The Tablet December 18, 2004

Christmas Is a Time to Give Witness

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

There is a famous story told by one of the modern philosophers regarding Christians in the world, and it is, I believe, a great Advent story.

Once there was a circus that set up camp outside a small European town. As the circus was being set up a fire broke out. The ringmaster, in haste, sent two clowns into the town to ask for help to extinguish the fire, but the more the clowns pleaded with the people to come and help put out the fire, the more the people laughed. The people thought it was a ploy to get them to come to the circus. The people never came to help and the circus burned.

Perhaps the story can serve as a parable for us Christians who live in a world that seems to laugh at us and not understand our message. We have been entrusted with a great task, to bring the message of the Messiah to a world that needs to hear of His saving power. It is the work, indeed, of the New Evangelization that we are all about and which we have begun in earnest in our own Diocese.

The world seems not to understand the moral positions that we enunciate. These moral positions seldom rest on doctrine alone, but rather come from the wisdom of the ages and from philosophical foundations that are alien to the modern world in which we live. Certainly, the Church's opposition to abortion is one of the clearest examples of misunderstanding doctrine and philosophical foundation. Again, the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman is another moral truth that needs defense in our world today. It is certainly true that as the secularized world in which we live tends to marginalize our proclamation of the Truth, we must become more effective witnesses to Christ's saving power. Only in that way can we convince the world of the Truth.

As we come closer to Christmas we recognize that the birth of the Messiah was not a fact accepted by even the Jewish people who had waited centuries and whose prophets had prepared for His coming. The Messiah's coming was missed by many, and continues to be missed. The Messiah indeed does perform marvelous works and miracles, and yet the basic structure of the world and the problem of evil still confront us. The world will never be completely redeemed until the end of time when the changes that the Messiah brings about will be clearly seen by all.

Christmas is our opportunity to proclaim to the world that the Prince of Peace, the Messiah, truly lives. Only by the effective witness of our lives will the world be convinced that Jesus is the Lord. Our witness must take the form of the works of charity that proclaim the coming of the Messiah - the very things that Jesus did in His life, as we heard in last Sunday's Gospel: the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them (Mt. 11: 4-5). It is exactly these things that we need to reflect in our lives and in our Church if we are to convince the world that the Savior truly has come.

There is a wonderful tradition in our Diocese to have a second collection on Christmas that supports the work of our Catholic Charities and the efforts it makes to sustain family life in many different ways. The Tablet itself conducts an annual "Bright Christmas" appeal that allows us to exercise charity in an effective way. There are many other opportunities during the season and at other times during the year that present themselves for us to give effective witness through our monetary sacrifices, but also we must rely on our own personal witness.

As we put out into the deep as Christmas comes we must recognize that the Savior has come, but effective witnesses are continually needed to convince the world that indeed He is here.