Most Memorable Christmas - Fr. Bill Lynn

In loving memory of Fr. Bill Lynn.
Born Christmas Day, 1922.
Called home Christmas Day, 2012. 

For many years Fr. Bill Lynn, S.J., was a professor at the Pontifical College Josephinum (Columbus, Ohio). More importantly, as my Mom's spiritual director, he's kept her generally sane (:) with all the drama associated with 7 children and over 40 grandchildren.  Tim O'Neill (The O'Neill Brothers- music on NBC, CBS, HBO, PBS, ESPN, A&E...) and I began Keys2Heaven.com to invite people to share their inspiring stories of faith.  Once a month we selected a story and Tim composed a beautiful, instrumental "soundtrack" inspired by the respective story. The resulting project was "Songs of Faith: 12 Songs Inspired by You."  

Fr. Lynn just happened to have the most moving story for Christmas. After reading it you'll see why. 

Most Memorable Christmas 

by Fr. Bill Lynn, S.J.

May I tell you of the happiest and most memorable Christmas I have ever had? It was in 1932 when I celebrated my tenth birthday (I was born on Dec. 25, 1922). My Dad, Eddie, my older brother, and I were living in the basement of a boarding house at 127 C Street S.E., just two blocks from the Capitol in Washington D.C.

Dad had set up and decorated the tree after I had gone to bed. When I woke up that Christmas morning I rushed to the Christmas tree to see what presents I might have received. But as I looked and searched I was puzzled and did not know what to think. All I saw beneath the tree was a tiny brown paper bag, in which I found five tiny pieces of penny candy.

I began slowly to eat the candy, while I waited, thinking that Dad, who was in the kitchen, would now bring in the big present I dreamed of. I waited, and then looked toward the kitchen where I could see Dad seated at the kitchen table, his head buried in his hands. I did not understand what the depression meant or what it meant that Dad was out of work. I could see he was very sad, and I knew it was because he could not afford to give me anything else.

So I got up off the floor, went into the kitchen and sat on Dad’s lap, put my arms around his neck and, holding back my tears of disappointment, said as convincingly as I could, “Dad, this is the best Christmas I have ever had.” He hugged me tight and said, “Thank you, son.” To my own surprise, those words did make it the best and happiest and most memorable Christmas I have ever had.

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Beyond words, thank you Fr. Bill. You remain with us, pave the way for us... we eagerly anticipate the day of our reunion. We pray that your soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through God's abundant mercy, rest in peace. Christ's Mass blessings!

Tim tells me that of the nearly 30 CD's they've recorded, this is his favorite.  It really is beautiful. Please consider going HERE to preview the music and corresponding stories. For a short time you can purchase 10 CD's for only $67.00 (that's under $7/each!)- beautifully packaged with the corresponding booklet of stories! Proceeds are directed toward this family movement. Thank you, and God bless!   

Join us for Presence for Christmas - a four week journey into the heart of Christmas! Calling All Families! Please partner with us in this mission.

A Dad's Advent Reflection on Captivity

By Greg Schlueter

Certain things make us people watchers. Like a rare family trip to the mall, for instance, particularly when the young, female contingency wants to stop by Claire’s. For the uninitiated, Clair's is the “you too can be a pop princess” store. Not all bad, just not our shtick. I gave it a valiant five minutes. Just long enough for my “no’s” to be rightly understood not as particular, but categorical. Then I found myself a nice bench just outside, regretting that I forgot to bring a book.  

Suddenly I’m surrounded. People. Lot’s of people. From every walk of life.

Let’s just say it. Unless it was some kind of unique "flash mob" thing, the majority of people are just not happy. No eye contact. Kind of an empty, bewildered look. It stands out particularly in the Christmas season. Noticeable are those with a glimmer of joy, a genuine smile, a kind word.

So, we’re not just talking an individual on a rare, bad day. One can’t help but wonder, with our unprecedented wealth and comfort, surrounded by all the material promise of fulfillment- and still evidently not happy, what does happiness really take?

The origins of unhappiness.

In our home unhappiness typically begins with a brother simply being mischievous (or someone doing something mildly annoying, but let’s go with mischievous). He’s bored. Suddenly he sees concentric circles around a particular sister. Boys like gadgets, and there aren’t many in our house. He figures she’ll do. The button is pressed. She gives it back.  Within moments our home becomes an audio armageddon.

A small, little example paints a very big picture about us, and our world.  

When one decides to be unkind, the other is wounded. They become protective and defensive. Their soul, meant to behold greater things, is jaded. Now add over a lifetime numerous instances of unkindness. Seeds destined to reach for the heavens are overtaken by weeds. They choke off life. They become a defining, embedded part of one’s wiring. We lose our sensitivity. We become callous. We find ourselves in captivity.

Here’s the thing. An insight that can further ennoble our souls: Hurting people hurt people. Unkindness says a lot more about the unkind person than anyone else.

And captivity is contagious. All it takes is something as small as someone cutting us off the road and we’ve likely been infected. Even if only for a moment, we become carriers, ready to pass it along to the next person. Now blow this up on the grand scale of human experience. Multiple times. Deeper levels. And is this not what we see played out every day in individual souls, extended to relationships, families, schools, places of work... nations?  

Look within. Look around. Are we not a people being held captive? Do we not need to be set free?

