We have a few writings contributed for Christmas we choose to leave up year round.

Christmas is the FEAST OF PRESENCE.

At Christmas we celebrate EMMANUEL which means GOD IS WITH US.

By assuming our human nature, Jesus was exemplifying the attitude of poverty and humility with which we must stand before God. By subjecting himself to grow in age, wisdom and grace before God and man, Jesus was embodying the spirit of obedience which should govern our growth and development as Children of God. By the relationships Jesus established on earth, first with Mary and Joseph, and then with his apostles and disciples, he was illustrating the chaste love which should bind us to those God gives to us as our family, friends and associates on our earthly pilgrimage. The Father sent us Jesus not only to reconcile us back to Himself, but to show us the way; indeed, to be the very WAY to Union with Him.

Everything Jesus did was to teach us, show us, actually model for us the way to God, the way to form a relationship with God and with each other in God, the way to live a life truly pleasing to God, the way to live a truly prayerful life instead of a life full of prayers.

Jesus manifested himself at first as a vulnerable babe; as a totally dependent infant, completely at the mercy of the world into which he was born. He willingly chose this state of helplessness to demonstrate what abandonment to the will of the Father meant.

As his life began, so it continued. He lived a life of surrender to the will of His Father. My meat, he said, is to do the will of my father; I have come to serve, not to be served; My will is to do the will of him who sent me.

And so his life ended. In the end, he allowed himself to be vulnerable again. He was as mute as a babe before his accusers. He submitted the outcome of his life to the free will of men, because that was the will of his Father: not my will but yours, Father, be done - into your hands I commend my spirit; I die with my will united to Yours.

True abandonment to God means having that mind and attitude of Christ. It means totally surrendering our life to the plan the Father has for us. It means living with absolute trust and confidence that nothing will happen that is not part of God's plan for us, and if it is God's plan for us, it will ultimately be for our good, even though visibly it may seem not to be so.

We are united with Jesus in abandonment when we accept as God's plan whatever is imposed upon us by life; whatever happens to us that we obviously can not change or control. We may ask that it not be so, but ultimately we accept whatever happens, even if it would mean death. Accepting what God provides for us, in life and in death, is what being with God means. And BEING WITH GOD is the goal of our life, our prayer, our everything: isn't it? If living our life this way means death - so what? to die WITH GOD is to be with Him forever. What better way to go into eternity than with our will united with His, for that will determine the everlasting state of our being. Hell is for those who die with their wills against God. Purgatory is for those who leave this world with their wills still straddling the fence.

There was a man, a Carmelite, whose life from 1614 to 1691 embodied this attitude of being for God and always standing in God's presence by striving to do His Will. In the Carmelite Order he was known as Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection.

Prior to becoming a Carmelite lay brother, he was known as Nicholas Herman. He was born in the province of Lorraine, France of a deeply religious family. He became a soldier and served during the Thirty Years War. The atrocities he observed during that war inclined him to the religious life, but first he served as a footman for the treasurer of France. He was conscientious in that position but described himself as "a clumsy lummox who broke everything." After spending a short time as a hermit, he decided he belonged in a religious congregation where his spiritual life would benefit from some kind of order and structure. At the prompting of an uncle who was a Carmelite friar, he went to Paris and was accepted as aDiscalced Carmelite Lay Brother.

Brother Lawrence did not develop an attitude and practice of living in the Presence of God by being totally abandoned to His Will SUDDENLY. He tells us that it took steadfast effort for many years, and that his failures were just as important in fostering true abandonment to God's will as his successes; in fact, more so. As he grew in age and wisdom during his religious life, he grew in the practice of living continually in the presence of God. He grew in the wisdom of understanding ever more profoundly that we must trust God once and for all and validate that trust and confidence by abandoning ourselves to God alone. Brother Lawrence lived out that Wisdom and manifested it in his practice of the virtues of human helplessness, vulnerability and dependency upon God. From this humble stance he was able to manifest what Jesus revealed to St. Paul: My strength is sufficient for you. This awareness of God's mercy condescending to our misery was a major theme which formed the core of his life, his prayer, and his teaching.

God's mercy condescending to our misery is also a major theme of Christmas. Christmas teaches us what God wanted in terms of a relationship with us and how he went about establishing such a relationship. God wanted an intimate relationship with us; a relationship made accessible not only in the hereafter, but in the here-present. And so he came into the present, into time, in a way which made him most accessible, by taking on our human nature. And that is Mercy within Mercy within Mercy....

Jesus became present to us in that way so that we could dare come into his presence despite our poverty, our helplessness, our vulnerability as creatures. We can approach him with confidence if we abandon our "status", our sense of importance, that image we create for ourselves of appearing better than we really are, of being virtuous, of being holy, of being righteous.

Christmas is the Feast of Presence: a time to be aware that by humbly coming into our presence, God teaches us that we must become truly humble if we are to come into His Presence.

Brother Lawrence, who described himself as a clumsy lummox, initially was assigned in the monastery to the menial tasks of the kitchen. Because he broke so many cups and dishes, he was transferred where he could do less damage: the shoe repair shop. He was not discouraged by this, for he knew that through love he could find in the most mundane and insignificant task an opportunity of being present to God and finding God present to him.

Lawrence reminds us so much of Therese and her little way. He told a friend how gratified he was in doing the smallest and simplest thing for the love of God, always seeking God alone in everything; God and nothing else, not God's gifts but God alone. He even wished that he could hide what he did for God from God Himself so that he would not be rewarded so bountifully and could have the pleasure of doing something solely for God.

