This Christmas season, we reflect on the many gifts we have all been blessed with. A fitting reflection comes to us from National Post reporter, Charles Lewis, who penned this editorial that first appeared in the paper on December 17. I suggest checking out Holy Post, an award winning blog put together by the National Post where faith issues can be discussed and debated. For now, we thank Charles for helping 
us capture the true spirit of Christmas.Father Ed Keays, the chaplain at the Good Shepherd Centre in Toronto, gave a sermon on the third Sunday of Advent. He was filling in for the parish priest at St. Brigid’s, something he had done before. It was one of those December days when everything was grey and no one had quite yet accepted how cold it was outside. Inside, the heating system was fighting a losing battle. The people in the pews mostly kept their coats on to retain whatever warmth they had generated at home.
We like Father Ed because he is a great storyteller, his booming voice keeps everyone alert and the stories he relates in his homilies are the kind you might repeat to a friend, even one not Catholic or even religious.
Father Ed talked about the Advent being a reminder about hope and God’s love and how that love never wavers or changes, and that it was important that everyone realize that God loved them no matter what. He spoke about Christ entering the world to show his love and solidarity for mankind. And then he mentioned how blessed we all were that we were on this journey through life together. It was a good reminder of what was important in the midst of so much consumerism and worldly noise.
But then he spoke a bit about his work at Good Shepherd. The shelter can feed up to 1,000 hungry people a day. Many of the people who come there are drug addicts and alcoholics or otherwise marked by behaviour that has put them outside of family and friends.
He spoke about December being a very hard month for the people he ministers to. And about how even the small comforts of a voice of a loved one are denied them. Many, he said, will call home at Christmas, only to have the person on the other end hang up.
“So where do they go?” he asked. “They come to us, to God.”
The shelter is not a pretty place when it is filled to the bursting point. Many of the men have not washed in days, or changed their clothes. Many have colds and others just look exhausted. Some are happy just to soak in this warm oasis before hitting the streets.
When they do get outside they will be ignored or feared or pitied or despised.
So where is the God that Father Ed was talking about? And why would these people go to God at all except to get fed? God, it would seem, has not smiled upon them.
The manger in which Christ was born was worse than any shelter. No family except one that was poverty-stricken would think to have a baby in an unheated barn in winter. The place was not warm or cozy. And unlike the shelter, there were no legion of volunteers cooking hot meals or being helpful or conveying some bits of compassion. Christ was born in desperate circumstances and there is no sugar-coating that fact.But it was not to end there. Joseph and Mary and their child would soon be on the run to Egypt and it would be a few years before they made it home. But really nothing got easier. The son would grow up and eventually be hounded to his death. And when he went, his only possession, a ragged cloak, was fought over by the people who killed him.
But that is not to say His life was bleak. He made plenty of friends. Most were as unpopular as He was with the greater society. They were fallen women, the poor, the hungry and the diseased. Some were the hated Roman soldiers and the tax collectors and other scoundrels. He told stories that made the rich uncomfortable and the establishment uneasy.
There was, of course, no Good Shepherd Centre back then. So these outcasts had to go somewhere else for food, compassion and love. They had to find someone who would listen and not turn away in disgust.
They ran into the arms of God.
Photos: CNN
