No Man is a Failure who has God as his Friend

Nativity of the Lord–Second Mass

   In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  While there are many classic Christmas movies, one of the great is “It’s A Wonderful Life,” starring Jimmy Stewart.  But, truth be told, it’s not the most joyful Christmas movie ever.  In the second half of the movie, after we’ve been introduced to George Bailey by an angel named Clarence, we see Bailey, a good man, go from failure to failure, as his absent-minded uncle loses a significant deposit that kept his bank in business, and then he foolishly decides that everyone would be better off if he hadn’t existed.
    How many of us here have been in George Bailey’s shoes?  Maybe not wanting to jump into a freezing river off a bridge, but wondering if our life has made a difference, or if anyone would really notice if we didn’t exist.  Maybe we feel like they would be better if we didn’t.
    Clarence, George’s angel, grants, if even for small while, George’s wish and shows George just what an effect he had on others: from his family, to those who benefited from his reasonable loans, to local citizens.  Spoiler alert: George realizes just the impact he has had on others’ lives.  He recognizes that when one gives of himself, when one treats others as human beings and not as means to gain power or money, one becomes rich, no matter how much or how little one has.  George recognizes that, despite what seems like earthly failures, he is, as his brother Harry calls him, “the richest man in town.”  Or, as his angel, Clarence, writes in the front cover of his Bible, “No man is a failure who has friends.”
    How poor we humans were, even the Chosen People of God.  We found ourselves trapped in cycles of sin.  The greatest king God had provided for His people, King David, was long dead, and his descendants no loner occupied a throne.  Even the voice of prophets had fallen silent.  A foreign, pagan power controlled the Holy City and daily oppressed the ones whom God had promised never to abandon.  We walked in darkness.  We were poor.

    And yet, “the kindness and generous love of our God…appeared.”  At the moment we had lost hope; when despair had almost taken us, God sent us an Angel of Salvation, the Angel that the canon references when it says, “command that these gifts be borne by the hands of your holy Angel to your altar on high in the sight of your divine majesty,” Jesus Christ, the fullest messenger (𝛼𝛾𝛾𝜀𝜆𝜊𝜍 in Greek) that God ever sent.
    And God revealed to us that we were not poor, as long as we enjoyed friendship with Him.  As long as we remained close to God, we had everything, because “everything belongs to you…and you to Christ, and Christ to God,” as St. Paul says in his first epistle to the Corinthians.  
    But it was not only the Chosen People who felt the sting of their poverty.  Even we, who have been washed clean from original sin and made the adopted children of God in Christ through Holy Baptism can feel like George Bailey.  We can feel like we don’t add anything to society, or even our friends or family.  Life gives us lemons, and we make sour faces.  
    The Good News is that God found us worth saving, though we had no worth in ourselves.  The Good News of the Incarnation is the grand love story of God for His People, who, though they walked in darkness, God did not abandon, but illuminated.  God doesn’t have to show us what life would be like without us; He shows us that we are worth humbling Himself and taking on our frail humanity in order to prove His love for us.  Our debt consists of much more than $8,000 that Uncle Billy lost and Mr. Potter took.  But like the village that rallied around George Bailey, God gives us what we need so that our debt does not mean that we are lost to eternal bondage to sin and death.  And unlike the fellow citizens of Bedford Falls, we didn’t do anything for God.  He owed us nothing.  And yet He still gave, up to and including the Precious Blood of His Beloved Son.  If the donation of money from George Bailey’s neighbors signified their support for the banker who had carried them through the Great Depression, financed their homes and businesses, and saved them from foolish decisions, how much more does the Incarnation and Paschal Mystery show us just how much God supports us and loves us.  
    And this gift from God, the reason for Christmas, truly changed the world.  Without Christ we don’t truly understand human dignity and individual liberties.  Without Christ we mark time altogether differently.  Without Christ we don’t have universities, hospitals, magnificent cathedrals, the scientific method, so many things that we take for granted.  But, above all, without Christ we don’t have salvation, and the kingdom of heaven remains locked to us, which would be the saddest fact of all.  
    But God gives Himself to us, to prove just how much we mean to Him.  Though we are poor, like the shepherds in Bethlehem, God calls us to Himself by the voices of other messengers, other angels, to let us know the good news that our lives have value beyond what we could ever imagine, no matter how good or how bad our lives seem to go.  
    One of the reasons that “It’s A Wonderful Life” continues to be a Christmas classic is because it tells a timeless truth on the silver screen: even when we are at our worst; even when life seems to crash down all around us; even when things seem the darkest; God loves us and values us and is willing to pay any price to save us and help us walk in the light.  If I may be so bold, I would slightly change Clarence the angel’s words to George Bailey, as words that we should always keep at the front of our minds, not only at Christmas, but every day: “No man is a failure who has God as his friend”: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

