O NIGHT DIVINE—A REFLECTION By S. Marie Mackey, csj
I love the Season of Advent and Christmas. I love the music of the season, the cold crisp air, the neighborhood houses and businesses with their lights illuminating the darkness. Even though I struggle with Seasonal Affective Disorder during the short days of fall and winter, there is something compelling about entering into the darkness. Maybe it’s connected to spending nine months in the darkness of our mother’s womb and therefore there is a sacred pre-birth connection I feel in the dark stillness. One Christmas song that moves me is O Holy Night, especially these lines:
Long lay the world in sin and error pining till he appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees, O hear the angels voices. O night divine.
Despite growing up in a Catholic family and attending Catholic schools for 18 years, making a Christian Awakening and working Team— then teaching for 35 years in Catholic high schools and entering religious life, I have to admit that whenever I hear the above lines, especially the words, “…pining till he appeared and the soul felt its worth” I am reminded that so often I struggle with my worth. Too often I feel I have to prove myself, prove my worth. Maybe I take my struggles too seriously? Maybe like the song lyric says I am just weary; weary of a world that is in such turmoil? I’m not sure. What I am sure of is that my pangs of low self-worth are not limited to me. Often my colleagues and I have discussions about this nagging sense that we are not enough.
Enter George Bailey and the classic Christmas movie It’s A Wonderful Life! George has been a faithful son and held the family business together. On numerous occasions he has put his own dreams on hold and sacrificed for friends and neighbors. To say that George is weary is an understatement. When his uncle loses the $8,000.00 dollar bank deposit George blames himself. The world seems to be caving in on him and he sees himself as a failure. In a moment of despair fueled by Mr. Potter’s comments, George contemplates ending his own life. As a result of family and friends storming heaven with their prayers, and an angel named Clarence is sent down to help George.
When George engages Clarence in a Q & A, George blurts out that the world would be better off if he, George, had never been born in the first place. Just then Clarence has an idea to grant George his wish and show George what life was like for those whom he loved because he was not born and therefore not around. Clarence brings him all over town and shows him the likes of Mr. Gower, Mr. Martini, Violet Blick and so many others including his beloved brother, Harry Bailey, and his wife, Mary. The next scene of the movie is George on the bridge crying and in a chant like rhythm pleading, “I want to live again, I want to live again, please God, I want to live again. Just then his friend, Burt, shows up and tells him the whole town is looking for you!
When George returns to his house he asks for his wife, Mary and his children. He hugs and kisses them and holds them tightly. He has found what truly matters and the neighbors he helped now return the favor.
This Christmas may we reflect on all the good we have done in our lives, the people we have helped whether friend or complete stranger. Silently gaze around the room as you open gifts under the Christmas tree or sit around the dining room table and treasure the fact that each and every one of us is enough. Let us fall on our knees in gratitude and humility not only to God but to one another. Let our New Year’s Resolution include building one another up so that our souls always feel their worth.