Bishop Kevin Farrell

The Chief Shepherd of the Catholic Diocese of Dallas

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Reflect on the Nativity Scene this Christmas

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Stop for a moment and reflect on the nativity scene that you have carefully arranged in your home, or the Christmas Pageant that your children were in at the school. What does it really mean? Are we so used to seeing the depiction of the infant Jesus lying in a crib in a stable with Mary and Joseph, that it has become just another Christmas decoration along with the tree? Has its true meaning has been lost to us?

We are not only seeing a depiction of the coming of the Prince of Peace, celebrated by shepherds and wise men from the East, we are seeing a family forced to leave their home by a government edict, a refugee family, denied the dignity of a decent place for the mother to give birth, who finally takes refuge in a stable where their newborn son’s resting place is a feeding trough for animals. They are a father and mother who, to protect their child, will soon be forced to flee to another country to escape a tyrant’s sword.

Do we realize that it also represents the reality being lived out today by a growing number of refugees, forced to flee their home by a bloody civil war, or driven out because of their Christian faith. Do we see the Holy Family in the seemingly endless procession of refugees trekking across Europe seeking refuge or risking death crossing the sea in rubber rafts and boats that are little more than flotsam and jetsam. Have we succumbed to the repetition of the videos so often that we have been numbed to the reality.

Do we recognize the innkeeper in Bethlehem who turned Mary and Joseph away in those who would deny refuge in our city or state based on unreasoning fear? Do we see the stable in the camps where row upon row of cubicles or tents become home for families and individuals for years while awaiting a place of refuge?

Are we among those who see Jesus, Mary and Joseph in those desperate people and plead for our government to replace fear with compassion and not punish the victims as if they were the perpetrators?

These refugees from the turmoil in the Middle East who are coming to the United States, to Texas, are not the enemy. They have been thoroughly investigated over years by the FBI, Homeland Security and the United Nations.

As Americans, as Christians we cannot and will not refuse them refuge. In doing so, we may well be guilty of the indifference of the Bethlehem innkeeper who saw Joseph and Mary, not as people, but as a problem to be disposed of.

I pray that God will bless all of us this Christmas especially those most in need. I wish you the joy and peace of that first Noel when the Christ Child was born to save us all.

Find Jesus this Christmas

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Find Jesus this Christmas

It is said that St. Francis of Assisi was the first to set up a Christmas Crèche or Crib scene to remind us of the conditions that surrounded the birth of Jesus. The Crèche has become an indispensable part of our Catholic tradition and more important than any other Christmas symbol because it takes us back to the moment of the Incarnation.

Crèches can be exaggerated depictions of Jesus birth with elaborately costumed figures in wooden or stone buildings, sometimes quite extravagant. That is not the way that it was. Jesus was not born in a house or even a barn or sorts, he was born in a cave in the side of a rocky outcropping near the village of Bethlehem.

People still live in caves in Israel and Palestine, along with their cows and donkeys and probably dogs and cats. Most have feeding troughs for their stock. It is likely that it was in such a manger that the infant Jesus was placed.

I suspect that it was dark,dank, and a bit smelly. The kind of place most us would carefully avoid — a strange place indeed for God’s son to choose to enter the world to say the very least…a back door. Why would he not choose a comfortable home in Jerusalem or even Rome or Alexandria instead of a dank, dark and smelly cave?

Possibly the answer is that Jesus came to those who needed him most…the Anawim…the poor of Yahweh. The late scripture scholar Father Raymond Brown had this to say about the Anawin:

The word Anawim represents a plural from the Hebrew anaw which, along with its cognate ani is a word for ‘poor, humble, afflicted…Although this title [Anawim] meaning the ‘Poor Ones’ may have originally designated the physically poor (and frequently still included them), it came to refer more widely to those who could not trust in their own strength but had to rely in utter confidence upon God: the lowly, the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, the widows and the orphans. The opposite of the Anawim were not simply the rich, but the proud and self-sufficient who showed no need of God or His help.

