first? The shepherds – the anawim – so often romanticized. But a shepherd’s life is grueling, spent out of doors regardless of weather. For them there was little good news in their lives. Their futures were at best circumspect. But the Lord chose them to be the first hearers of the Good News of God’s love.
We continue to hear that Good News today, and so are grateful. And perhaps that is the right note to strike for Christmas – giving thanks to God for the gift which changed the world and made us all aware of the unloved, the lonely and the forgotten.
“One of the natural signs of a true Paulist is that he would prefer to suffer from the excesses of liberty rather than from the arbitrary actions of tyranny.”
Father Isaac Hecker, founder of the Paulist Fathers