Freedom. At the heart is an awareness that our souls were fashioned for greater things. God didn't make our souls for junk. He didn't make us to be jaded. He didn't make us to be closed, protective, defensive or on edge. He gave us appetites for greater things. Though it’s obvious, it needs to be stated. We are what we eat. If we’re “eating” junk, we’re going to be unhappy. A steady diet of junk has the capacity to form us for captivity.
It really is all about image.
Miley Cyrus. Bill Gates. Harry Styles. Mother Teresa. Stephen Hawking. Katy Perry. LeBron James. Taylor Swift.  We’re not only bombarded with images, the underlying message is that our value is in our becoming like those images. Modern entertainment and advertising is really the successor of the first apple in the first garden offered to the first people. Forget your lame image. You can be like god! The object of other's worship! There’s a tragic irony here. What image could possibly surpass your true image? You were fashioned in the image of God! 

Now for just a moment, try to imagine being satan. The generic name “satan” literally means “adversary.” Consider his situation before he became so. You're one of the highest angels in the heavenly realm. Your name “Lucifer” literally means “light.” You are supremely attractive - brilliant and beautiful. You are gifted and tasked for the highest calling, leading the heavenly choirs to worship God. You have the capacity to arouse and direct the deepest sentiment. In short, you're the mac-daddy in the celestial realm. Now, all of a sudden, looking over the span of time, you see that the Almighty and Eternal God will fashion beings called humans... in His own image! Even more, could it be? No! You gasp in awe as you see God actually becoming -- taking on the nature -- one of those beings!

You’re insanely jealous. You rebel and take a multitude of others with you. Note, your nature and gifts are not taken away. You remain supremely attractive, and you have the capacity to arouse and direct sentiment... to lead us in a kind of worship. You have no real power, so how do you live your vile contempt? You prey upon their weakness and seduce them with your great beauty, attracting them to alternate images, arousing their sentiment to worship alternate things, thereby denying their supreme, true, God-likeness.  
Back to us. God fashioned us for His indwelling Spirit. Yet, so many wounds, so many distractions have caused us amnesia. We’ve forgotten who we are. Advent and Christmas should be an occasion to recover this awareness. It's about so much more than presents, but Presence. And we need to do this while inundated with the strong, pervasive promise of artificial counterfeits.

I experienced all this one particular Christmas as a child. That year my parents pulled out the stops. We were inundated with material abundance. The excessive amount commanded our affections. It made promises.  Needless to say, it left me bewildered. Unhappy.

Now as a parent I observe this among our own children, validated by other parents: material abundance and spiritual abundance tend to be mutually exclusive. Put more directly, material stuff just doesn't do it. After the initial jubilation, often we see the unhappiness manifest in a lack of gratitude, entitlement, self-centeredness, unkindness. Captivity.

If we’re perceptive enough, we recognize that excessive stuff doesn’t make our kids like us more. Doesn’t make them better kids. In fact, it does the opposite. It frustrates them. It turns them in on themselves. It insulates them from the capacity to truly be fed with the right stuff. It diminishes their sensitivity. It removes their confidence in our vision and ability as parents to help them navigate a happy life. It leaves their world darker. In captivity.  

Whether it be the Jewish people thousands of years ago, or our modern civilizations, the story is the same. When we’re in need, we are truly alive and rich with an awareness of God. Our prayers are earnest. Our lives are God-centered, directed toward other. All is right in our interior world. But then, with God’s provision, when we are blessed with an abundance of material things, our eyes are averted from the Blesser to the blessings. We become self-centered. In this, we are robbed of our awareness of God.
And so with captivity, it wasn’t enough for God to merely set us free in the material realm. In short, God doesn’t merely want to communicate with us. He desired to commune in us. He desired to give us His very Presence. We need to be saved.

Hear and understand the words of the prophet speaking across ageless time - the promise of a savior:
The spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
because the LORD has anointed me;
He has sent me to bring good news to the afflicted,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
release to the prisoners. Isaiah 61:1-3

Herein is the great gift of Advent. If we are mindful of our captivity, we might be saved.

The extent to which we’re not aware of our captivity is the extent to which we really don’t need a Savior, much less a Lord.  To that extent Advent is empty. As is Christmas. Disconnected from the real, transforming power of Jesus Christ.

Remember Christ our Savior

was born on Christmas Day

To save us all from Satan’s power

when we were gone astray

O tidings of comfort and joy!

Advent is an opportunity for more than religious observance, but a relational occurrence.

Make straight the way of the Lord! We need to invite the grace of God to help us go there. We need to open the door to those life-moments that left us wounded in a way that became chains of fear that have been holding us captive.

Imagine it.

Imagine what freedom looks like. Free from captivity. Imagine not being a victim to what happens around us, but being victorious because of Him who reigns within us. Imagine having the full freedom to be the amazing, beautiful, wonderful, unique person God created us to be. Imagine.  

In this we can more fully understand the victory of the cross. He was in chains, but completely free. He spoke not a word. He endured His suffering. He took all of our sins upon Himself. He forgave us. He set us free from captivity.

We don’t need to plug into lesser entertainment. In this ultimate drama we are not mere spectators, each of us are participants. For a world in captivity, He invites us, needs us, created us to not only be free from ourselves, but to participate in His mission of freeing the world. Emmanuel! God is with us!  This year receive the gift. Join us for Presence for Christmas.