Christmas greetings from St. Augustine’s Seminary
Over the last 70 years or so the public celebration of Christmas in Canada has changed, even among Catholics, and at times even changed out of all recognition. Advent has more or less disappeared and been replaced by the “40 days of Christmas” reaching from the end of the American Thanksgiving festivities and extending “Black Friday” all the way through to Christmas Day itself. These 40 days is now a period filled with multiple gifts, decorated trees, endless Christmas parties (even In our parishes!), and then, come the 26th of December, everything is hastily taken down and put away. The “Twelve Days of Christmas” are gone or, rather, replaced by a long-drawn-out Boxing Day – complete with mammoth sales events – that carries us all well into the New Year.
Yet among all these changes which mark the apparent triumph of the marketplace, a small but powerful theme continues to be a part of our Christmas heritage: the image of a gift given by someone or something who comes to the infant Christ with empty hands, with nothing to give. Even in the “popular liturgy” of our Christmas carols, we can see this in the little drummer boy (who reminds us in turn of “Our Lady’s Juggler” from the older medieval legend), and further back still, we can see it in that bare cave which the earth itself makes into its offering as a place where the Saviour and His Holy Family can take refuge after every other place had been closed to them.
This gift is the human heart, our heart, yours, and mine.
St. Paul tells us that Christ saves us not by the “works” we do for Him but by our faith in Him, a faith that by nature is gift:
I am poor.
I have nothing.
I will give my heart.
Our personal relationships as couples, as parents and children, as friends for life grow up out of the trust and hope and faith in our hearts, that heart which is itself the deepest possible gift.
The real task of St Augustine’s Seminary is to prepare and invite the men God sends to us so that they can make this deep giving of their hearts to Him and to you, His people. We are profoundly grateful to all of you for the practical help and support you give us in fulfilling this task and for your prayers to keep us faithful in this.
After such a long and difficult year may God bless you with the graces of trust, faith, and simplicity in your hearts and in the hearts of all who are dear to you, and may your Christmas be much blessed. Please enjoy our Christmas 2021 Bulletin with testimonials from our Alumni, Seminarians, Students, and Deacons. As we celebrate the birth of our Saviour, we encourage you to prayerfully consider a donation to help us in our mission of forming disciples. Thank you.
Yours in Our Incarnate Lord,
Father Robert Barringer CSB
President St Augustine’s Seminary