“Here We Come, Ready Or Not”

It’s hard to believe, but the Christmas season has come and gone. It seems like only yesterday we were basking in the glow of having gotten our tree up and decorated, the little Christmas town in the background, and of course the beautiful manger scene. We added an outdoor manger scene this year with large figures of Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus; my son Jon led our small team in constructing the stable out of assorted pieces of wood and tree branches…. it turned out great. Nevertheless ready or not, we are now in Ordinary Time and Lent arrives in a little more than 30 days — February 14^th. 

Christmas 2023 was great, with a lot of prayer and celebrations, singing with our church choir on Christmas Eve, family visits from our “out of town families”, delicious dinners, etc.  Even though Advent and Christmas are over, we need to continue to savor these last weeks. Many wonderful things occurred. While the beauty of the decorations in church and home, the focus on others, buying gifts, preparing celebrations, offering hospitality, the rich liturgies, the readings, the music, the special prayers, are coming to an end, let’s continue to focus on the greatness of God… especially his overwhelming love for all of us. This doesn’t stop as the Christmas season ends.

God has work for us as we move out into 2024. Remember that “mission motivates”. Even if we experience great challenges in our family and country and church, they are only the backdrop for the work God has given to us in the coming year.

A few weeks ago I read a meditation on St. Vincent Ferrer who lived during the Great Schism when the church split into Orthodox and Roman, with 3 popes at one time… grieving Ferrer to the point of death. Our Lord appeared and gave Vincent a mission. He was healed and for the next two decades, he preached repentance throughout Europe. As a fellow Dominican, Saint Louis Bertrand, noted, “God sanctioned the teaching of Vincent Ferrer by so many miracles that there never was a saint since the days of the Apostles to our own times who wrought more. He raised at least twenty-eight people from the dead. Healings of the lame and blind were commonplace. Over eight hundred miracles were formally acknowledged at his canonization, but at the time it was claimed that many more still had been observed. The greatest wonder, however, was the spiritual transformation he wrought in his hearers. When Vincent preached about the Last Judgment, Catholics repented and non-Catholics converted. Thousands followed him, garbed in penitential robes, and reformed their lives. Vincent died at age sixty-nine, a few days before Palm Sunday, 1419.” (ref. Magnificat,Dec. 2023)

What touches me about this account is that Ferrer was grieved to the point of death by all the trials in the church and the world. Yet God gave him a mission in the midst of the mess. Mission motivates. Vincent embraced this mission and God anointed him with great power and wonders…healings and conversions.  

So “ready or not”, all the problems that were there “before Christmas” are waiting for you and me  “after Christmas”……  along with some extra credit card debt and a few extra pounds. We may be feeling grieved  by the problems surrounding us, yet God has a mission for us as he did for Vincent. Let’s keep our eyes open, allow the Lord to deliver and heal us from our grieving, and get ready to embrace our mission. St. Vincent pray for us that we are open to all God has for us in 2024. Who knows, maybe we’ll see signs and wonders and conversions that will take away our grief…. that would be very good news.