The Perfect Christmas

The Perfect Christmas!

In my mind’s eve Christmas is always perfect. 

I picture a large fireplace, stockings hung on the mantle, a Christmas tree with an abundance of presents, and a large happy family filled with laughter and joy on Christmas Eve and when morning dawns. One surprise after another announces how thoughtful and loving we all are of each other.

Many of us seek to create Christmas after the images we have in our minds’ eye of what this holy time means to us. 

But then there comes reality, perhaps what Christmas has become will be just a bit different for many of us. Many of the family we celebrated with in those days are no longer with us. Thankfully, we tend to forget the hurt and the conflict that left us out of communion with one another. Some of us will be alone. There is fear and poverty, and a few too many dislike others for one reason or another. I do wish Christmas could be perfect like it is in my mind’s eye. But, truth be told, Christmas is real.

There was one Christmas that was both perfect and real!

Especially real and absolutely perfect was that first Christmas, we read about it in the tonight’s Gospel. Our homes are warm, but in that holiest of holy places, there were barnyard animals, and God’s greatest Gift to the world was placed on a bed of hay where these same animals eat. That’s what the word “manger’ means after all. In French the word “manger” means “to eat”. In Italian “mange, mange” means “eat, eat!”. 

There was no room for this Child and his family in any local Inn where it might be cozy and warm. There were no hospitals, no midwives to minister to the Mother of God. Still they huddled close for warmth. Bethlehem gets cold at this time of year. It can even snow there. I would not be the bit least surprised if God’s living beings could see their breath on this most holy night. 

Included in the reality of this Holy Family is the fact that Mary and Joseph were “engaged” or “betrothed” as the Old English would have it. Jesus was born to us without the benefit of wedlock. Matthew’s Gospel records Joseph’s concerns about our Lady’s honor. But then the dream that came to him reassured Joseph of God’s decision to make this birth the instrument of God somehow becoming Flesh and Blood among us. (~Matthew 1:1-23)

Whatever the case, they had to make haste and get to the city of Joseph’s “house and lineage” where he could be recorded for the census. Nothing but death is more certain and real than taxes! And so it was that this family of modest means made their way by night to the little town of Bethlehem. 

We are told that the journey was a dangerous one. There was Herod and his murderous threats. The Family travelled by night. A star appeared to guide them on their way. And then, in the fullness of time the Child was born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes to keep him as warm as she could. She held him close to bond her love to his. No matter how deeply we dig down into the Mystery of this birth narrative we cannot help but be filled with the Hope, Love, Joy and Peace of Christmas The vision of that Mother and Child has moved the world then and since to the Gospel of Jesus; his life, death, and resurrection, and his victory over sin and death.

The angels sang when they told the shepherds of the news. They too made haste to see this thing that had come to pass. And so it was that all of heaven and earth would sing. 

In my mind’s eye, this is really where my gaze comes to rest. Not so much in the comfort and warmth of my own home but in the reality and perfection of God’s coming to us in the Word of God made flesh and blood in Jesus. 

I think it right that he would be born in a “manger” where the animals could not help but take a taste of hay. Very likely Mary and Joseph would gladly feed them. After all, the animals were hungry too. And Mary and Joseph being grateful for this humble place to birth a child, would only be too happy to share what little they had with the animals who gave them what warmth they could generate.

Christmas makes us all hungry for good things to eat. My grandmother’s squash pie, I can almost smell it still! The oven bursting with turkey, the turkey bursting with stuffing and all the fixings. The dishes laden with food. The family gathered passing it all around, and me stuffing my plate   and my stomach beyond its capacity to hold it all. The memory is all so holy.

And then the long and luxurious afternoons where the women played cards and gossiped in the kitchen and the men would sleep in the parlor. My brother Bobby and I playing with trucks or troops and when there was a loud noise which there was bound to be, one of the uncles would growl at us to be quiet. We’d snicker and comply for a bit. But then it would happen all over again. It was Christmas!

This was all a long time ago for me. But many more will rehearse the family traditions all over again this year. Others celebrate Christmas in their own peculiar and unique way. But it all began a very long time ago when the greatest gift of all was given on one very silent and holy night far, far away. 

And my soul sings with joy to this old world because of what I remember in profound gratitude for the life God gives me and the family that made me who I am. 

