My family watched “A Christmas Carol” the other night and afterwards my husband and I started talking about its lessons.
My husband said, “You know, I’ve never noticed it before, but Scrooge encapsulates so much of our modern-day ways of living.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, the prevailing messages of today are live for yourself. Don’t burden your life with marriage or children. Decrease the surplus population by refusing to have children if you do get married. Reject God. Money is where it’s at, but only so that you can have the things you want. The government through taxes should help the poor, therefore there’s nothing more I need to do. Let the government handle it.”
“And what does this lifestyle do? It makes Scrooge miserable. The truth is, is that until you give yourself away to other people, you can never be truly happy. We must love in a sacrificial way, not just when it is easy or convenient.”
“Scrooge finds joy only when he lives as Christ wants us to live. Now, the story doesn’t explicitly say anything about Christ, but the underlining messages of Christ’s teachings are there. It’s when he repents and starts living for others instead of himself that he truly becomes joyful.”
St. Peter says in our second reading today, “What sort of persons ought you to be, conducting yourselves in holiness and devotion…”
Holiness is living as God wills, Catholic Pilgrims, which will never be an obsession with self. That’s the message of the culture, but the bad fruits of that message are evident.
We were made for more.
Have a blessed Second Sunday of Advent.
