Tea Towels, Bed Sheets and Tobacco Sticks!

This is probably not a huge surprise to many of you who know me, but I own a few Santa hats. A couple of them are traditional looking. One is a ball cap with a Santa stocking hat attached. And one is a springy looking red thing with a white ball on top. I also own one pair of green and red socks with Christmas trees and snow flakes upon them. Over the next month I'll go through my huge bag of hats and toys and dig them out. And, I'll don them at Christmas parties and perhaps even at Christmas Mass.

The first time that I got to dress up special for Christmas was at Maw Maw and Paw Paw Lee's house. I was three and my sister, Kathy, was just under five months old. The little grade school girl that lived across the road from my grandparents, Phylis Thompson, was chosen to be the the angel in the Christmas scene at St. Charles Church in St. Mary's, Kentucky. So, Maw Maw invited her over to pose for a picture in front of her Christmas tree. Kathy was baby Jesus on Maw Maw's coffee table crib. Phylis was the adorable angel. Mom was Mary and dressed in some sateen bed sheets. Dad was covered in a bed spread and playing the part of Joseph. I had my flannel shirt and blue jeans on, BUT got to hold Paw Paw's cane, in order to be a shepherd.

About three years later I was chosen to be a shepherd again at St. Francis of Assisi School's Christmas pageant. This time I got to wear an over sized bath robe with a tea towel on my head. (There are only two uses for tea towels; to dry dishes and to put them on little would be shepherds' heads.) I also had to trade in my Paw Paw's cane for for a tobacco stick, since all of the other shepherds were going to carry them, and because there were plenty of tobacco sticks in Loretto, Kentucky. A couple of years after that I dressed in custom fitted white sheets for our Christmas production of Frosty the Snowman. I still don't know if I was chosen to be Frosty because I was a good actor, or because the role only required me to remember one line, "Catch me, if you can!" (It very well could have been that the teachers wanted to cover me from head to toe in a snowman costume, and thus hide me and any of my "normal" antics from the view of the Church going patrons of the arts.)

This is all a very long introduction to a hopefully very short reflection on today's readings, especially the first reading from the Prophet Isaiah. This is Gaudete (Rejoice) Sunday. And the readings are very festive and hopeful. But they are also instructions on how to prepare joyfully for the Lord's first coming and for when we meet Him again at the end of time, or at the end of our time.

Isaiah tells us how to dress properly for the Lord. Not with bed sheets or borrowed canes, but with the Spirit of the Lord upon us. Isaiah goes on further to tell us that the justice, salvation, joy and praise are to be what the world and the Lord should see in us.

There is a huge need in our world for justice, mercy, compassion, joy, praise and mercy to be lived by us. These qualities are in short supply and we Christians are meant to en-flesh them. We don't have to do things that may win us the Nobel Peace Prize. But, we can all do one or two little things each day that make the life of someone else a little more pleasant. We can even pray for the right things to be done in our world as well; and that may be the most powerful act we can do to bring justice, mercy and compassion to our world.

I think it all begins with an attitude of thanksgiving to God for all of His blessings to us. With an attitude of gratitude comes an inner joy for life that can't be hidden. Not that cheesy and sappy televangelist joy, but just a hopeful and joyful approach to each day.

I will still wear my Christmas costumes over the next four weeks. BUT, I plan on spending a little more time in prayer thanking God for the life, ministry, family and friends that He has given to me, and asking Him to help me seize the opportunities to live more mercifully, compassionately, justly, and joyfully for God and others who desperately need Him. Care to join me?

Peace,
me