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I finished a novel recently called, The Diary of a Country Priest, which is about a young priest living in a small village in the French countryside.

Most of the book is composed of his diary entries, documenting – among other things – the slow erosion of faith that happens in the lives of some of his parishioners.

“Faith,” he writes, “is not something you lose like a set of keys.”

It happens over time. God simply becomes less involved in our decision-making.

Some of the characters struggled with unanswered prayers. Others turned away from God in their grief. Others were distracted by materialism, image, or the busyness of daily life.

In each case, the erosion of faith took place over time, not all at once.

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In the Gospel, Jesus encounters the religious authorities of his day. 

Like the characters in Diary of a Country Priest, these were probably good men, law abiding men, but men who’d slowly lost their faith to the point that God was standing right in front of them and they didn’t even know it!

Their hearts weren’t inquisitive; they were hardened.

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Have I ever felt distanced from God? If so, what caused it?

Maybe it was an unanswered prayer, sudden loss, temptation, or the busyness of daily life.

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Faith is not something we lose like a set of keys. It takes time to put God in the backseat.

Conversely, it takes an equal amount of effort to strengthen our faith, letting Jesus take the wheel.

Wherever we are on our faith journeys, may we lean a little more on God and a little less on ourselves, trusting it’s okay to fall.

So long as we fall forward.

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I was leaving the airport recently and upon exiting the parking garage I noticed graffiti spray painted on a wall with the words:

“The Lord is coming SOON!” 

That really put me in an Advent mood. “The Lord is coming SOON!”

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But beneath that someone else added, “Not if he’s flying American Airlines!”

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When is the Lord coming? Is he delayed? Is he not coming at all?

It’s confusing, much like today’s Gospel passage.

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We’ve all come here with Christmas cheer – joy is in the air! But it feels like John the Baptist is trying to take the wind out of our sails.

“Repent!” he says. “Repent!” 

Why is John so grouchy? 

I wonder, did he wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning like the Grinch? Nobody wants to see John’s face on a Christmas card – that scraggly beard and a camel hair shirt.

Maybe the Church made a mistake in giving us today’s Gospel passage.

Or maybe there’s wisdom to be found in it.  

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Commercials and advertisements won’t lead us to repent. 

They’re doing the opposite, trying to convince us that our Christmas won’t be complete without the Amazon Echo smart speaker, Apple’s AirPods, and a Fitbit. 

Everything we never knew we needed! 

In fact, Black Friday shoppers spent a whopping $7.4 billion online – all in a single day.

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But if we push pause on the holiday craze, then we may find a reason to repent. 

While it’s great to be generous – as we all should be! – sometimes we forget to be generous to those who need it most.

There are an estimated 800 million people without enough food or access to clean water.

Perhaps more surprisingly, 35% of the world – some 2.5 billion people – do not live in sanitary conditions.

A friend of mine is travelling to Mexico in a few weeks, for example, to serve a community that lives entirely inside a landfill. They’ve even built their church out of garbage.

I wonder, do I need those AirPods as badly as someone else needs clean water? Or a sanitary place to worship?

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Of course not.

But how much of my Christmas budget have I earmarked for the poor?

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Perhaps a more subtle point is this. How many of us would feel cheated if we woke up on Christmas day with little to nothing underneath our Christmas tree?

From our youth, we’ve been trained to expect gifts – and lots of them – on December 25^th. Though it’s not always the case, the holidays do have a strange way of making us selfish.

I’ll be the first to admit it.

That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t give gifts to those whom we love. In fact, giving gifts is one of the five love languages; it’s how some people show their affection for others.

But if we only spend our time and money on those we love – and neglect those truly in need – then we’ve missed a significant part of the Christmas message.

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A final point.

The one thing we all need – I’d say just as much as food and clothing – is love. Without it we become cold, empty inside, like the Grinch who stole Christmas.

Perhaps this is the other half of the story. 

While many of us are filled with holiday cheer, we must remember that there are others who feel alone. 

Think of that person who lost his or her spouse this year; that homebound neighbor; that aging relative who’s stuck in a nearby nursing home.

A simple phone call or a handwritten Christmas card can go a long way. 

Who’s one person I’ve not thought of, whom I can reach out to this Christmas?

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We’ve all come here with Christmas cheer – joy is in the air!

But John the Baptist reminds us to see the bigger picture.

Christmas is about love – the love that God has for us and the love that we should have for one another – not only our family and friends, but also the poorest and most vulnerable among us.

After all, that’s how God entered our world – as a poor child without a place to lay his head.

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(Note: The picture was borrowed from “Hope of the Poor,” an organization dedicated to serving the poorest among us in Mexico. For more information, please go to: www.hopeofthepoor.org)

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One of the worst parts about being sick is the sense of loneliness or isolation that sets in. 

Despite the care of family, friends, and nurses, our world becomes increasingly small –confined to our own room, our own bed, and our own thoughts.

No one can walk a mile in our shoes.

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Such is the case of the man in today’s Gospel. 

He’s deathly ill, confined to his bed and his thoughts, which is why the centurion calls upon Jesus to heal him.

But Jesus not only brings this man physical healing; he also frees him from his social isolation.

Perhaps there’s a word in that for us.

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In the midst of this holiday season, we should consider two things:

Is there anything that isolates me from others? 

Maybe our temper has gotten out of control, we’ve lost our patience, have clung to hurt feelings, or have fallen into an unhealthy habit.

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Conversely, is there anyone around me who may be feeling isolated? 

Perhaps it’s an aging parent or grandparent, a friend who recently lost a spouse, or a homebound neighbor. 

How can we reach them?

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Just as Jesus heals this centurion’s servant, empowering him to rejoin the community, so we must work for greater unity and peace during this holiday season.

“For where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus says, “I am there in the midst of them.”