As we celebrate Christmas (Christ’s Mass) this year, let us imitate Jesus. Go to the Anawim, seek out those whose situation is such that they have only God to rely on. Let us reach out with our hands and hearts and treasure to the lowly, the poor, the sick, the downtrodden, the widows, the orphans, the immigrants and the marginalized.

Don’t go to take Jesus to the Anawim. Go to find Jesus there.

I pray that God our heavenly Father will bless each of you with the joy and peace of Christmas and that your Catholic faith continue to bring you strength and comfort. Merry Christmas!

Image Credit: William Beem on Flickr

Jesus, the greatest gift

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“Behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy
that will be for all the people,
For today in the city of David
a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.”
Luke 2:10-11

Once again this Christmas of 2013 we share our simple gifts with others in humble gratitude for the greatest gift, Jesus, and the realization that we are loved unconditionally.

Interesting, isn’t it, that we don’t just celebrate this one Christmas, but all of our Christmases. Memories flow freely of the innocent delights of our childhood to the rich memories of family celebrations and the events and people that have shaped the tapestry of our lives.

This year has been filled with surprises of the Spirit. We have experienced an historic transition in leadership of the Church and, for the first time, have both a Pope and a Pope Emeritus.

It appears that the surprises of the Spirit are still coming as the joyful witness and humility of Our Holy Father Pope Francis may well portend a New Pentecost. He has proclaimed by word and witness the joys of the Gospel and refocused the world’s attention on the plight of the impoverished and marginalized.

On a personal note, my call to pastor the Church of Dallas has not only shown me the deep faith and generous hearts of the Catholics whom I serve, but also the caring community in which we live. I am privileged to be among you.

My prayer is for a blessed Christmas for you and your loved ones and a very Happy New Year

Another view on Merry Christmas

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Last week I wrote of my concern over the increasing substitution of “Happy Holidays” for “Merry Christmas” in an effort to be politically correct. Since that time I have read a commentary by Ben Stein given on the CBS Sunday Morning program on Dec. 18, 2005. Mr. Stein also addresses the use of Merry Christmas. I think his comments are worth passing on. What follows is a portion of what he said.

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Joy and Hope and Happy Christmas Memories

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Most of our Christmas memories come from our youth, probably because so many of them are centered on family. Midnight Mass, Christmas dinner, aunts and uncles and cousins, grandma’s favorite dish lovingly prepared and shared every year. For most of us our childhood was a time of unbridled joy, uncomplicated by the mysteries of adolescence or the responsibilities of adulthood.

There is a saying that “you can never go home.” Of course it is correct in the sense that inevitable changes in people and places and in us mean that special time is gone forever. Those happy and carefree times pull us back and we readily identify with the Christmas song that proclaims…”I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams.”

Yet those dreams, those joyful experiences shape our lives. Psychologists tell us that the greatest influence in our lives comes from our family of origin. Maybe it is true that we can never go home, but most of us try to replicate it in our lives. We put up the crib and hide the baby Jesus until Christmas. The Advent wreath comes out, and everything reminds us of happy stories we share with our own families.

A friend takes pride in the fact that his children can sing Adeste Fidelis in Latin…which he claims is the way it should always be sung. There are lots of popular new Christmas songs, but none measure up to Silent Night, Angels We Have Heard on High and Little Town of Bethlehem sung at Christmas Mass.

Thank God for St. Luke, he alone preserved the story of the stable at Bethlehem and the choirs of angels announcing the nativity to the shepherds. A visit to the cave in Bethlehem forever changed Christmas for me.

Christmas memories are never really gone. We may stow them away in a corner of our mind, but come Advent, they come out to gladden us once more and encourage us to work to make more new memories that our families and friends will cherish in years to come.

This Christmas a wish you all joy and hope and lots of happy memories.