A Special Gift

This year has been a year full of changes for me in many, many areas of my life. Most of the changes have been in areas that haven't seen a lot of change in, at the minimum, a decade or more. One of those changes happened in our church. Our pastor, who had been with us for fourteen years, was sent this year to a church in a small southern town about 1.5 hours away. Don't think for a minute I was better than Job...That I was above raising my hands up to the heavens and crying out to know why this too! Oh, no, not this southern belle. We loved this pastor...we were comfortable with him....we liked the way he led the flock...and we had a history with him. This was the shepherd that buried both my in-laws. This was the pastor that gave both my children their first Holy Communion, that gave them their first priestly confessions, that presided over their Holy Confirmation as young adults. He was our pastor, minister, priest, friend and spiritual Father through many important events and years of our lives. But, by now the realization that change does eventually come has become a reality.....yet, I still find myself battling to accept ALLL these changes. And where does that leave us with our new pastor?! Just keep reading....

Our new pastor is Father Tim Donahue ( thank you Lord that he doesn't resemble Phil Donahue). I have enjoy, even been inspired by his teachings, but yet find myself being a little too critical...watching every move he makes a little too closely...fighting the negative thoughts of already knowing that he can't hold a candle to our previous pastor (who has a reputation for being the cream of the crop). All this going on and Christmas Eve Midnight mass approaching quickly. Midnight Mass, for us, is and has been for years a true spiritual highlight of the year. This special mass, in our very old and historic church always moves me and bring forth lots of emotion. Well, I just knew this year was going to be very different ( and I don't mean to lead you into positive thoughts, mine weren't). Battling a very heavy war with negativity we donned our smiley faces, dressed to the nines (very formal), prayed and head for church. We arrived early to get our usual pew (4 rows from the front, to the right of center isle, on the priests side). Actually, every year the schedule is the same....be at the church by 10:15-10:30..pray until the Festival of Carols at 11:15 (or I least I prayed..seemed my family was a little restless)...then mass starts promptly at midnight and runs to around 2:00 a.m....then we have a 40-45 minute drive home.

I had a lot of time to pray and ask God for something special, pouring out all my cares and concerns (oh, gosh tears and my make-up has to last hours still), just wanting something to lift our spirits. I noticed that there was a new entry in the bulletin...near the end of the mass it read "Pastor's Gift". I shared it with my family and everyone weighted in on what that could possibly mean. Everyone knows priests don't have any money so how could he give us a gift? Maybe we didn't understand the way it was written and he was going to thank us, the congregation, for the gifts we gave him....okay, that had to be it.

Let me cut right to it....we didn't make one right guess. Oh, and by the way, Mass was beautiful and moving and God's presence was real and evident and deep ...it really was wonderful but God had one more blessing in store for us. My friend, Jan, wrote about rest over the weekend and I agree 100% with her. During Christmas (and a lot during the rest of the year) we have trouble finding time to rest....which in turn makes PEACE almost impossible. Yes, most of us are pretty unpeaceful during the holiday season...too busy, plaqued by money worries, stressed out about all the details and responsiblity of the season. And that night at church I was no different...trying to pray but my mind wandering down the list of presents still needing to have tags put on them...trying to focus on the Lord and instead finding my mind calculating how many hours the spiral ham and turkey needed to be cooked....wanting to feel my Saviour's presence but instead feeling panic because I remembered that I had neglected to pick up that last gift for a special friend. I pushed on doing my best to lay down in my spirit and feel peaceful as I prayed, then as we listened to and participated in the carols and then during the mass.

Finally, we were to the point in the bulletin where we had seen "Pastor's Gift"....up to the microphone came Fr. Donahue. He explained to us that he loved us all very much and had wanted to give each of us a christmas gift. Being a biggggg church and him being a man of little means it seemed impossible. So he had really prayed hard...he wanted to give us something. He told us that God had spoken to him and told him that he was able to give us a gift.....God told him to reach out and give us, in the name of Jesus, the gift of PEACE. Fr. Donahue stood humbly before us, sang in acappella a beautiful song to us. Then, after humbling himself before us in song, prayed for the peace of God to engulf us and be poured out over us. Quietly, as the lights in the church were distinguish, Fr. Donahue, by candlelight, made his way to his seat and we all sat in silence for several minutes to accept the gift of peace that was, at that moment, being poured out over us. You could physically feel the power of God's peace being poured out upon you. It was just as if Christ himself had a pitcher filled with peace and was pouring it out upon our heads. You could feel the peace running over our entire body and as it did every part of me started to relax...yielding itself in an incredible way. All the worries, all the combativeness, all the stress, all the negativity, all the discord disappeared. It was all replace with feelings of peace, calmness, tranquility, and serenity. What an beautiful act of giving...what an awesome gift!!! What a pastor!!! And what an incredible, loving, caring, giving Father in heaven...to one who needed it...a faithful caring servant and an all-knowing, deep-caring Saviour. Another Christmas miracle..? You bet!!!

The peace of God, which transscends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phillippians 4:7

He was pierced for our trangessions, he was crushed for our inqui ties; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we were healed. Isaiah 53:5