Graf Family after Christmas Liturgy

Before coming home this Christmas eve we went to a Christmas liturgy with son’s family at their church. My oldest grandchild, now 15, was one of the lectors at mass, my other grandson was an altar boy server and my young granddaughter was in the children’s choir that let the music. Due to children’s role in the liturgy we had to be at Church early. While waiting for Mass to begin I started to think about the joy of Christmas and my son who was sitting next to us. I started praying a litany of names of good persons I have known who are deceased. The litany ranged from Dorothy Day, my young sister, Pat’s young brother and a wide range of family members and friends. Of course on the top of list was our son Peter, my son’s younger brother and in childhood day’s good friend. I pray that through the intersection of these saints my son and his family would enjoy the blessing of Christmas in their daily lives.

I remember being in the basement of the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and seeing the small cave tradition says was the birth place of Jesus. Like in my modern day story of If Joseph and Mary came to Milwaukee today, the place at the time was simple shelter for animals to stay out of the rain and cold of night. Yet this baby was God’s heir, a mirror to all of us of the love and image of God, our mother and father. God emptied self to be one of us is a mystery we cannot comprehend but shows a love beyond all understanding.

I tried to find the silence of God in myself and transfer a bit of that love to my son sitting next to me via the intersection of these great persons who, like Jesus, walked the earth.

Tomorrow I will make our formal request to dialog with the three members of the Corporation Board the Archbishop asked us to dialog with in our Cry of the Poor Petition. Will they listen and give the money from the three closed Catholic Churches to God’s blessed ones, the poor, marginalized and segregated? I do not know. But I do know all the saints full of God’s love will be pulling for them to say yes to this petition. I like our chances at Christmas.

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