'Silent Night':
Inspires Christmas reverence and joy

	Guest Commentary  Fr. Don Lange

Father Joseph received the inspiration to write the lyrics of "Silent Night" when he visited a young isolated mother in her cabin.

This visit occurred on the morning of Christmas Eve in the mountains of Oberndorf, Austria, in 1818. As Father gazed at the young mountain mother holding her baby so calmly and peacefully, together they reminded him of the Blessed Mother and the Christ Child. He was deeply moved.

No Christmas music

As he returned to the village of Oberndorf, Father renewed his worry about the church's broken organ. For the first time in years, there would be no Christmas music at Midnight Mass. As he walked, he tried to think of ways to soften the disappointment of his music loving parishioners.

The peaceful silence, the fresh soft slopes of snow, and the Holy Spirit moved Father to think again of Mary and the Christ child. He wondered what Mary and Joseph experienced that first Christmas. Soon lyrics of a song began to form in his creative imagination. When he arrived at the church, he immediately wrote down three stanzas.

Then he rushed them to his friend, Franz Gruber, the organist in the nearby village of Arnesdorf. Quickly Franz Gruber composed the music for the lyrics. At Midnight Mass the hushed, surprised congregation heard the lovely carol accompanied by a guitar. The reverent music and lyrics of the song touched and delighted their hearts.

Christmas love

"Silent Night" was the precious gift of Franz Gruber and Father Joseph to the villagers of Oberndorf and to the world. The love that inspired this gift reminds us of the love of the Heavenly Father when he gave us the gift of Jesus on that first Christmas Eve.

"Silent Night" reminds us that Christmas is about love. In John 3:16, it is stated "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that whoever believes in him may not die, but may have eternal life."

On Christmas we celebrate joyfully the Good News of the birth of our redeemer. St. Augustine said that God became man so that man might become God.

By his words and example, Christ taught us how to grow more fully in the divine image. By his death and resurrection and by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Jesus offers us the grace to live more fully in a Christ-like way.

Christmas is the feast that brings family and friends together. Although it seems to be for children, it calls for an adult response. The wood of the crib foreshadows the wood of the cross. The cross reminds us that the follower of Jesus must take up his or her cross daily and follow in Christ's footsteps.

The gifts of Christmas

The greatest gift of Christmas is that by being born, Jesus opens for us the way to Eternal Life. What can we give Jesus in response to this priceless gift?

Jesus asks that we give him our hearts as expressed in the beautiful Christmas poem by Christina Rossetti. Christ invites us to accept him as our Lord and Savior and make him the center of our lives. One of the best ways to keep Jesus is to share him with others in Christmas moments of our lives. This is the reason why we give gifts at Christmas. Our gifts should reflect the Christ-like love of Jesus as did the gift of "Silent Night" to us from Franz Gruber and Father Joseph.

We can share Christmas gifts of love by caroling, by visiting shut-ins, or by giving to the needy. We should try to remember that the Christmas and Advent seasons are one of the loneliest times of the year for many persons. Our joy only accentuates the loneliness of some of them. This realization can motivate us to call, visit, or write one or more of them. In addition we can give our family the gift of quality time.

Finally as Catholics we should participate in the Christmas Mass. Above all we can thank the Father, that out of pure love for us, he gave us the Messiah so that he could gift us with the fullness of Eternal Life.

Mary placed the newly born Christ in a feeding trough, to remind us that Jesus wants to feed us with the spiritual food of the Eucharist. St. Augustine said that the Lord of angels was born at Christmas so that man could eat the bread of angels. In John 6: 54 Jesus says, "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him on the last day!"

Moved by "Silent Night" and by the Christmas Mass, may we receive the Eucharist worthily and invite Christ to dwell more fully in the crib of our hearts. May Christmas inspire us to celebrate the birth of Jesus with the reverence and joy of Joseph and Mary, the wonder of the magi, and the delight and surprise of the shepherds at Christmas.

Fr. Don Lange is a pastor emeritus in the Diocese of Madison.

A hug for the missions:
Reaching out with Jesus' love

		Propagation  of the Faith  Msgr. Delbert  Schmelzer

A hug. What other gesture shows love more? How many children in our lives give us a hug when we'll ask for one - or when they know we need one?

How many times have we reached out to a child or grandchild, niece or nephew, with an embrace? Sometimes a hug just reinforces the love between us, no matter our age, reminding us always of the all-embracing love of God.

Children of Philippines

Lots of love is needed for the children in the care of Sr. Maria Consiglia in the Philippines. "A human sea of children swells along the city streets," says this missionary Sister.

The phenomenon of street children in the Philippines worsened considerably in the 1980s when the country was plunged into an economic crisis, notes FIDES news agency.

According to UNESCO, the Philippines has at least 1.5 million street children, most of them in Manila, but the number continues to grow. These children, abandoned and alone by various circumstances, live on the streets, without food, without shelter - sometimes without hope and love as well.

Sister Maria and those who work with her, along with Catholic parishes in the area, reach out to these little ones, offering them something to eat, finding them homes, and even helping them to get an education.

"The children cannot go to school because there is no one to pay the fees, so they stay on the streets," Sister Maria explains. "If you look in their eyes, you cannot remain indifferent. The help we offer is but a drop in the ocean. For the rest we entrust them to the Lord."

For herself, she adds, "Each of these children I would like to hug in a warm embrace."