And tonight God’s Table is laden with good things to eat. Perhaps it only looks like a little wafer broken by an old semi-retired priest and a cup of ordinary wine. But we gather too around this table and hold out our hands to receive this Child born anew tonight in our souls. 

This Bread and this Wine is more than all our Christmas Tables put end to end from one generation to another for as long as humankind has feasted in all our holidays rolled up into one. This is God’s very Banquet Table. And all of us, from the first days of our redemption until now and yet to come are welcome and invited! 

This Bread and this Wine we receive tonight was born in a manger a long time ago and far away. He fills us with good things, his very life born for us in flesh and blood like everything that is real about him and us. Jesus fills us with Eternal Life.

My soul sings with joy to this old world because of what I know of this little Child and his mother dear. For Joseph, the carpenter, and the donkey standing near. The cattle lowing and the rooster crowing. 

And the little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay.

The Perfect Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

In the Name of God, the Most Holy, Undivided, and Everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul

Grounded in God

Grounded in God

Today, I’d like to talk a bit about being “grounded”. God knows, as a teenager I was grounded more than once. When my grandmother called me by my full name “Buddy Bresnahan”…they called me “Buddy” in those days, since my dad’s name was also Paul, “Buddy Bresnahan”, when she said that, I knew I was in trouble. I’d be sent to my room or worse, I was “grounded”. Anything like that ever happen to you?

Nowadays, my wife keeps me grounded. Every day, while I am saying my prayers and writing in my journal, she will be tending to the household budget, crunching numbers, checking bank balances, making sure that every penny is accounted for. She often looks up to me to say; “Did you even check the balance in your account before you went off spending that money?”. Truth be told, my answer is usually, a weak; “Geez, I thought sure I had plenty of money in there.” She has her hands full keeping me grounded.

But I’m not alone in that regard. Last week, I thought we scared poor Rupert Moore half to death upon entering the church. Cindy lost her footing for just a split second, and went down on one knee. She had no idea of what happened there. And so when we got home, I said to her; “You’re grounded!” 

Then there’s the business of going for my daily walk. I love sauntering along city sidewalks. We live near the ocean right off Lynn Shore Drive. Walking by the sea, listening to the call of the gulls and the surf crashing along the beach, breathing in the salt sea air and walking along listening to the quiet echo of my footsteps, all of this keeps me grounded in the joy of being alive, even in the chill of winter.

The Mystery of the Incarnation means that we believe God was grounded.  In the holy season for which we joyfully prepare during this Advent, God becomes flesh and blood. Born of a human mother, poor, homeless, in a common stable among the animals, in the chill of winter, there is the Holy Child. And the Mystery of the Incarnation is that to God each one of you is no less holy. 

God was grounded as one of us in human form in the person of Jesus. So much does God love us that he became one of us to show it. We cannot help but love the Baby Jesus, lying there in a manger. “For God so loved the world that he gave his begotten only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”.

A baby born of Mary. Goodness sakes she and Joseph weren’t even married at that time. Talk about being grounded. This family and this mother extended their arms of love to all of us. What wondrous love is this, what joy rejoices our hearts to hear the story told again and again each year!

Today we light the rose candle on the Advent Wreath. The Third Sunday in Advent is called “Gaudete” Sunday in the Church Year. The word comes from the Latin; “Gaudeo” meaning “Rejoice”. Hence the rose candle, blending the joyous white with the penitent purple, represents joy and rejoicing at the nearness of the Holy Child. 

 You may have noticed that the first lesson today was filled with images of joy and rejoicing. The Prophet Isaiah spoke and said;

“The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,

the desert shall rejoice and blossom;

like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,

and rejoice with joy and singing.”

The prophet continues with these promises;

"Be strong, do not fear!

Here is your God.

He will come and save you."

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,

and the ears of the deaf unstopped;

then the lame shall leap like a deer,

and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy.”

Years and years ago, I visited Betty in the hospital as the end of her life was approaching. She had suffered from spina bifida all her life. After we said our prayers, she said, “Oh, Fr Paul, don’t forget my envelopes.”. She tithed, by the way. I said; “Oh dear Betty, can you really afford to give so much money to the church?” You know what she said to me? She looked intently at me and said; “I’ve suffered all my days with this back of mine, but you know, soon I shall be able to leap like a deer. For all that God has done for me, this is the least I can do for him.” Her witness to God's love changed my life then and there.

