This Christmas season was a complicated one. The wondrous birth of our savior Jesus Christ and the desire to resume full celebrations were juxtaposed with holiday plans disrupted by blizzards, brutal cold that endangered the most vulnerable, COVID and other infections that left many sitting alone at home. This year I heard from or about many families struggling with cancer diagnoses, substance abuse, or other difficult problems related to caring for ageing family members or coping with broken relationships. Truly it was a humbling reminder of the fragility of our human condition—which St. Francis reminded us at Greccio that God humbled Himself to share.
And yet—some things warmed my heart and lifted my spirits this Christmas. One of them was you, my dear Franciscan sisters and brothers! Your goodness and generosity amazed me. When our Council met in late November to discuss how much of our resources we should give away at Christmas, all the members readily agreed—let’s give it all away, keeping only a small prudent reserve to cover our expenses in the next few months. That is what we did, giving far more than we have ever given before. And, God be praised, as soon as those checks went out, in came more contributions from several of our members, replenishing our resources beyond what we had expected.
You also touched my heart at our Advent service activity on December 17. When I looked around the room and saw many tables of our members and those from St. Francis fraternity, full of fellowship and ready to work to make warm scarves for our homeless neighbors, my eyes filled with tears of happiness.
The work was done in no time and in good cheer, and soon there were more than 40 beautiful scarves. My husband and I gave them away to the homeless community at McPherson Square on December 21, and just by luck (Holy Spirit?) someone else had donated a large box of warm gloves to be given the same night. One man, who looked bone-tired and downhearted, picked out a scarf and gloves for himself and was about to walk away when he turned back, looked me in the eye, and said, “Thank you, life saver.” These are thanks I pass to all of you.
What I experienced during that moment of communion at McPherson Square reminded me of a discussion during a prayer group just a few days before. We had been talking about what Christmas meant to us, and I thought that for me it was contained in one word: Emmanuel, which in Hebrew means precisely “God-with-us.” Jesus is God-with[1]us, and I see Him in more and more places—in your bright faces on December 17 and in the weary eyes of the man on December 21. Whatever is going on in our lives, our country, our world, we can hold on to this: in 2023 as ever, we have God with us