By Sister Genevieve Sachse, OSB

A phrase that is used so often in a wide variety of contexts to us religious is, “but it’s different for you sisters.” They may be referring to our unique problems (or the lack of them) or to some mode of behavior that they expect to be present or absent in us, and, whether or not their concept is accurate or misinformed, they expect us to be different.

While few of these differences are due to the essence of religious life per se, Christmas is one time of the year when differences of lifestyle are more apparent. I watch harried parents struggling through the last days of Christmas shopping with tired children in tow and agonize with fathers recently laid off from work who are trying to find enough money to pay present bills, much less to buy for Christmas.

As a celibate, I am free of these and many other problems, but I also cannot watch the joy of my own children’s faces as they grow with each Christmas. It is this desire to bear children of one’s own that is the deciding factor for many women in choosing marriage over the religious state.

Mary’s great and awesome privilege of having given birth to the Word-Made-Flesh is her highest glory and yet she had not “known man.” The mother of an adopted child reminded me that there is far more to motherhood than the first nine months, and I am reminded of that fact in a special way at Christmas as we celebrate once more the mystery that “the Word was made flesh and dwells among us.”

As a religious, my role is not to give physical birth but to bring Christ to life over and over again in the people of God; but first He must be born within me. This is true of every Christian, but especially so for those in church ministry.

Leslie Brandt has a selection in his book “Great God, Here I Am” (Concordia Publishing House, 1969) entitled “My Name Is Christian” which speaks to the responsibility stated above. I wish to share with you some excerpts from that essay:

My name is Christian.

It’s a breathtaking truth to assimilate,

A fabulous concept to comprehend.

I, sinful and self-centered, fallible,

Am appointed and empowered to be God’s son and servant

In this distorted world …

I have nothing within me worthy of His love and esteem.

Yet I am one of those whom He has chosen to carry out His

purposes, to continue that which Christ began,

To represent and reflect Christ to the milling multitudes.

My name is Christian. It’s an awesome, even terrifying truth.

What Jesus began in the three years of His visible presence

He has appointed me to continue.

He set the example, got the ball rolling.

He reached out in self-sacrificing love to touch people

In their need and to communicate to humanity the power of divinity.

Now He gives me direct access to His source of power and

Commands me to go out and perform even greater works than

He did in the short time He was on his earth.

My name is Christian.

It’s an upsetting, disturbing truth.

It means that I am not here to blow my own horn,

To perpetuate my personal ambitions.

I am God’s personal representative, His envoy,

His son and servant, His disciple and priest,

With the express assignment of dedicating my very life

To the carrying out of His purpose.

I am to be the channel and means of communicating His divine

Love and power into this disjointed humanity about me.

It means that I am no longer my own. I am free only to yield my freedom to Him and to others for His sake.

My name is Christian.

It’s a strange and solemn truth.

With Jesus no longer visible present,

I may be the only means God has of relating to those in my path.

They may never realize God or His claim on them except through me.

My name is Christian.

It’s a truth far greater in value and worth,

Greater than any human being can possibly conceive.

To be a son of God, claimed by His love,

Redeemed through His grace, empowered by His divinity,

And guaranteed His eternal and abundant riches –

All this is mine,

For my name is Christian.