The wonderful week before Christmas

A Reflection by Fred Schaeffer, OFS

Praise the Lord, in a week it will be Christmas. Many people, especially those with families are experiencing a frenetic pace in this last week, making sure there are presents for everyone. Husband or wife, children even if older, in-laws, brothers or sisters, we look forward to including them in our Christmas feast. And don’t forget last minute Christmas cards? How about you, my faithful reader? What have you done for yourself? How about your Christmas church-going plans, are they all set or in the making? In the event you are not married, it is allowable to give yourself a present.

Presents makes one feel good, as long as they are not a substitute for our spiritual relationship with the Lord. I often bemoan my celibate existence especially at this time of year, how nice it would be to have a wife… but I quickly get off that thought when I think of so many who have marital problems in their lives. There are so many families where a war is in the making every night. That’s no way to live. So the joy of the Birth of the Lord is a great time to make amends, and start again; forget what happened before, and make a fresh start. It was St. Francis who said, “Let us begin again, for up to now we have done nothing”. He said this near the end of his life, recognizing that conversion is a lifelong journey.

Conversion - we Franciscans have another word for that: Metanoia. That’s a change of heart, especially in spiritual matters. Article 7 of the Secular Franciscan Rule, describes our vocation as “brothers and sisters of penance.” In the same Rule, “let them conform their thoughts and deeds to those of Christ by means of that radical interior change which the gospel calls ‘conversion.’” Lino Temperini, TOR, emphasizes that, “the term ‘penance’ in Franciscan spirituality is equivalent to the biblical meaning of metanoia, understood as an intimate conversion of the heart to God, as a continuous state of being. It is not a question of doing penance but of being penitent.” Or to refine further, “penance is not a state, but a journey that leads to God.”[1]

As we continue with the week before Christmas, let us pray with the Church the “O Antiphons”, in the Liturgy of the Hours, Evening Prayer and eagerly anticipate that the Lord is coming: “O EMMANUEL, God with us, Our King and Lawgiver, the expected of the nations and their Saviour: COME to save us, O Lord our God. Amen”. (Dec.23)

I wish you a very Blessed Christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year,

Fred Schaeffer, OFS

1. Lino Temperini, TOR, Penitential Spirituality in the Franciscan Sources, Franciscan Publications, 1983, 41, in https://www.secularfranciscansusa.org/2019/10/07/the-prologue-lens-of-the-rule/#_ftn10

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