Christmas 1999 Homily
Father Michael Dibble

"Geez, all this attention......all over the world, still, after all this time for that one guy...." Now, those are the words that were said by, we'll call him "Louie," in his early 20's, on Christmas Eve, 20 years ago, exactly, 1979. Louie didn't go home for Christmas that year because he had siblings who were great successes, lawyers and doctors and stockbrokers, big family, all big successes financially. He wasn't, so he didn't go home. That's why he didn't go home.

And he came to visit some of his teachers, high school teachers, before Midnight Mass, to go somewhere. And some of us teachers, before Midnight Mass, were watching TV, "Christmas Around the World", you know, one of those newsreels, "Christmas Around the World". And Louie leaned forward and that's what he said. And I write a lot of things down that strike me. That's just what he said, "Geez, all this attention....all over the world, still, after all this time to this one guy."

Now, he didn't mean to be disrespectful by saying "Geez" and he didn't mean to be disrespectful by calling Our Lord "guy". He's a young person. That was his visceral reaction. Now, he's a, he's a (Forgive the cliche.) ...... He's a good practicing Catholic to this day. But, he'd had 12 years of Catholic education at that point. I don't think he was going much to Mass. But that got him! I remember the camera and this newsreel 20 years ago before Midnight Mass in New York where I was. The camera closed in on a candle. It was very effective. It was so simple, a huge closeup of a candle, you know, the Light of the World, Christ is Born! Geez! Now he's come back fully to the Church, after wandering, which a lot of people do. And I remember thinking way back, 20 years ago, Light of the World. I remember his leaning, like this, and the closeup of the candle. It's always been a symbol of Christ, Light.

And over the years, I've discovered among us Catholics, about the Light, we can do three things. And I always have little dumb rhymes so I can remember. About Light, Christ,

at least in my experience, 40 years as a priest. People refuse it. They lose it. Or they choose it. Sometimes, a day at a time.

Refuse: People, or the students I taught, used to be puzzled. Why did so many, so many of Our Lord's own people refuse Him? Not everybody! The Apostles were Jewish. Our Lady was Jewish. After the resurrection, a lot of Jews became followers of Christ. It's right in the Bible. But, a lot of them refused Him. And I don't want to be too simplistic with intelligent, educated Catholics, but, even as a kid, I thought, they're refusing Him because they want, well, now we might say a combo of Donald Trump and the Terminator. A lot of them, very understandably, they didn't want any more pain; they didn't want any more Romans running over them. They didn't want any suffering. You know, give us muscles and money! That's very human. And along comes this carpenter clown who talks about peace and a spiritual kingdom and all that stuff that's so hard even for us to grasp sometimes. It's another dimension. So, they refused. And some people even today do. "No, I don't want any part of that, cross and all that. No. No." It's human and it's sad and it's refusing light.

And then some just lose it for awhile. Don't get panicky about, about your kids. My experience, they, so many, they come back but they refuse for awhile. Again I remember television. I should be quoting Bible at you and I'm talking TV, but Jackie Gleason, some of you remember him, "The Honeymooners." He was a baptized Catholic and, for many years, he practiced the Catholic faith. But, then, as he put it on a talk show, I think it was Dick Cavett. Dick Cavett was good because he actually listened to the interviewee, unlike so many today who do all the talking. But, Cavett was listening to Jackie Gleason. Jackie was smoking a cigarette, you know, heavy, brilliant comic, and drinking allegedly coffee, and Cavett asked him the kind of question I'd want to ask him, "Jackie, weren't you brought up a Catholic?" And Gleason shook his head sadly and he said, "Yeah. I haven't been to a church in a long time." He took a puff, a sip. He said, "I got some marital vicissitudes." What a great way to put it! He said, "You know, one of my buddies out on the West Coast (Hollywood), they keep looking for the Light." I remember because he used the word, "Light." "They look for the light, you know, they go to several different shrinks or several different boyfriends or girlfriends, build another house. They're looking for the light. You see, I don't go to Church anymore but I know where the Light is. I was taught as a kid. I know where the light is. And, if I could straighten this mess out, I'll get to the end of the tunnel." I'll never forget it. He wasn't drunk. Maybe he was a little buzzed, but he was hon...."I'll get to the end..." And I wrote that down too. A Light at the end of the tunnel. He lost it. Now, I can tell you this. I was told by a priest in Upstate New York, who was in Jackie Gleason's parish. He had a big mansion. I remember his saying after Gleason died, "He came back," the priest said. "You know, Jackie came back." He lost it for awhile. But he knew he was luckier than what he called his buddies because at least he knew there was Light.