In today's Canticle, Mary rejoices when the Archangel Gabriel visits to bring her the news that she shall be the mother of the Holy Child.

“My soul doth magnify the Lord” she begins. 

The song appears in scripture as a magnificent poem. As her soul soars she sets the nations straight and proclaims the justice of God.

“God has shown the strength of his arm, *

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones, *

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things, *

and the rich he has sent away empty.”

This joyous song of Mary! She knows who her son will be and how to answer the question we all have and which John gives voice to in today's Gospel;

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” 

Jesus answers John's messengers, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.”

When shall all this be you may rightly ask? James, the brother of our Lord, tell us in today’s Epistle to be patient. For as “the farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains.” You too must also must be patient. Sometimes we get a bit tired of waiting. But God’s kingdom is already unfolding among us. As the crop grows there is much to be tended, watered, weeded, protected. Our patience is not inactive. It is rather creatively engaged with the Powers and Principalities by the Power of God exercised in each of us. Remember what Abe Lincoln once said; “You’ll sooner get the chicken waiting for it to hatch than by breaking its shell”. In the meantime, keep that egg warm and protect it with your life!

We remain firmly grounded in God. We gather here Sunday by Sunday to set forth the praise of God with rejoicing. We sing God’s songs, don’t we choir? We carry God’s cross, yes? We read God’s Holy Word and proclaim the Gospel. When we leave this place we apply ourselves diligently to the work of bringing God’s justice to fulfillment, and ministering to those who suffer. Our patience is not grounded in passivity, but engaged in the work God has given us to do.

By the way, we also bring our gifts to God. Being the grounded one, Cindy writes the check and puts it in the plate. After all, I suspect somebody has to pay the bills for the church; the heating bill, the insurance, the upkeep of the building, and if you would like to have a parish priest eventually you’ll have to provide for that too.

Cindy and I do not put money in the plate to pay the bills of the church, however. No we give to God in proportion to what God gives us. We aim at 10% of our income because that’s the Biblical standard for giving. If you do the arithmetic you’ll find out that’s a little bit of a bite on the family budget, but we are working toward our tithe nonetheless.

God is good to us. All of us. When we give, we give to God so that we can build up God’s Church and make it strong. Wherever we are Sunday by Sunday, we give to God because this is God’s church. I understand that you are in the midst of your pledge drive. God is good to you. Like Betty taught me years ago, the least we can do is thank God in our generosity and in our pledging. May I gently remind you to fill out a pledge card if you haven't already done so?

God has grounded you and given you life. God has set you in family, given you friends and work. God has also given you this beautiful church. Last week, in the outpouring of your hospitality, you gave Cindy and me such a warm welcome here at St. Mark’s. We both thank you for that. Your warmth, your affection, your love for God and one another are abundantly clear. If God is to be grounded in this place it will take each one of us doing our part for God. This is what rejoices the heart of God. 

Finally we are grounded in prayer. You know the seven principal kinds of prayer, don’t you? The Catechism is worth reading now and again to keep us mindful of and grounded in faith. It is in the Book of Common Prayer beginning on page 845.  The part on Prayer and Worship begins on page 856.

According to the Catechism, the principal kinds of prayer are, class? Adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, intercession and petition. The seventh principal kind of prayer, anybody?  Sometimes overlooked in a consumer society; it is the prayer of oblation. It is the prayer that says; “You can count on me to do whatever God needs to be done for the work of the Church”. Yes, you can count on me, to serve, to put my back into it, to make provision for this holy place though my generosity, my gratitude, my devotion.

Our prayer and worship are grounded in God. As God grounded himself in Jesus to be among us so we ground ourselves in the service of God and our fellow men, women and children. This is our Prayer. This is our Worship. The Eucharist we celebrate this day is but a joyous foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet.  We have all been invited to feast forever with the Communion of Saints. Then as now we shall be forever grounded in the everlasting love of God.

In the Name of God, the most holy, undivided, and everlasting Trinity. Amen.

