WHAT IS YOUR GIFT?
“To those who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God.” - Jn 1:12
The 2006 film, The Nativity Story, brings to life an old legend. The movie shows a scene where Mary & Joseph meets a poor, elderly shepherd. The shepherd encourages a tired-looking Mary with this comment “We are all given something, a gift. Your gift is what you carry inside of you.” Then she asks him, “What is your gift?” The man replies, “Nothing. Nothing, but the hope of waiting for one.” Later, he comes to the manger with the other shepherds. All the other shepherds were carrying gifts, but he had nothing to give. Seeing the shepherd embarrassed and with empty hands, Mary puts the baby Jesus in his arms. While giving him the Christ Child, she says with tenderness, “He is for all humankind. We are each given a gift.”
Today’s Gospel reveals the gift that each of us carries within. The Gospel ends with this verse: “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace upon grace.” Pope Francis reminds us that grace is a synonym of beauty. Today, we encounter beauty upon beauty. The beauty of a God – who created the universe, heaven, and earth – becoming human like us. Jesus, Word of God, who is God, became human – one of us. He built his house next to ours, lived among us, ate like us, suffered with us, for us, to save us. He came as a baby, a humble, vulnerable child, to a poor family. He came to serve and give his life, embracing everything about us because he loved us.
In the beauty of God’s love, we discover our own beauty. We are all beloved of God. This is the gift we carry inside of us, according to Pope Francis: “For better or worse, in sickness and in health, whether happy or sad, in [God’s] eyes we are beautiful, not for what we do but for what we are. Deep within us, there is an indelible and intangible beauty, an irrepressible beauty, which is the core of our being.”
While I know this with my mind, I struggle to accept it in my heart. In the past few months, I have been walking with four families I care deeply about. They all struggle mightily. Three are on the brink of being divorced. In the fourth family, the couple resents each other deeply even as the wife is told that she only has a few months to live. Because I love these people dearly, I find myself hurting with them, and wanting so much to change their situation, to fix them. Yet, I feel helpless, powerless. It kills me to see people I love suffer because my weaknesses and self-reliance are exposed.
Through these families, I find myself before a disguised gift. I find myself responding with the old shepherd to the question of gift, “Nothing. Nothing, but the hope of waiting for one.” Like him, I am being drawn by Mary’s tender gaze as she places the Christ Child in my arms, inviting me to open my heart as the cradle of God. Albeit not easy, I am grateful for this learning opportunity to receive gift in this season of hope.
What is your gift this Christmas? How are you letting yourself become more fully a beloved of God?