|
Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Lord:
As we are well aware, many people who are not part of
the regular Sunday worshipping community attend Mass during the
Christmas Season. We can view this phenomenon in one of two ways: as an
annoyance because these ‘occasional Catholics’ fill up the
parking area and sit in ‘our’ pew, or as an opportunity to reach out to
those outside our normal parish circle.
A parish can help make Christmas visitors feel welcome
and included by having hospitality ministers at the church doors to
greet people as they arrive, providing service sheets for those who are
unfamiliar with the Mass, rehearsing the sung responses before Mass
begins, and handing out leaflets to visitors with information about
regular parish activities, services and contact people.
Every one of us can practice hospitality at Christmas,
and all during the year, by introducing ourselves to strangers, offering
a visitor a newsletter or hymnbook, helping with a restless toddler
(instead of frowning!), offering someone a lift home, and participating
enthusiastically in the Mass as a way of encouraging others to do so.
At the first Christmas, God came among us as a baby born
in poor circumstances to people of no importance. Maybe God is still to
be found in such a situation. We’ll never know if we never go there!
Apart from a warm welcome, what else will our Christmas
liturgies offer visitors that might bring them back for more before next
Christmas? If it is only nativity plays and lovely carols, nostalgia and
pretend that we provide, then others can do that as well as, if not
better than, the average parish church.
As Christians, we have a real
word of hope that so many in this world are longing to hear: that God
became one of us and remains with us. Jesus did not remain a helpless
infant, but grew up, lived and died and rose again, and, most
importantly, is still Emmanuel, ‘God with us’, here and now, in
the reality of our everyday lives. |