Fr Paul 

Christmas at St John's

A Christmas Poem

Ring out, wild bells - Christmas Poem 

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

The flying cloud, the frosty light;

The year is dying in the night;

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

For those that here we see no more,

Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife;

Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,

The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

The civic slander and the spite;

Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

Storytelling

My grandmother was a great storyteller. She was from Downeast, Maine and by godfrey, she knew how to spin a yarn. She loved her stories too, old time radio shows that I can still remember listening to often. And before we went to bed at night, my grandmother held court in her room. She had all the dramatic flair of a consummate Shakespearean actress. My brother and I would sit at her feet and listen to her voice as it came alive with characters and tales that brought amazing adventures to life. And before it was all over, she opened the old family bible and recounted yet more adventures of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or Daniel and the Lion’s Den, or Jesus making the waters stand still in the midst of a storm. Her eyes held us as if in a spell because she knew these stories by heart and little needed the text of scripture to tell us what was next. Then, we said our prayers. We prayed for all the aunts and uncles and yes, the crazy cousins too, each by name and we concluded our prayers with the ever expansive love of Jesus; “And God bless everyone in the whole wide world. Amen”. And then we slept. 

And when it was my turn to be a father, this too became our bedtime ritual. I loved the accents of peoples from around the British Isles; the Irish brogue, the Oxford scholar and the dialect of London’s East End Cockney. Some of our most memorable stories are the ones the children still talk about even now that they are grown men. “The Tales from Fern Hollow and Trundleberry Manor”. They loved these stories much as many of us love the tales of Downton Abbey or Sherlock Holmes.

And when story time was over, I would light a candle, and then we’d pray for those we love near and far away, we’d pray for peace in the world, and we’d repeat a lovely and gracious sentence from the Book of Common Prayer; “Guide us waking, O Lord and guard us sleeping, that awake we may watch with Christ and asleep we may rest in Peace”. And with that I extinguished the candle, and the children slept in the arms of God.

And that brings us to this silent and holy night and to this sacred story. Because, I believe that it is in telling of the story that we find our rest and our peace in Christ, for our restless souls cannot come rest until they find themselves in the heart of Jesus.

When we were planning the Christmas pageant this year, we felt that we should let the children tell the story and we felt that, since we cannot improve upon the story itself, we would simply read the story from Luke’s Gospel. Yes, let the children proclaim the Gospel story of Jesus.

Those ringing words sound out like church bells across a Christmas landscape.

Words from Isaiah like “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given and the government shall be upon his shoulders and he shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”

Oh my, that brings back memories. It was our first date, 36 years ago, December 8, 1978 and we sat side by side, hand in hand at Symphony Hall in Boston, and the Handel and Haydn Society sang out those magnificent words, put to such exquisite music. And as our hearts beat with the love of God so too they beat with love for one another, at least I dared hope they might!

And here tonight on this most holy night we sing with the angels a new song as the Psalmist sings. It is at the same time new as now and yet as ancient as the sacred hands of the one who first wrote them down. As a mother and a father might light a candle at bedtime for their children, so too we now sing our sacred Silent Night by candle light. And “we worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness”, just like the Psalmist taught us to do in ancient times.

As a child would ask a prayer of blessing on everyone in the whole wide world, so too Titus in tonight’s Epistle reminds us that “The Grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all.” Then he goes on to say that we are to “renounce impiety and worldly passions, and in the present age to live lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly, while we wait for the blessed hope and the manifestation of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Much like St. John’s does by housing Toys for Tots, we spread much good cheer, and bring joy to the world. “God bless us, everyone” is the Dickensian turn of phrase. While recognizing the persistent reality of poverty and inequality, the story insists on hope and joy and merriment.

The power of this story has a very wide reach and broad appeal. In sending the Holy Child to us, God is seeking to remind us each and everyone of us that we are all born in innocence, we are all born vulnerable and that there is much of the world we’re born into that is cold, dark, poor, and very dangerous. There are kings and potentates that would breathe murderous threats against The Holy Child as well as all holy children.

We come back to the story year after year hoping and praying that this year we might hear the message of the angels and that the whole world might tune in to the message of Peace, and for God sake lay down those weapons.

I cannot help but think of families in places like Ferguson, Missouri who will be without their children this Christmas, or of those families in New York City who mourn the loss of their fathers cut down in a police cruiser, or fire fighters lost to a dreadful fire on Boston’s Beacon street or a thousand other Holy Innocents taken from us in rage, violence, by accident or in illness, or on the anniversary of those losses. All this tears at the heart of Christmas.