Such abandonment to God's Will conditions us for the Prayer of Presence. This prayer of presence begins when we become attentive and faithful to the Spirit-infused invitations heard deep inside and respond by lifting our heart to God. It means simply sensing God within, and responding with or without words, as love dictates. Brother Lawrence would use "love words" such as: "My God, here I am, all yours", "Lord make me according to your heart". Those were his words; we find our own.

We grow into this kind of prayer by practice; steadfast practice, in season and out of season, that is, in consolation and in dryness. Such practice conditions us to receive what is always a gift. The condition for receiving this gift of experiencing God's Presence is emptiness. In the words of Brother Lawrence: "... the heart must be emptied of all other things, for God wishes to possess it alone." Only if and when we empty ourselves inwardly of all that is not God will He act and do as he wishes. The poverty and silence of the first Christmas reminds us of this emptiness, this condition of silence.

Christmas is the FEAST OF SILENCE. Our Holy Father John of the Cross reminds us:

"The Father spoke one word, which was His Son, and this Word He always speaks in eternal Silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul."

Silence is the matrix in which God's Presence is experienced. Consequently, it is the first condition for the Prayer of Presence. In his spiritual maxims, Brother Lawrence gives as the first condition for developing such prayer: purity of life.

What is Purity of life but a kind of silence? ... the silence produced by the quieting of the senses, the elimination of unnecessary speech, vain thoughts, and useless preoccupations. Again, listen to John of the Cross:

"What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetites and our tongue, for the language He best hears is silent love."

There can be no substantial prayer without this kind of silence, the silence which comes when we purify our life as much as it is possible for us to do so from everything that drowns out the Word of God. Jesus is the Word of God, our Holy Father John tells us, Who must be heard in silence - exterior silence as much as possible, but more importantly interior silence.

What is the greatest enemy to this interior silence? What causes the worst kind of noise inside ourselves? The grating, grinding, grumbling voice of inordinate care. What does inordinate care suggest: a lack of confidence, a failure to be abandoned to God's plan for us. Such care is like noise which destroys the possibility of true interior silence. It is interior silence which produces a life of solitude which can be had even in the midst of the world. I see this solitude essentially as the result of a life abandoned to God and so a life without care. Of course it is much easier to find such solitude in external silence, in leaving the world and all the distractions in it. But that kind of silence does not guarantee solitude, for we can still be distracted and aroused by all kinds of care, particularly the care which springs from self-preoccupation. It may be care about spiritual things, but it is still noise. God's WORD is always present to be heard, but only in the silence of a pure life with the ear of a pure heart.

The peace of a life truly without care is what Jesus came to give us. The world also seeks the peace of a life without care, but a life without care based on having worldly security: money, material possessions, more powerful weapons than our enemies. The peace of Jesus is the peace of living our life completely abandoned to the Will of God. Such a life is without care because we trust that whatever he sends us - adversity, comfort, tears, or joys - are not important. We do not really care about what happens in our life because nothing that happens has the power to separate us from God if we surrender to what He wills for us. Indeed, if, like Jesus, we accept His Will, the conditions and circumstances of our lives can be the substance of our prayer and the means of leading us into union with the Father through Jesus by the Holy Spirit.

CHRISTMAS IS THE FEAST OF SILENCE AND PRESENCE. The Book of Wisdom has these words to say about the relation between silence and presence in the life of the Christian:

"When peaceful silence lay over all, and the night had run the half of her swift course, down from the heavens, from the royal throne, leapt your all-powerful Word; into the heart of a doomed land the stern warrior leapt." (Wisdom 18: 14-15)

The Word of God leapt into the world and became present - when? When peaceful silence lay over all.

Advent is our season of preparation for Christmas. The Scriptures speak so much during this time of expectant vigilance, of being in a state of readiness, of being attentive. It is a time too when we sense, particularly from the Old Testament readings, the hopes and yearning of our forefathers crying out in longing for the Messiah to save them. But the word leapt into the heart of a doomed land only in the fullness of time, when all the those longings and desires had come into a focus of purity found in a virgin's heart and womb. In Mary, the Word of God found the peaceful silence of a purity of heart and life in which to leap. It was a life whose purity was substantiated by Mary in her simple, clear-cut declaration of abandonment to God's Will: Be it done unto me according to your will.

Brother Lawrence teaches such abandonment to God based on complete trust and confidence in His Goodness and Mercy. Complete acceptance of God's Will with equanimity and resignation is essential for living a life without care in the presence of God. What Brother Lawrence tells us about prayer is to make prayer our life and our life a prayer by finding God in all that we do. A prayerful life is a life, he teaches, in which all we do - eating, drinking, working, resting, playing and praying - is done for the Glory of God and God alone. Formal prayers and time for formal prayer are important, but Lawrence sought God not just in a few moments or even hours of each day, but practiced being with God always, allowing that practice to permeate each moment of the day. Over and over, he advised others to take up this practice. He admitted that it was difficult at first, but he promised that if we persevered we would reap great rewards.

It is never too late to begin this practice. To an elderly nun he wrote: Practice these teachings in your old age; it is better late than never. We can begin this practice anywhere. Wherever we are, we can make our heart a private chapel in which we can retire from time to time to commune with Him, talking with him simply and frankly, asking him to assist us in our undertaking, thanking him when things go well, seeking his support when we are in trouble.

Such dispositions of faith, abandonment, simplicity, humility, detachment produce the peaceful silence in our lives which attracts the Word of God. When such a peaceful silence lays over all of our life, then the all-powerful Word will leap into our hearts and be our warrior to conquer all those foes hidden or beyond our power to conquer alone. The resulting Purity will be the Eden where we dwell with God once and for all, now and forever.

Then everyday will be Christmas; everyday a FEAST OF PRESENCE in the SILENCE OF GOD.

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