WANTED: Couriers of Love

These days, with marketing insisting on playing top dog, authors are lucky if the books they write bear the names they choose. The books of Abraham Heschel, my spiritual guide and second favorite Rabbi, however, were written before these Mad Men elbowed their way in. As a result, the names of Heschel’s books are important because taken together they spell out the essential convictions of his faith and the message he was hoping to communicate to humans of all religious stripes or irreligious stripes. Brought to America just weeks before Hitler’s henchmen swept through and picked up and exterminated much of Heschel’s family and most of his friends, some prominent American Jews were able to bring him and other Jewish intellectuals safely to England and America. Arriving with little if any English, Heschel went on to become—I believe—one of the most eloquent and beautiful theological and spiritual authors writing in English. Two of the first three books that Heschel wrote when he came to America were titled Man is Not Alone (1951) and God in Search of Man. (1955)*

Though Jewish, Rabbi Heschel’s works have much to offer Catholics and other Christians that applies to these hinged seasons of Advent-Christmas and an incarnational spirituality. For Christians, Jesus is the physical embodiment, proof positive, and living reminder that We are not alone and that God is a passionate, persistent lover in mad pursuit of us. Jesus is the finger-string that reminds us of God and God’s tenacious and tender love. Jesus is the fingerstring that reminds God of us—we who are so fickle of faith, so blessed and broken, so hurting as a lot and in need of healing. Jesus is the balm of God who heals without curing by being with us: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”(Mt. 28:20) In the antiphonal nature of life and especially in this season, Jesus is EMMANUEL—the one for whom we remember to cry out: “O come, O come, Emmanuel,” in other words, come be with us God.

This season, especially in the regions of the world where it is dark and cold, it is important for us to be aware of those who are alone or lonely, sad and hurting, frightened or terrified, homeless or hungry. When we were baptized—whether we knew it at the time or not—we were signed, sealed, and delivered to participate in the divine life by incarnating love. This is what we prepare wholeheartedly to celebrate on Christmas: the incarnation of love given to us as the enlivening and enduring gift of gifts. “Love,” John of the Cross wrote, “is the measure.” That’s all, but that is ALL. Accepting our baptism in Christ, our baptism into an incarnational tradition is a self-implicating decision that leads us to action, namely, being the agents of divine love. It is as simple and difficult as that. THIS is our raison d’etre, THIS is our primary mission, THIS is our calling, THIS is what matters most, THIS is what the seasons of Advent and Christmas are meant to reawaken us to each year lest we forget who we are and whose we are.

When we receive the Bread of Life from the Eucharistic minister who says, “The body of Christ,” we are to digest that the body of Christ is being given to the body of Christ so that we who are Christ’s body might go forth from the worship space and live the liturgy in the world, especially by offering the bread of life to those who are hungry. If God can become human, and Jesus can become bread—which is at the heart of our faith—then Christ can appear in any form and be given as the particular food that satiates a particular hunger, yearning, desire, or need. But God needs couriers—couriers of love.

When we give food and drink to the hungry, we incarnate the love who is Christ as God becomes bread. When we invite to our home and table a widow or widower or person who will be alone for Christmas, we incarnate the love who is Christ as God becomes hospitality. When we stand with and speak up for someone or someones who are unnoticed, devalued, unwelcomed, marginalized, excluded, rejected, or harmed in any way we incarnate the love who is Christ as God becomes acceptance, welcome, kindness, friendship, solidarity, compassion, and the withness of God. When we pray for someone who is sick or dying, when we send a note or simple gift to someone who feels unimportant or forgotten or on the precipice of despair, when we reach out to an exhausted young mother, help someone with their homework, offer to drive someone to the doctor, take a vow of nonviolence, join an organization that protects, advocates for, assists, and encourages the most vulnerable, or participate in caring for the earth that takes care of us, we are couriers who incarnate the love of Christ and the mystery and meaning of Advent and Christmas. If we participate in the power of the common deed, in the miniature enactments of love, we will be agents of Christ’s presence as we encounter Christ who is concealed and revealed in the other.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT & ACTION: Mother Teresa, picking up on the little way of Therese of Lisieux, said we don’t have to do big, spectacular things as a testament to our faith. Rather, each of us can play an integral part in the body of Christ involved in the graced work of realizing the reign of God by doing “little things with love.” Between now and Christmas, let’s be conscious and intentional about incarnating love in seemingly little ways where we can be yeast for the bread of life received, blessed, broken, and shared.

ARTWORK: Christ in the Breadline by Fritz Eichenberg.

* We excuse or understand the exclusive language (Man) given that Rabbi Heschel was writing thirty years before our consciousness was raised about inclusive language.

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