That’s why we must tell this sacred and holy story. We must tell it, it seems to me in the ancient words we know almost by heart;

“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.”

There that sounds familiar. What can be more certain than death and taxes?

But the story goes on and then comes this glimmer of hope.

“And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of the house and lineage of David: To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.”

And then there is a smile as broad as the universe and as bright as the sun;

“And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.”

Apparently there were shepherds biding their time keeping watch over their flocks by night, folks of a very ordinary sort, folks by the millions, not unlike you and me biding our time and keeping watch over our appointed responsibilities and that’s when it happened to us, in a thousand different kinds of ways; but it happened to us just the same; 

“The angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.”

God knows I’ve been afraid, terrified at times over one reality or another that we human beings must face.

But then it all changes. Everything changes. And all our hopes and all our fears are met in the Christ Child this night.

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

This is why I insist on telling the story exactly as it has been told again and again throughout the millennia. Empires come and Empires go. There are times of War and Peace, times of gentle kindliness and times of terror, times of deep faith, and deep doubt, but when we tell this story and tell it well, the human heart finally, finally, finally, melts like wax and opens to God.

My heart goes back to the great storytellers tonight; people like my grandmother and the Scripture she loved so much and of course to Jesus most of all; the one whose stories are making us who we are and who we are becoming; storytellers for God.

Merry Christmas friends and tell your stories well. Let them cheer us all on our way and may God bless us all, everyone!

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fr Paul

God's Dwelling Place

God’s Dwelling Place

Christmas is a way of life, not just a date on the calendar, or a season of twelve days duration. Christmas marks that moment in sacred history where God makes Love flesh and blood in human form. He was born to Mary and his name was “Jesus”, which means literally, “Savior”. He grew and waxed strong in the ways of God. 

The Incarnation or the making flesh of God in this Holy Child is a threat to the Powers and Principalities. In today’s Gospel we’re told that an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and said “Take the child and his mother and flee into Egypt and do not return until I tell you.” This was to avoid the slaughter of the Innocents which is told to us in the intervening verses not included in today’s Gospel reading. Yes, Herod ordered the wholesale slaughter of all male children under two years of age, when he realized that the Wise Men had tricked him and did not tell him where this “King” was born. How often the Powers and Principalities visit human cruelty upon the Innocents. 

This was also to fulfill yet another prophecy from the Book of the Prophet Hosea in the first verse of the eleventh chapter; “When Israel was I child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” This word “Israel” literally is a reference to the patriarch Jacob and those who followed him, called together to serve God throughout sacred history. The word Israel literally means “the one who struggles with God or who prevails in the struggle with God”. 

So we come to Twelfth Night, the conclusion of the season of Christmas and prepare for Epiphany or that season where we make manifest the Love of God to the whole world. This is why the Kings from the East come to worship him and bring their gifts to the Christ Child, so that the whole world might see him.

How many gifts are given at Christmas. Lots and lots of gifts. Yet, we, the church are not so much focused on the kinds of gifts a commercialized and consumer driven economy buys into. 

The kinds of gifts we focus on are of course the gift of the Child who was not only born for us, but also died for us and then rose again in a glorious resurrection for the sake of all sinners in all the world.

The gifts we are given are forgiveness, reconciliation, love and eternal life. These great words are a challenge to us to live in a way that makes manifest the wondrous gifts of God. Forgiveness work, reconciliation work and love work are life long gifts that require all our hearts and minds and souls and strength in order to “enflesh” the Word of God. Together these gifts lead us unto eternal life both now and in the world to come.

We are in fact Baptized into these gifts. In Pauline theology it is said that we die to the old way of living, for as in Adam all is death, so too we are born anew to the living power of Jesus the Christ until all sin and all death is conquered.

Thus the church is born, that wonderful and sacred mystery in which all of us are included and invited to participate. And that’s the Christmas we are invited into this year and every year, and in every day of our lives.

We are invited every single week to these holy places. It is a joy to be here. For as the Psalmist says; 

“How dear to me is your dwelling, My soul has a desire and longing for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God. For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room, *and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.”