And the last one is, choose it. I don't have to tell you about that. You're here at Mass. You're choosing the Light. It's hard. I love that quote about "Faith is holding on in the darkness to what you once saw in the light." This is Christmas and it's a kind of a sad thing. But I love that quote. Faith, grown-up faith, not little tiny children, grown-up faith is holding on in the darkness to what you once saw so clearly in the light.

Some of us choose the Light day after day. I remember, and I don't even know how to do this by examples, a young lady, let's call her "Cara," was in the hospital. She'd been a student of ours and she was in the hospital, big, sad, scary operation here. I remember her sitting up in bed after the surgery. She's fine now. But, I remember her sitting up in bed, choosing the Light in Cara's own way, and I, you know, walking in to visit her and she said, "I am so glad that you and I (meaning the visiting priest) you and I have a God Who had flesh and blood and bones and knows how it feels. That's the best theological description of the
Incarnation I ever heard. God became a man. She's sitting up in bed, still in pain, after serious surgery, great, vibrant, "I'm so glad we have a God Who had flesh and bones and blood and knows how it feels."
God becoming man. Otherwise it's just an abstraction, and ho-hum, let's go to breakfast.... But God is a Man, knows how it feels. And then, the guy I told you about, you know Louie, leaning forward....Cara chooses the faith through suffering. I used to think once you get suffering, you just abandon it, like an angry child: "I didn't get the toy, and I don't believe in God..." But grown-up faith is Cara through suffering. I'm always amazed at people who keep choosing the Light even in pain.

And the other experience of mine is people choose it through study. And Louie had 12 years of Catholic education, which is great, but he had to re-study. Oh! The Gospels are valid history, even according to atheists. The Gospels aren't just made-up, lovely stories to kind of keep us happy. But they're valid history, valid historicity. That's true. Nobody denies it any more, and then that the Church really descended from Peter. And he had to study and study. He said, "Oh, yeah, yeah. Christ was God and He rose from the dead, and I'm back."

And, then, you and I re-choose. We've got to. We've got to. We got brains and hearts and some kind of common sense. You've got to re-choose every day sometimes. But, two more examples.... When people come back, re-choosing after a long confession, (I used to hear them on Wall Street.) you know, twenty years away, I can tell you this. They'd finish a good confession and get the penance, and you'd hear them do this as they walked out of the box, "Ah...h...huh!" It was glorious. It was like a Mozart aria to me. They re-choose again. They're human. They have failed. They have messed up. They're getting back together.

A lot of the rest of us have to re-choose in panic. "Why are you talking about all this misery on Christmas?" I have no choice.... In Palo Alto, there's a Starbucks, and I was on summer vacation last summer. And there's a Starbucks, and I went there every morning with the Times and I sat on the bench and I watched. And people would go into Starbucks, and they'd tie their dogs up, their pooches, up to a little railing. I remember staring at two dogs for the whole week.....priest snoopervisor. And one dog was a terrier and the other was a spaniel.... This has to do with re-choosing, believe it or not.... All week, the same routine, two different people go in, two different dogs. They go in for coffee. They stay there for.... The terrier was terrified. I mean, jumping and yipping and yapping and wrapping itself around on the leash and yipping and yapping and.... The spaniel was the picture of serenity. The spaniel reclined and gazed regally around the area.

Now, being an old English teacher, I immediately got the metaphor, that some of us have faith, but we're like the terrier. It has nothing to do with being weak in faith or having the bad biochemistry. It just means it's part of the temperament, that, almost, especially in bad times, like the terrier. And, of course, each day of that solid week that I kept watching this, each master or mistress would come out and the dog would, spaniel and terrier, hop up and happy, but the terrier had suffered. The spaniel had merely meditated. And it doesn't mean you're less a Catholic if you're like the terrier, if, because of your constitution and past pain, that might be the greater faith, re-choosing even in panic, re-choosing each day under stress. And let's get off the sad stuff now.

You're choosing today, at Christmas. And I hope you keep it up. I used to howl sometimes when the priest, when I was a little kid, got up and yelled at people, "Aww, you're back in church on Christmas...." I used to think... "Well, they're here. Why are you yelling at them now?" You're here at Mass, not losing, not refusing, re-choosing. In the immortal words of Louie, "Geez! All this attention all over the world still
after all this time for that one guy..."