A Year Of Mercy Challenge For Divorced Catholics

“If you died today, do you think you would go to heaven?”

30 years ago, my then teenage sister was hurrying down an empty street, making her way to the bus stop. As she scurried down the walk focused on the bus in the distance that was beginning to slow, she heard a voice beside her ask, “If you died today, do you think you would to to heaven?”

Startled, she looked up to notice a young man leaning against the chain link fence a few yards ahead of her. He did not look up, did not make eye contact. He just uttered that simple question.

“Excuse me?”, was her only reply. The young man repeated the question, still without making eye contact. She looked down the street to her bus, now stopped, looked back and the man was gone. Hard telling, but my sister believes the young man was her guardian angel. Who knows? But she is grateful to this day for the encounter, as it changed her life and set her back on track.

Perhaps it’s an odd story to tell on Christmas Eve. But I share it as it may evoke a response meritorious of the event we are celebrating. God became a baby. God, the Creator and Judge, became a baby born to a humble mother in the stillness of the night. And that changed everything.

The Jews expected and hoped for a great King, a warrior to lead them in the defeat of their enemies. What they got was a King, humbled to a helpless baby to completely identify with us, with our lived situation, with our frailty and hopes and fears and to give us strength in smallness.

When Cardinal George passed away earlier this year, Archbishop Peter Sartain of the Archdiocese of Seattle gave a beautiful eulogy, stating that some of the most powerful and memorable words he had ever heard Cardinal George say were, “The only thing we take with us when we die is what we have given away…”, and adding that, “the only things that endure are our relationships with God and with others… we give him all that we have, and he takes the gift and calls us when he is ready to do so” We are celebrating, remembering, the greatest gift mankind has ever received in a Savior God taking on our humbled state and coming to us as a baby. Jesus, the Son of God, gave us everything; he gave away everything, even his life. What fitting gift could we possibly give to a Creator so great that he will take on our most humble life? That’s where the challenge comes in.

We are celebrating this Christmas in the Year of Mercy. And many of you, my readers, have been hurt and may continue to be hurt in an unjust relationship with an unjust ex-spouse who, at times, just wants to hurt you some more. Okay. I know that’s true and I know that hurts, sometimes more at Christmas.

So, the challenge that the Church is throwing down this special Christmas, in the Year of Mercy, is a tough one. And a challenge that will definitely, when embraced, make us grow closer to the God-Child. And that challenge is to do something bold. To confront the other who is hurting you, and to offer real, concrete forgiveness. You know, the kind that is tough because it is humbling. The sort that mimics the Creator becomming the Baby. Because when you give like that, you create an eternal gift worthy of the Creator Child. I guarantee that what you have in mind will not be easy. But I also just bet that it will be a gift worthy of this Christmas Day that will last into eternity.