CLAY NATIVITY SCENE: GENEVA HARDING VAN BALEN; PHOTOS: MARY VAN BALEN
Leaning back in my chair, I smiled, ready to concentrate on Christmas. I sent out some fee-lance magazine articles yesterday; now my students’ final grades were posted. I had spent the past couple of days reading papers on “Sacrament” and realized that the assignment was appropriate to the season that celebrates the Incarnation.
Besides looking at the seven ritual sacraments of the Catholic Church, our class explored the broader understanding of sacrament as a visible or physical sign that points to something beyond itself, which in our case, was to God. Karl Rhaner said that all grace is mediated through the material things of the world, and many of the students’ papers illustrated that fact.
A number of students wrote about people, particularly family members, who had been a “sacrament” to them. A parent’s unwavering support during life’s upheavals helped more than one student become aware of God’s constant presence. Others experienced God’s mercy through forgiveness received from a spouse or friend. For some, a friend who faced serious illness or unemployment with peace, borne of deep faith, inspired them to reconnect with God in their own lives. Nature, sport, music, and art all made appearances in the papers.
Learning that Jesus is the primordial sacrament, the Sacrament from which all others flow, was exciting for some students and is what we celebrate at Christmas. In order to communicate infinite love and desire for unity with creation and human beings, God needed to speak our language. We are part of a material world and God became part of it. If Jesus had not become one of us, we would never have heard the fullness of Gods voice or known the fullness of Divine Presence.
Fr. Michael Himes of Boston University expounded on these ideas and explained grace as Love outside the Trinity. God is already a relationship of persons but desired to draw us into that family circle. Jesus is our invitation, our means of arriving there, our Sacrament.
I am finally ready to concentrate on the season. As much fun as shopping can be, the activity easily becomes overwhelming, and we think less about appreciating family and friends and more about beating someone to the checkout line or the hours we have left to go. The best way is most likely not hurrying from store to store, but taking some time to reflect on how Gods grace is mediated to us through people and places, through talents shared and time enjoyed. We can read Scripture and reflect on the amazing story of a young woman who was open to the most intimate experience of Gods mediated Grace: Jesus, God/man, growing in her womb.
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