Several years ago, journalist Maura Rossi wrote an article on Anne Donaghue, a Georgetown University graduate who was doing volunteer work for Covenant House in New York City. The purpose of this house is to provide shelter for homeless runaways.
Every night at about ten o'clock, Anne and another volunteer would put gallons of hot chocolate and bags of sandwiches in the Covenant House van. For the next couple of hours, they would tour the city's toughest areas and offer free sandwiches and ...
Several years ago, journalist Maura Rossi wrote an article on Anne Donaghue, a Georgetown University graduate who was doing volunteer work for Covenant House in New York City. The purpose of this house is to provide shelter for homeless runaways.
Every night at about ten o'clock, Anne and another volunteer would put gallons of hot chocolate and bags of sandwiches in the Covenant House van. For the next couple of hours, they would tour the city's toughest areas and offer free sandwiches and hot chocolate to the runaways who were working on the street.
One might ask what the volunteers hoped to accomplish on these nightly excursions. Anne answered that question saying, "We're out there because we know that a lot of kids haven't tried Covenant House yet. Most have never heard of us."
Anne said that they accomplish something else, too. They show these kids that someone cares, that somebody is out there who is neither buying nor selling them. Referring to her first year as a volunteer, Anne says, "I was very depressed. What kind of God would let kids suffer so much? Finally, it got through to me: God is not going to come down and show us His love; we have to let God's love work through us."
Anne's story is a good one, and her last two comments say it all. First, she says, "God is not going to come down and show us His love." She's right; God has already done that in the person of Jesus. That's what Advent is all about. It's preparing to celebrate this great mystery of what God has already done for us by living among us as a human being.
Second, Anne says, "We have to let God's love work through us." Again, she is right. When Jesus ascended to His Father after His life on earth, He commissioned us to continue His work. Just as the Father worked through Jesus during His life on earth, so His Father works through us in our life on earth. We are to be channels of God's grace to others just as Jesus was.
That is what Anne was doing as she drove her van: she was serving as a channel of God's grace to many needy young people. She was doing what Mary was doing in today's Gospel reading. She was saying "yes" to God's invitation to be a vehicle of love in today's world.
And we do what Mary and Anne did. We do this as a parish in our ministries to the needy in our neighborhood and world, in our visitations to the sick and the elderly, in our providing education to our youth, in our teaching the faith tour youth through CCD and our parish school, in our gathering together each week as a community of faith. These are just some of the many ways we are channels of God's grace. Through prayer, worship, work, and socializing together, we are God's presence to one another.
Christmas is a time when we introduce our young people and those who have not had exposure to Christ to the great mystery that Jesus brought God down to us. But we cannot stop there. If we do, we've told only half our Christmas story. We must teach them why Jesus brought God down to us. It was to show us that we, too, must bring God to others.
Let us pray for an awareness of the many ways each day that God seeks to work through us. May we be open to the will of God in our lives, that we may be channels of God's peace and love in the world, and, through our willingness to be instruments of the LORD, may we help to make the world a better place.+
