Loading...Dear Friends in Christ,
This is my last column for the Cluster newsletter as your parish priest. I almost forgot to write it. While I am ready to retire, I know I will miss serving you as your priest. I have been very blessed these past eighteen years. It has been stressful at times; it has been sad at times; it has been exhilarating at times. Most of all it has been a blessing! I am so thankful to God for His calling me to be a priest in His Church. I am thankful especially for the love and support of my parishioners.
My prayer is that you will remember what being a Christian is all about. Being called by Christ’s name means being like Him, Christ-like. Being human beings, we all fail at being Christ-like so what God expects of us is to strive to be like Jesus. Jesus said to love the Lord your God with all your mind, body, and spirit, and to love your neighbor as you love yourself. Being a Christian means we see Jesus’ face in everyone we meet – everyone. More importantly, everyone must see Jesus in our face. We must always be loving, forgiving, serving, and not judging.
I came across these anecdotes about living in the season of Christmas. This is what it is really all about:
The young father stood in line at the lay-away counter, wearing dirty clothes and worn-out boots. With him were three small children.
He asked to pay something on his bill because he knew he wouldn’t be able to afford it all before Christmas.
Then a mysterious woman stepped up to the counter.
“She told him, ‘No, I’m paying for it,'” recalled Edna Deppe, assistant manager at the store in Indianapolis.
“He just stood there and looked at her and then looked at me and asked if it was a joke. I told him it wasn’t, and that she was going to pay for him. And he just busted out in tears.”
At stores across the US, Santa seems to be getting some help: Anonymous donors are paying off strangers’ lay-away accounts, buying the Christmas gifts other families couldn’t afford, especially toys and children’s clothes set aside by impoverished parents.
Stores may be the focus of lay-away generosity, because some of them are one of the few large discount stores that has offered lay-away year-round for about four decades.
These secret Santas are also creating a unforeseen effect.
Lori Stearnes of Omaha also benefited from the generosity of a stranger who paid all but $58 of her $250 lay-away bill for toys for her four youngest grandchildren. Stearnes said she and her husband live paycheck to paycheck, but she plans to use the money she was saving for the toys to help pay for someone else’s lay-away.
Isn’t it great to be reminded of what the Christmas spirit really means?
As I move into retirement, please keep me in your prayers as I always keep you in mine. Thank you for your love and know that I love you. Let me end this epistle with my blessing:
Let us always remember how the Most Merciful and Almighty God loves us. He loves us at all times, He loves us in all places, and He loves us even when we are unlovable. Let us go out into the world and love others as God loves us. And may the blessings of God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit be with us always. Merry Christmas! Amen.
In Christ’s Love,
Father Russ
