Home Alone

Details: 08 January 2010

Christmas 2009 was one that will be remembered and talked about for generations to come. Hopefully, we all have some agreeable memories to enjoy.

Most Nebraskans could relate all too well with the classic Christmas movie, “Home Alone.” Mother Nature left many Christians “home alone” for Christmas as mammoth snow drifts and highway closures prevented families from getting together and even prevented many Catholics from being able to attend Mass. While this Christmas was certainly one for the record books, faith can point us to the good that might be extracted even from life’s unpleasant surprises.

True Christians appreciate the fact that they are never really alone. All three Persons of the Divine Trinity are always at our side and the Holy Spirit dwells within those who are authentic friends of God. Besides that, our Guardian Angels watch over us incessantly, even while we too often forget about their abiding presence.

Also, technology allows us to communicate with family and friends when we can’t be physically together. So, even when we are physically by ourselves, we can enter into stimulating and uplifting exchanges with those whom we love. Let us not forget that this is also the case in our relationship with the Lord. We need not be in a church to communicate effectively with Jesus.

Even though many could not make it to Mass for Christmas or the ensuing weekend, television and Catholic radio provided the best substitutes by airing Masses and other devotions. One of my parishioners who was snowbound outside of Brainard teased that even Mother Nature’s fury couldn’t keep him away from my Mass, as I coincidentally was the celebrant of the televised Mass he watched at home on the Feast of the Holy Family.

Just as families tend to enjoy the utmost excitement when all of the family members, near and far, manage to get together for holiday celebrations, so much more is it the case when all of the members of the Family of God get together for Lord’s Day and Holy Day celebrations! We should experience sadness at the absence of our baptized Catholic brothers and sisters from the greatest of all possible family celebrations: Holy Mass. Our sadness will go away once we resolve this crisis.

While we are never alone in our most secure home—i.e., the Catholic Church—we must never allow ourselves to become comfortable with the number of empty pews around us that once were occupied by fellow Catholics. Our present diocesan Catholics Come Home television and radio commercial initiative is meant to provide a starting point for the greatest ‘family gathering’ in diocesan history—namely, the reunion of all baptized Catholics in our churches to worship God together as one big happy family (the way God meant for it to be!).

Let us be sure to do our part to make this goal a reality. We can begin by visiting the CatholicsComeHome.org website and inviting those who could benefit from this marvelous resource to make a visit too. We might also invite them to “come home” to the Church. The commercials will do their part, but we must do ours as well, including fervent prayers on behalf of inactive Catholics. Many find themselves alone in houses; but in our true home, we are never alone.