(A Not-So-Nice Homily for Christmas)
Delivered Christmas 2019
Relations, sparing no expense’ll
Send some useless old utensil,
Or a matching pen and pencil.
“just the thing I need! how nice!”
It doesn’t matter how sincere it
Is, nor how heartfelt the spirit,
Sentiment will not endear it,
What’s important is the price.
“A Christmas Carol”
–Tom Lehrer–
Have you ever received a birthday present that wasn’t really what you yourself wanted but was instead an expression of the giver’s own desires? I have. Years ago, a priest friend, in all sincerity, used to make me presents of his favorite books, heavy tomes with pages covered with tiny print—not the kind of gift appropriate for one who is legally blind. Oh, you shouldn’t have! He might as well as offered to pay my auto insurance premiums! That’s like a resident of North Dakota giving an ice scraper to someone who lives in Florida, or like a die-hard Notre Dame fan presenting a Fighting Irish sweatshirt to a Penn State fanatic. While I appreciated my friend’s well-intentioned gestures, I could not escape the feeling that he had shot wide of the mark.
Some of you may be familiar with Father Mike Schmitz, a priest from the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota, who currently runs the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota-Duluth. Here is his description of the gift-giving that went on in the celebration of his mother’s birthday:
You can’t have any love without sacrifice…. When I was growing up, we kids would say, “Hey, Mom, what do you want us to get you for your birthday?”
My mom would say something like, “Actually it would be so nice if you kids would just clean the whole house for me that day.”
Groan. “Mom, what do you really want for your birthday?”
“Well, if you could just go out and rake the yard” or if there was snow “If you could go out and shovel the driveway. Just go outside and clean up.”
“No, Mom! Seriously, what do you really want for your birthday?”
She’d say, “Okay. Fine! If you kids could just not fight for the whole day, that would be such a good present for me.”
“Mom, I don’t think you know who you’re talking to right now.”
So what would happen is my older sisters would end up borrowing some money and then borrowing the car and going to a store and getting my mom something—because they liked driving and they liked shopping. My older brother and I (this is not a lie) we would go ride our BMX bikes all day and at the end of the day (I remember this) calling our mom onto the front porch to show her the trick we learned for her for her birthday. My little brother liked drawing dinosaurs. He’d draw and color a picture of a dinosaur and give it to my mom. We’d give my mom these things, and she would always smile. She’d always say thank you, but she knew, and now I know. She’d say, “This is nice. Thank you, but this isn’t what I asked for.”
When we gave our mom those presents, we weren’t giving her what she asked for. We weren’t giving her what she wanted. We were giving her what we wanted. And so was that gift about my mom? I pretended like it was. It kinda, sorta was, but it was really more about me.
And the same thing is true when it comes to worship. Jesus has told us—God has told us—what He wants, how He wants us to worship Him. But I say, “No, no, no! Here’s the deal. Jesus, the Mass is pretty boring. It gets pretty long. It’s pretty all these other things. And so here’s what I’m going to do for you. I’m going to go to a different kind of service. That is going to be what I give You. Jesus, I know You called us to worship You in the Eucharist at the Mass every Sunday. But it’s hunting weekend. It’s hockey weekend; and it’s soccer weekend. And so what I’m going to do is I’m going to find You in the woods…”
If I give God what I want, not what He’s asked for, whom do I really love? Do I love Him, or am I saying I love myself more? If I know that God has said, “This is how I want you to worship Me,” and I give Him what I want to give Him, it’s not an act of love for Him. It’s an act of love for myself. Because love always demands some kind of sacrifice.
This is the key. This is the deal. We know that God has told us, “Here’s how I want to be worshipped.” The night He was betrayed, He took bread and said, “Take, all of you, and eat of it. This is My Body given for you. This is the Body that’s on the Cross. This is the Body that’s resurrected from the dead. This is the Body that suffers for you. Take, all of you, and drink from it. This is the chalice of My Blood, the Blood of the new and eternal covenant. It will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this.” And every Christian for fifteen hundred years knew that that’s worship. That’s the sacrifice.
The sacrifice that we get to offer to God is God. Let that settle in for a second. The sacrifice we offer to God is God. The sacrifice we offer to God is the very best thing He’s ever given to us. I can’t give Him anything better than that. I can’t give Him anything better than Himself in the Eucharist, because there is nothing better in the world. There’s nothing better in the universe. There’s nothing better in all creation, the world visible and invisible. So I give the sacrifice of the Son to the Father.[1]
Well said, Father Schmitz! How willing am I to give Jesus what He really wants for His birthday? Am I ready to make the commitment to attend Mass with my family every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation? People sometimes tell me that they are just too busy to go to Mass. Then I tell them about my tandem bicycle.
I am the proud owner of a shiny red bicycle built for two, and over the years I have been blessed to have a number of friends ride with me. It goes without saying that I never occupy the front seat. You’d have to be crazy to ride a tandem bicycle with me, a legally blind priest, out in front. The result would be disaster. I have rotten eyesight. Why should I be the one steering? It’s like that when we don’t put God in first place in our lives. Not giving the good Lord first place in our lives makes about as much sense as giving a blind man the front seat on a bicycle built for two. God, after all, has perfect vision and knows our path far better than we do. It makes perfect sense to put Him out in front, to give Him first place in our lives.
If you don’t want to attend weekly Mass for your own sake, then at least do it for your children. Let me quote from a piece from The Wall Street Journal, dated 5 December 2019:
A 2018 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology examined how being raised in a family with religious or spiritual beliefs affects mental health. Harvard researchers had examined religious involvement within a longitudinal data set of approximately 5,000 people with controls for sociodemographic characteristics and mental health.
The result? Children or teens who reported attending a religious service at least once per week scored higher on psychological well-being measurements and had lower risks of mental illness. Weekly attendance was associated with higher rates of volunteering, a sense of mission, forgiveness, and lower probabilities of drug use and early sexual initiation.[2]
Regular Mass is essential, but, of course, it is not the ultimate goal. It is only a means to a far greater end. Jesus wants our bodies in church every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation precisely because it is the best way for Him to gain access to our hearts. When we are present for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Jesus can begin a kind of transubstantiation of our hearts. Ironically, the same priest who used to give me those fine-print-laden books told me a great truth: “Jesus does not transform bread and wine into His Body and Blood for the sake of bread and wine. He does it for our sakes. If Jesus is willing to change cheap bread and wine into His own Body and Blood, what will He not do for our hearts?”
As we celebrate the birthday of Jesus this year, let us all resolve to give Him exactly what He wants most. The poet Christina Rossetti said it best:
What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.[3]
In the end, the joke is on us. When we give Jesus our hearts, He ultimately fulfills the deepest longings of our hearts. As Catholic speaker and author Christopher West says, “All the hungers we have for love, for union, for happiness are given by God to lead us to him. The difference between a saint and the greatest sinner is where they go to satisfy that hunger.”
Merry Christmas!
[1] A talk by Fr. Mike Schmitz entitled “Pray the Mass Like Never Before,” given at Seek 2019, my own transcription.
[2] Erica Komisar, “Don’t Believe in God? Lie to Your Children.”
[3] “In the Bleak Midwinter.”