A Concord Pastor Comments: An Advent Dream for Christmas

Image: NYDN

The deacon of the beloved Bench has pointed us to a very fine post on his friend's page, Deacon Bill Ditewig's Deacons Today: Dalmatics and Beyond.

(There's always a link to Deacons Today on my sidebar.)

The post is titled An Old Man's Advent Dream for Christmas and Ditewig's dream is well worth your time.

Here's a snip:

The dream? At Midnight Mass this year, that the doors will open and everyone -- absolutely everyone -- will walk in to applause, laughter and joy-filled welcome. Those dirty, smelly children of God who are living under the overpass, those depressed and lonely gay teenagers who are walking on the brink of despair, those people who look and sound different from others, and even those who find themselves here without legal status -- all of them will pour through those doors and into the welcoming arms of this catholic people of God and find a true home and the love that has so often been denied them by society. "If society has rejected you, we welcome you" is the mission statement of the catholic people of God. And to the bishop who once remarked that the song "All are Welcome" was incorrect, and that all people are NOT welcome at Catholic Mass, I say, "Sorry, bishop, but you are wrong. In the Catholic Church, in the authentic catholic people of God, all are indeed welcome in this place."

I know. Right now we have many Catholics who don’t even like to reach out and take someone else’s hand at the greeting of peace before communion. Those folks are really not going to like my dream, since not only do I hope that they will shake someone else’s hand, but actually, beginning at Midnight Mass this Christmas, I’m hoping that they will open their arms and embrace tightly that dirty, smelly homeless man who’s been living in a cardboard box down the street from the church. In fact, it is precisely to those who have been excluded by everyone else that Christ is coming into the world.