By Fr. John Adamski

When the song of the angels is stilled

When the star in the sky is gone

When the kings and princes are home

When the shepherds are back with their flock

The work of Christmas beings:

To find the lost,

To heal the broken,

To feed the hungry,

To release the prisoner,

To rebuild the nations,

To bring peace among brothers,

To make music in the heart.

This poem by Howard Thurman appears in a Christmas card produced by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. It focuses on some of the real meaning and spirit of Christmas and reminds us clearly of our responsibility. The ideas aren’t new –they’re a paraphrase of much that is found in the Gospel. The goals aren’t new –men of every age have certainly sought to achieve these goals. Nevertheless, you and I can make these phrases into new possibilities for our lives and our world if we take up the work of Christmas, the work of Jesus, making it our own.

Basically this is the task of the Christian: to continue the mission of Jesus for our world, bringing all men back to God. We’re all aware of that obligation and we try to grow in our faithful response to God’s call for us. Hopefully, each Advent-Christmas gives us an opportunity to reflect – amidst all the other hectic rituals of this seasons on how we are accomplishing that responsibility and how we might do better in sharing the life of God with one another. Christmas reminds us again of the importance of human life as Jesus, the Son of God, becomes man and therefore brings the divine and human together in an entirely new way. Each of us and every person round us assumes a new significance because of this lesson taught by the coming of the Lord in our midst: man can share in the life of God himself.

The man or woman who would serve the Church in a fulltime way necessarily finds special meaning in the work an spirit of Christmas. As leaders in the Christian community, we must be especially mindful of the community’s responsibility today for the work of the Lord. Our encouragement and hopefully our enthusiasm will help those around us to realize more deeply their own role in this responsibility. We must help others to realize the best of what they are capable of being and doing – to recognize that dimension of God’s spirit living in their lives and calling them to become more and more God’s people. The Christian leader fulfills this function in the community not by authority and rule but by service.

All of this theory comes down to many practical situations: the need of a critically ill person and his family, the need of the sinner for God’s forgiveness, the need of the community for the body and blood of the Lord, the need of people for someone who listens and cares. Hopefully, the priest stands ready to respond to those needs and serves others in that way. It’s a challenging, demanding and very rewarding way to spend one’s life.

The sign in front of Richway says: “The Spirit of Christmas is here.” I haven’t been to Richway recently so I’m not sure about their spirit of Christmas. But I hope that each of us will have a deep realization of the spirit of Christmas in our own lives so that we will be able “to make music in the heart” of every person with whom we share our holiday season.