Earlier this Christmas Eve I received a text from a friend – a classmate – saying that he wasn’t sending Christmas Cards this year but wanted to wish me peace and blessings at this special time. I called him back and asked if he was getting mean in his old age. I continued to slag him for a little while and then he said, “you mustn’t have heard that my mother died”. I hadn’t. He went on to say she died the beginning of December. I felt more sorry than embarrassed because I knew he wasn’t trying to embarrass me. He told me his mother had been diagnosed with cancer and died shortly after the diagnosis was given. Needless to say, I was sorry for him.
I told him I’d not heard and of course he knew that because, had I heard, I’d have been there for him over those December days. The reality was the news never reached my ears and I was sorry about that too.
As I prepared for Christmas Eve Mass I thought about Ray, his mother Rosie and how easy it is not to hear news. Gossip is all around us and seems to blow easily on the wind – easily and dangerously – but often the news we need to hear passes by unheard or untold. I wondered does God feel that way sometimes, not least around Christmas and wonder how it is that this Story, this very Sacred story, can remain unheard and untold?
That’s the thought I brought to Mass with me just now and shared with a very full church. I was so happy to see so many people there and wanted them to hear the NEWS that Christ is born but not to remain a baby. He needs to become a Man alongside us and we need to hear his news, some not always easy to hear or understand but news nonetheless that calls us to be better people – decent people.
It’s the choice of this Season in many ways. To hear and be shaped by the news or to settle for gossip. I know which we’re called to and I know how easily we can ignore or park that call. I felt the church tonight was filled with people who want to hear the story and came, in many ways, in response to it but how quickly we can forget and go back to our old ways. We need to be people of the Good News, tuned in to what is real and important in life, otherwise we miss opportunities to be better people, to be with people when they most need us.
Share the news. Avoid the gossip ….
Happy Christmas and thanks, thanks for being my friends. I’m sorry if I missed any important events in your lives and wasn’t there … keep in touch, keep in focus, keep the News, the GOOD news in circulation, even when it might be difficult to hear, understand or accept. If we need to hear it, let it be heard.
Linked with Judas’ imminent betrayal of Jesus and the “watchers” in the crowd who looked for an opportunity to bring Jesus down. It’s a day to reflect a bit on gossip and spitefulness. Having reflected on them, perhaps, a day to set them aside.
There’s an old rhyme I picked up somewhere along the way. Maybe it has a place in our Lenten Journey and it’s today’s thought …
“There’s so much bad in the best of us
and so much good in the worst of us;
it ill becomes any of us
to talk about the rest of us …..”
___________________________
Here’s a link to an older post and a reflection around letters exchanged between Judas and Jesus …..
The Prodigal Son, having come to his senses, returns home to a waiting father. The prepared and rehearsed speech is surplus to requirement. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you ….”, yes he delivers it but it’s by the way. The father has already made up his mind. He is happy to have his son home, orders that he be dressed in the finest and fed with the best. Happy story. Well not quite!
The other brother can’t share the joy. Before he gets the chance to encounter the joy, he is given the “breaking news” by one of the servants. “Your brother has come home. Your father killed the calf we had been fattening because he got him back safe and sound. He’s celebrating the return with a massive party …..”
Enough said! There’s no going in for the other brother. He cannot share the joy for or enthusiasm around this moment. When the father comes to plead with him to come in and join the celebration, he leaves the father in no doubt. He wants nothing to do with it. He points out the shortfalls in the father’s treatment of himself. No celebration even though he stayed “down on the farm”. But when this “son of your’s” (not brother of mine) comes back after squandering your money “he and his women” the fattened calf is killed.
Two problems here, I think. Jealousy and gossip. Equally dangerous. The brother’s jealousy of his brother allows not for the meeting of hearts. The news report from the servant, admittedly asked what was happening, inflames anger.
Jealousy and gossip should be kept at arm’s length all the time. Jimmy McCarthy has a fine song about gossip. He calls it “the carrier of scandal”. I don’t know all the words but it goes something like this:
“The first to arrive
The last to go,
the last you’d tell
and the first to know …..
So keep one eye open
wherever you go
for the carrier of scandal
and his travelling show
keep your heart in your pocket
and a lock on your tongue
for the carrier of scandal”
People like that should be kept at arm’s length. They’re up to no good and out for nobody’s good. I’m reminded of “The Bird” in John B. Keane’s “The Field”
The thought for today … avoid jealousy and avoid gossip.
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