~Psalm 84

This is where I am reminded how to live. This is where Jesus fills us as Paul says with “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.” Here I learn to order my life biblically, as for instance the Prophet Jeremiah reminds us to live in today’s first reading;

"Save, O LORD, your people,

the remnant of Israel."

See, I am going to gather them from the farthest parts of the earth,

among them the blind and the lame, those with child and

those in labor, together;

a great company, they shall return here.

With weeping they shall come,

Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance,

and the young men and the old shall be merry.

I will turn their mourning into joy,

I will comfort them, and give them gladness for sorrow.

~Jeremiah 31

You see how wonderful this biblical life is when lived faithfully. 

So then whether it is the gift of the life of Jesus, the gift of the holy writings, or the gift of the church itself, we have been lavished with the great generosity of God and God’s people through the generations. We are called to be a sign of hope to those in need and to make no distinction based on race, ethnicity, class, gender or even orientation. For we are all one in Jesus Christ our Lord as Blessed Paul the Apostle often says.

That brings us to this new day, this new calendar year, and this beautiful church in this particular time and place. As your bridge priest I must tell you that this generosity encourages us to be generous likewise and to make provision for the church in our day and in the days and years to come.

Therefore I ask you to pray about your generosity and to speak to your loved ones about your love for this place, where we learn so much and where God’s life is made flesh and blood not only in Jesus but in the lives of the people who love Jesus in and from this place.

Yes, I ask you to pray about this. Throughout our lives, Cindy and I have looked at each other and had that conversation. What would it take for us to give 10% of our income to the church. It would take a lot. So we ask ourselves, what can we give practically speaking in our efforts to work our way toward the biblical standard of giving. Can we give 5%, 6%, 7%? and so on as we move our way toward obedience to make provision for God’s Church?

This is God’s work and God’s work is worth doing well. This is Christmas. These are the gifts of God for the people of God. And we return to God of the generosity God has given to us. We give of our time, our talent, we give of our wealth or our poverty...and we give generously and cheerfully.

This is a good church. You are a good people. You are quite the viable congregation and, by rights, you should unquestionably be a full time ministry with a full time priest.

That is why at this point, I would like to ask you to pray about these things and to ponder them in your hearts, because this is Christmas. Christmas is a good way to live. This is the way to live into the eternal life Jesus was born to live, so that we too may live that way. 

There you are my friends; a few thoughts to ponder and to pray about as we greet this new year together.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Fr Paul

Silence: The Perfect Place for God

Silent Night

Holy Night

Good evening and Merry Christmas to you! My name is Paul Bresnahan and I come to you as an ordained Episcopal Priest, now celebrating 41 years of ordained service in the church. I have served congregations in the Diocese of Massachusetts, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Cindy and I returned to our native Boston area. I have retired three times and now your vestry and I have agreed to a three month time of coverage. So now I am now working on my fourth retirement. I’ve been a rector, a priest in charge, an interim, but this is now the first time I’ve been a “bridge priest”. I suppose if you live long enough, you’ll see just about everything!

We come to Christmas Eve, my favorite service of the year. This is Christmas, literally the Mass of the Nativity of the Christ Child. We celebrate the birth of a child born to an unwed mother, and in a family of modest means. He is born in a stable where the animals surround him, shepherds come to visit, Wise Men begin their journey and heaven and nature sings “Peace on Earth and Goodwill to all.” Here and now in the darkest time of the year the Light of the World dawns upon us in its most vulnerable form.

And the event evokes in us such love and such devotion as to move our hearts in ways any birth of any child moves us. But this is the Holy Child, this is the Mother mild, this is the Holy Family. And so we sing “Silent Night, Holy Night” as radiant beams from heaven afar warm us all.  Often when we sing these song, tears of joy and tears of sorrow so deep begin to fall for some because this Silent Night, this Holy Night touches the deepest part of our souls.

It sure does me, and not just because I’m a sentimental Irishman. This is because of the fact that in the bleak mid winter of my eighth year to heaven, my dad died. There is no easy way to say that. It was on December 27th 1953. That’s 60 years ago this Christmas. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was difficult to understand for an eight year old. It was the signature moment of my early life.

