So, we've kind of had a wild weather weekend around here: alternating bouts of sleet and freezing rain, all piled up to make one great big slippery mess. (It didn't quite look like the picture to the right...but isn't that fun?) We did have five of our six regularly scheduled Masses, but with much reduced congregations. And then we had four churches to get all decked out for Christmas. All of that to say: Sorry this is running a little late! Hopefully the USPS will be more timely in getting that box to Skokie...
Fourth Sunday of Advent A
Yesterday, in the midst of all the sleet and freezing rain,
I walked through the park and across Main Street to the Post Office to mail out
my Christmas cards. I expected to
return empty handed, but instead discovered that we had seven or eight packages
waiting for us there. So I stacked
them up in my arms and made my way back over the ice to the rectory. (I must have been quite a sight!)
Among the boxes was a delivery I’d been awaiting: a
Christmas gift I’d ordered for a friend, but which I’d begun to worry would not
arrive in time. I eagerly tore
that one open and pulled out the gift…only to discover that there were two of
them! My first reaction,
admittedly, was to get a bit mad: “They’d better not charge me for the second
one!” But I quickly noticed that
in the box there were also two packing slips. It seems the shipping department had made a mistake and
boxed up someone else’s order together with mine…which meant that a woman out
in Skokie, Illinois, was waiting—I presume—for delivery so that she could give
a Christmas gift to a friend, just as I had been.
On an icy Saturday, just four days before Christmas, what
could I do? Even if I called and found
someone at the company, I’m not sure how they’d remedy the situation. After giving it just a bit more
thought, I put the second gift back in the box, sealed it up with some shipping
tape, slapped on the mailing label which had come inside, and had barely enough
time to walk carefully through the park and across Main Street to the Post
Office—five minutes before closing time. I explained the situation to the lady working at the
window; she said she could get the package to Skokie by Tuesday.
On my second trip back to the rectory, I got to thinking: I
had just been given the opportunity to pass along a gift which really wasn’t
mine to give, and to do so for someone I hadn’t met, nor would I likely ever
meet, who had been eagerly awaiting it.
Unexpectedly, I’d become an essential link in a chain; if I’d chosen not
to play my part, the whole process would have come to nothing.
In other words: in a small way, God had given me a chance to
be righteous; God had given me a chance to be like St. Joseph.
You see, St. Joseph was simply a hardworking man, set to
marry a beautiful girl, then settle down into small town life and live happily
ever after. But God had other
plans. Joseph was entrusted with a
gift that really wasn’t his to give—a gift long awaited by many. Unexpectedly, he became an essential
link in a chain; because he chose to play his part, the very course of history
was changed. Joseph safely
delivered God’s own Son to the world: the best gift we’d ever receive.
"St. Joseph was an ordinary sort of man on whom God
relied to do great things" (St. Josemaria Escriva).
How many unexpected opportunities are we given each day to
do the same thing, even if on a much smaller scale? To be a link in a chain of grace: a channel of God’s love
and compassion to a friend or stranger?
The gift is not ours to give, but our role is crucial; we’re an
essential link in the chain.
In these final days of Advent, let us keep our eyes and our
hearts especially open to such opportunities in our very ordinary lives. Let us cooperate with God’s unexpected
plans and so help others to experience the very mystery we celebrate at Christmas:
that God is with us.
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