Thursday after Epiphany
We often hear of a supposed “holiday spirit.” From Thanksgiving to Christmas, people seem to be in good moods. They smile more often, they rejoice in giving and receiving gifts, they donate to the poor, they hum Christmas carols, and they even endure the cold and darkness with the expectation of cozy fires and fun family time. Now that Christmas has ended, however, everyone goes back to being their whiney, grumpy, old selves.
Well, maybe not quite... but there is some truth in it, isn’t there? If you are one of those people, however, there is a real problem. First of all, Christmas is still going! The rest of the world may not know it, but you do. For Catholics, Advent comes before Christmas, and one day of Christmas is certainly not enough. But, for another thing, Christians are really called to keep a sort of holiday spirit all year round. In other words, we are supposed to be kind, nice, loving, and giving ALL YEAR ROUND.
This message is conveyed to us today in the first reading from the first letter of John. “Whoever loves God must love his brother,” writes John (4:21). If we love God, we must love those around us – pure and simple. It’s easy to remember this at Christmas time. Now, can we remember that all year round? In particular, we find that the stretch of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is a time when there is great attention given to the poor. Frozen turkeys are donated, food baskets given, giving trees’ ornaments taken and returned with gifts of toys and clothes, and everyone seems to remember that there are people in need.
In the gospel reading today Jesus announces that he has come to fulfill the words of Isaiah, for example, to bring glad tidings to the poor. And while it is appropriate to make a special effort with the poor during the holidays, we can’t let it become our one effort for the year, any more than letting the holiday spirit be our one time during the year that we are kind to the people around us.
As we reflect on these readings today, we see that we are truly called to have a holiday spirit all year round. This means rejoicing that Christ came to us as a baby, born humbly in a stable. It means recognizing that his life, death, and resurrection were all for us. Being a Christian is not always easy, and everyone has a bad day once in awhile. But we also have an underlying joy that is inescapable for us who truly believe. It leads us to be kind to annoying people, to listen patiently when we don’t feel like it, to be friendly drivers even when we’re in a hurry, and so on.
So let us pray that we hold onto that holiday spirit...all year long.
Maria Morrow