February 23, 2012
All Creation Rejoices: A Christmas Memory from Fr. Spitzer
In Five Pillars of the Spiritual Life, Fr. Robert Spitzer discusses the faith journey that led him to the priesthood. One memorable moment in that journey came on a Christmas Day when he was just 12 years old. Here’s the story as Fr. Spitzer relates it.
Saint Paul says that we are all united in the mystical body of Christ (see I Cor 10:17), that is, we share in and derive strength from the grace, love, and joy of the whole communion of saints both past and present. I really had no idea what this meant when I was twelve years old, but I remember one particular Christmas when we had completed opening our presents and my siblings and I were going to Mass with my mother.
I felt an unusually acute happiness that I could not ignore, and so I told my mother, “Mom, I’m feeling very happy, but I’m not sure why.” She said in reply, “Well, you probably received all the presents you wanted.” For some reason, I knew that it was not material happiness (coming from possession of a gift, consumption of food, playing games, and so forth), so I told her, “Mom, I did get all the presents I wanted, but that’s not what’s making me this happy.”
She thought about that for a while, and then, with a great of hope, said, “Well, maybe you’re growing up and thinking of things beyond presents. Maybe you’re happy because you’ve grown to appreciate your family and you had a really intense experience of them at Christmas.” I said in reply, “Uhhh, family? I don’t really think that’s it” (even though I had a really great family).
So my mother thought about it some more and then said, as if inspired, “Well, maybe it’s the joy of the whole communion of saints on this Christmastide coursing through your veins.” I have no idea why she said this, or why I knew it was correct, but I said, “Yep, that’ why I think I’m happy.”
To this day, that childlike response to my mother’s deeply insightful remark seems to me to be truth. It is the truth about the communion of saints and the truth about the unifying power of the Eucharist. It is the truth about the love and joy of the whole communion of saints, past and present, coursing through our spiritual veins.
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