I do remember praying to the silence at night as I listened to the bells toll out the hours from St. John’s Church in Cambridge or as the trolleys along Mass Avenue squealed steel wheels upon steel rails...there were trolleys tin those days. And so it was that I prayed to the silence long into the night and often cried myself to sleep, recognizing increasingly day after day that I would never see my dad again. There were those who said that he couldn’t go to heaven because he didn’t go to church. And so it was that I began to wonder; “Not only will I not see my dad again in this life, neither will I see him in the next.” Some Christians could be awfully mean I thought then, some still are.

On the other hand there was my grandmother; a woman of enormous faith, compassion and love. She sent me to church with a coin to put in the collection plate. It was the most beautiful place I had ever seen in my life. Much like this holy place, there were stained glass windows, beautifully hand carved wood, a choir with the sound of angels, and the magnificent literature of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. I fell in love with the church then and there. They did ask me to say “Our Father who art in heaven.” I looked high into the clerestory of that magnificent church and could not see my father or Our Father. But there was something about being there that made me mindful of God, of Jesus and what they called the Holy Ghost. That one spooked me a bit, but I was only a child.

In the meantime I prayed to the silence at night. My mom would have me kneel by my bedside and say a prayer that went; “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake....” Egad, not only my dad, now you’r talking about my own last moments and I’ve hardly just begun to live. And so it went night after night; Silent Night after Silent night. By the way Cindy and I changed the language of that prayer; “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. Guard me Jesus through the night, and wake me with the morning light.”

But then one day on my way home from church one very sunny and beautiful day, I found myself sauntering along by an old and shabby city hedge. I mindlessly pulled a solitary leaf off that hedge and pressed my thumb into its girth. As I looked down at the green chlorophyll that now found itself stain my thumb nail, I “heard” something in my heart that seemed to say something. I heard no voice, but there was something like a sense that moved inside the deepest place of my heart. Whatever or Whoever it was that moved in my heart at that moment changed my life, because in the total silence the still small voice said; “Don’t you know there’s a special place in My heart for your dad?”

I stopped dead in my tracks, and gave voice to the sense that spoke deep within. I said it right out loud; “Don’t you know that there’s a special place in My heart for your dad?” My whole being shuddered, my heart raced with excitement and I ran home as fast as I could, burst into the front door, and bounded into the kitchen where my grandmother was busy at here cast iron skillet she called her spider, peppering up something good to eat. 

“Ma”, I said, “is there really a God?

“Of course there is”; a pretty straight forward question and answer that was.

“Ma, is there a heaven?”

Now somewhat irritated, after all she was in the press of providing for the family meal, hardly a time for the pursuit of theology but she did say; “Of course there is”. 

So I dared ask this question; “Ma, is my daddy there?” I knew that I was taking my chances with a question like this. After all, more than once she said that it was the Irish who ruined Boston. Especially in the aftermath of the divorce, my mom has her issues with my dad. So did my grandmother. She did hesitate, I must tell you, but what she did then became an unforgettable moment for me. 

She knelt down and held me close. She folded my head into the nape of her neck and she said; “Of course he is” Even now it is as though I can still smell the scent of her hair, the kind of “odor of God” the Christian mystics write about of their encounters with the Divine . 

Now when I went to bed at night the silence became a Presence. That Presence became Someone I could pour my heart out to. In time I learned that that the Presence had a Name. God, my creator, my dad’s creator, the creator of all that is visible and invisible. The Presence had a Name; Jesus, the savior of the whole world...of all who would turn to him and love him who first loved us. The Presence had a Name; The Holy Spirit, the Holy Wisdom from on High, the gift giver of all that is good and noble and true and pure. 

Now the Silent Night became the Holy Night. I gave myself body and soul to the Holy Trinity. For me this was no doctrine but my living Companion. And as I bound myself to the strong Name of the Holy Trinity day after day, Holy Night after Holy Night, I became a man who from my boyhood wanted to be a priest of the church.

I wanted to stand at the Altar of God and in the pulpit and tell all who wanted to hear, and many who didn’t that there’s a special place in God’s heart for you, each and every one of you, of all those you love both in this life and in the life to come in the ever nearer Presence of God.

So Merry Christmas! God be with you and may you be with God this Holy Night; this Silent Night. It is a joy to be with you tonight in this very, very sacred space. May God bless us everyone.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Fr Paul