"Christmas Is a Season of Loving "

In a homily delivered by Rev. Fr. Ramon Bautista, SJ during the morning Mass of December 25, 2006.

Today’s feast-Christmas Day itself reminds us of this very interesting couple Alfredo Oswald and Beatrice Bacchelli. Both originally were from Italy. In 1913, the two got married and lived as husband and wife. Alfredo was a first class concert pianist and Beatrice as an excellent linguist-being fluent in 5 different languages. In 1922, the two moved to America to pursue their individual careers. Alfredo as a musician and professor of music and Beatrice as a professor of Linguistics. Then one day- in the mid 1920’s the two had a heart to heart talk and somehow they ended up revealing to one another their own individual deep desire to enter the religious life. And so after much discernment they approached their priest-friend- Father Henri Weisel, a Jesuit and told him of their deep, irresistible yearning to become religious. Father Weisel in turn talked to their bishop who willingly agreed to help in the securing of a special dispensation from the Pope to allow them to enter their respective religious communities. Thus in 1930 after being married for 17 long years but having no children, Alfredo and Beatrice finally separated from one another as husband and wife to join their respective religious Congregation. Alfredo joining the Jesuit as a brother and Beatrice joining the Carmelite as a contemplative Sister. What was interesting here was that despite their being religious, the two continued to see each other occasionally, Alfredo now a Jesuit brother would visit Beatrice now a Carmelite Sister every now and then. And even after Alfredo suffered a severe stroke Beatrice was given special permission to visit him on a regular basis. In 1972 after more than 40 years of being a religious Alfredo became very sick and eventually died. Beatrice on the other hand was to live on for another 20 years after her husband’s death—peacefully passing away in 1991.

My dear friends we have just ended the season of Advent and now entering into this beautiful Season of Christmas. The Season of Christmas is a season of Grace. But it is not only a season of Grace it is also very much a season of loving. Loving is an art like cooking, or playing the piano. We can’t just read about cooking or piano playing without practice, practice, practice. Similarly, to learn and master the art of loving we need to practice, practice, practice. There are two sides of loving: The first side of loving is receiving, holding on, keeping and maintaining and the other side which is the giving, the releasing, the letting go, entrusting, surrendering part. The difficulty here is for many of us we just want the first part. If our love for God is to be authentic then we too should be at home with the other part. We have to surrender ourselves to God, entrust ourselves to Him. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son not to condemn the world but redeem it. Thus the Father and the Spirit entrusting the Son, the Son entrusting himself, Mary entrusting herself, Joseph entrusting himself and John also entrusting himself saying “I must decrease, He must increase.”

We, too, have to entrust ourselves in a way that we can seriously pray the prayer of St. Ignatius “Take and receive, O Lord….”

Once I suggested this prayer to my retreatant who was in a state of discernment for a decision to make. Coming to me she said: Father, what if God will take me seriously when I ask Him to take my liberty, etc.?” I, then told her, but the point of St. Ignatius in his prayer was to let God do what he wills for us in complete surrender leading us to the “Contemplatio” or loving God and doing His Will.

We are most ourselves as Christian lovers when we entrust ourselves to Him. I recall Fr. Juan Sanz, SJ. He was a real missionary… taking on any assignments. He was in Indonesia for several years and later in Korea. He entrusted himself to what is God’s will for him…. “let go” and “no preferences.”

My dear friends one spiritual author writing on true/genuine love says this:

“Love is as much as a matter of releasing
As a matter of letting go
As it is of joining and holding on
And that is why we can neither own nor forever cling to the ones we love.
In the end each of us must answer to
And can be united only to-ourselves and to our God.”

If we have to look into our own selves what have we not let go? What have we to surrender just as Alfredo and Beatrice did?

At Christmas there is a lot of letting go; a lot of releasing; a lot of giving; a lot of entrusting and surrendering! How can we show our love to the “God who so loved the world that He gave His only son not to condemn the world but to redeem it?”