Sudan refugees

A continent away, in the troubled Sudan, missionary Fr. Jim Comino, like Sister Maria, is all too familiar with the plight of the suffering and the poor. For the past several years, he has been in charge of a youth formation center in Khartoum. But he has also been a presence of the Lord in the refugee camps, where more than one million persons fleeing from war-torn southern Sudan have come to find help - and hope.

"We saw a mother searching desperately for her little girl," he recalls of one camp experience. "They were hungry and she left her daughter in what she thought was a safe place to go to one of the places where grain was being distributed. When she returned with the food the little girl had disappeared."

Along with the Catholic Sisters serving in local parishes, Father Jim reaches out to help - to try to reunite families, to provide concrete materials assistance, to offer a listening ear. "Giving these people a place to sleep, medicines, and food involves personal risk," he explains. "But we cannot abandon them."

How to help

This Christmas, will you reach out - through the loving arms of Sister Maria and Father Jim, and so many others like them throughout the missions - and offer the love of Jesus to the children and all in the missions who are abandoned and alone? Will you support the service of Religious Sisters and Brothers, priests and lay catechists, as well as local mission parishes?

Through your prayers and your financial help to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, you can, as Sister Maria would say, "hug in a warm embrace" someone in need. You can also send a message of hope to someone who feels abandoned or alone in their suffering.

Above all, I ask for your prayers for our mission family. This Christmas, let us join in prayer with Catholics worldwide in gratitude for the greatest of His gifts to us, His Son. In prayer, we also ask the Lord to keep us always in His care and to offer His light, hope, and peace to a world so in need of Him.

Thank you and may the Lord grant to you and to those you love many blessings this Christmas.

Msgr. Delbert Schmelzer is director of the Propagation of the Faith for the Diocese of Madison. Contributions to the Propagation of the Faith may be sent to: P.O. Box 44983, Madison, WI 53744-4983.

Gifts for adult children: From golden agers

		Grand Mom  Audrey  Mettel Fixmer

I thought I had the perfect gift for our kids and grandkids this year. I am in the process of writing my memoir, "My Nine Lives."

After teaching a class for the past 10 years called "Writing Your Life Story," I was getting jealous of my students, many of whom had already published portions for their families. So I finally began writing mine in earnest and had planned to give our offspring the first part of the book for Christmas.

Then I ran into problems inserting photos into the copy and realized I was pushing myself to the limits and turning into the Grinch Who Stole Christmas instead of the Mother Who Loves Christmas. Go to Plan B.

This was a no-brainer. We are cleaning closets and storage now in preparation for our next and final (?) move. It's called downsizing.

Countless trips to St. Vincent De Paul's store and our parish library have already been made, but then there's the precious things "with a past" we've accumulated. They've become family heirlooms.

Why should we wait until we die to pass them on? Why not give them to the kids now and create more space at the same time?

Fond memories

Bob has always had a reverence for things from the past. He grew up under the loving care of a maternal grandmother just a few blocks away from his parents.

He remembers taking naps in his grandmother's bedroom and being warned to never touch the porcelain statues of Jesus and Mary that his great-grandmother had brought over from Luxembourg. "They will be yours when I die," Grandma promised.

In that same room was his grandmother's lovely porcelain jewelry box with the flowers etched into the feet and rims of gold, an engagement gift from Grandpa. "This too will be yours," she said.

Our kids remind us how important it is to write down who gets what, but we are going to do them one better by gifting them now. If last night's experience is any gauge, this promises to be the most meaningful Christmas gift-giving for us ­and our family - ever.

A merry Christmas

Our third son, Tim, was here with his wife for dinner. They live in Iowa, but have been coming here every weekend to restore a lake home they recently bought and to help us repair things around the house in preparation for selling it.

When we brought out Bob's grandmother's porcelain jewelry box, and said, "Merry Christmas, Tim," his joyful expression was worth a million dollars.

Choosing Tim for this gift was based on all of the hard work he has done for us over the years whenever we needed remodeling and repairs around the house. He has inherited his grandfather Fixmer's woodworking skills and his father's reverence for family heirlooms, so Tim was a natural for this gift.

He enthusiastically wrote down everything Dad told him about this treasure and still had more questions. We can only hope that all of our other kids will be as happy as Tim was with our gifts.

Sentimental value

Our eldest, Rob, who is an editor in New York, has been promised the beautiful huge antique roll-top desk of Bob's that they remember growing up with. It was the one that Dad often hid his candy in and the kids would search out when he was on the road.

It was the desk that Mother "ruined" by painting it a fake wood finish in green in the 60s and then a few years ago had professionally restored to its original beauty. We all love it now, but its style fairly shrieks "Editor."

Most of our kids have achieved a higher standard of living than we ever did. Consequently, until a few months ago I would have sworn we had nothing of value to leave them.

But when one daughter remarked that the old hammered aluminum bowl we had received as a wedding gift nearly 60 years ago brought back such fond memories of popcorn feasts, I realized how much sentiment adds to the value of an item.

Meaningful gifts

Today, after just starting to clean out, I can count off several more items that will be meaningful gifts for our kids: those three porcelain statues from Luxembourg, the pewter mirror and matching jewelry box of my mother's, my original wedding ring set in which I replaced the lost diamond with my birthstone, a "mother's ring" with birthstones representing all 10 kids, my grandmother's china service for 16 with a few cups missing, just to name a few.

And I thought I had the best idea last year when I "let my fingers do the walking" and ordered from catalogues. This year's plan beats everything!

A Blessed Christmas, everyone!

"Grandmom" likes hearing from other senior citizens who enjoy aging at P.O. Box 216, Fort Atkinson, WI 53538.