A Father Who Keeps His Promises

Fourth Sunday of Advent

    I try to be a man of my word.  If I say something, I consider myself, except for extreme circumstances, bound to do what I said I would.  This has led me to become very particular with my word choice, and to say, when asked if I can do someone a favor, “Depends on what it is.”  If I make a promise, I intend to keep it, as far as I am able.
    But we have probably all had an experience (hopefully not from me!) when a promise has been broken.  I remember a local story from not too long ago about a contractor who took people’s money, but didn’t complete the work.  Or the sad broken promise of a marriage that ends in divorce, a promise not only made to each other, but also made to the children for their best upbringing. 
    How beautiful it is then, that we have a Father who keeps His promises.  God always is true to His word.  As St. Paul reminds us, when God says yes He means yes, and His no means no.  We hear God promise to David today that He will establish a house for David, and raise up an heir whose kingdom will be firm and endure forever.  David himself saw kingdoms fall and rise during his reign, and so this promise must have been quite encouraging! 
    But that promise seemed like it was broken.  David’s son, Solomon, was the only one who could claim a united kingdom.  The kingdom of Israel and Judah split into two due to the harshness of Solomon’s son, and they never rejoined.  Israel was eventually exiled because they worshipped false gods, so that only the southern kingdom of Judah was left.  But even then, eventually the king was captured by the Babylonians who exiled all the royal family.  After the Babylonian exile, the sons of David never ruled over a kingdom again, at least not an earthly kingdom.  Even after the Jews returned to Judah and rebuilt the temple, there was never a king to rule over them, and they soon found themselves a vassal territory of Rome.  King Herod, who ruled at the time of the Gospel we heard today, was not of David’s line, and he wasn’t even really a king in his own right.  He ruled only because Rome let him, and to try to appease the Jews.  For how many years must the people have thought that God had broken His promise to David!
    Enter the Archangel Gabriel.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, like her betrothed, Joseph, was of David’s house.  They were descendants of King David, though they had no political power.  But Gabriel assures Mary that her son, conceived by the Holy Spirit, will receive “the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  God had not broken His promise.  He simply fulfilled it in a way that others did not expect.  And this unexpected way improved the apparent promise, as Christ’s kingdom would truly never end, because time could not limit the one who rules outside time, and the rule would not limit itself to only a particular piece of land, but upon all of humanity.  It would be like asking a parent for money for ice cream, but then not getting it when you wanted it immediately, only to find out that the parent was the heir to the Dairy Queen, and you had been named as the new owner and CEO.  It wasn’t what you expected, but it was better!

    We should keep that in mind when we think of God’s other promises: for example, God’s promise that He would never abandon us.  God is always there for us.  If He stopped being there for us, we would cease to exist; not just die, but disappear from existence, like George Bailey from “It’s A Wonderful Life” when Clarence the angel shows him what life would be like if he had never been born.  That’s not to say that we will always feel that God is with us.  St. Theresa of Calcutta rarely felt God’s presence.  St. John of the Cross felt abandoned by God, but knew that God would never forsake him, even in the midst of his dark night.  And what joy Sts. Theresa and John must have experienced when they, having remained faithful to God even in the face of difficulties and seeming abandonment, saw God face to face in heaven! 
    When we are going through difficult times, it is not that God has abandoned us.  God is simply allowing us to prove our love, not just for the good feelings that He so often sends, but for Him directly.  Sometimes God is so close to us that we cannot even sense Him.  Sometimes a struggle is meant to help us grow in a virtue or in general holiness, which will draw us even closer to God in the end.  But God never walks away from us.  He will never divorce us.  We are the only ones who can walk away, and even then, God always remains for us, watching for our return like the father in the parable of the Prodigal Son, ready to run to us if we come to our senses. 
    God is a Father who always keeps His Promises.  Jesus Christ says yes when He means yes, but sometimes also says no when He means no.  We may not always live to see how the promise is fulfilled.  And the promise may be so beyond our expectations that we can’t imagine how the promise will be fulfilled.  But God will fulfill it.  Have faith; our Father only knows how to give us what is good, even better than we can dream.