The Christmas Story

Dear Parishioners, friends and family in Christ,

There was once a man who didn't believe in God, and he didn't hesitate to let others know how he felt about religion and religious holidays. Despite his disparaging comments, his wife remained steadfast in her faith and raised their children in the practice of faith. On one snowy Christmas Eve, his wife was taking their two children to Christmas Eve Mass and asked him to come along just like she had done so many times before, but he refused once again, saying: "That story of Jesus is nonsense! Why would God lower Himself to come to Earth as a man? That's ridiculous!"

So he stayed home by himself while his wife took the children to Church.

Later that night, the winds grew stronger and the snowstorm turned into a blizzard. As he looked out the window, all he saw was a blinding snowstorm…suddenly he heard this very loud thump. Something had hit the window. So he ventured outside to see what it could have been. To his surprise he saw a flock of wild geese. Apparently they had been flying south for the winter when they got caught in the snowstorm and couldn't go on. They were lost and stranded on his farm, with no food or shelter. They just flapped their wings and flew around the field in low circles, blindly and aimlessly. And a couple of them had flown into his window, it seemed.

He felt sorry for the geese and wanted to help them. The barn would be a great place for them to stay, he thought. ‘It's warm and safe; surely they could spend the night and wait out the snowstorm.’ So he walked over to the barn and opened the doors wide, hoping they would notice the barn and go inside. But the geese just fluttered around aimlessly and didn't seem to notice the barn.

The man tried to get their attention by waving a lantern, but that just seemed to scare them, and they moved further away. He went into the house and came back with some bread, broke it up, and made a bread crumb trail leading to the barn, but they still didn't catch on. He got behind them and tried to shoo them toward the barn, but they only got more scared and scattered in every direction except toward the opened barn doors. Nothing he did could get them to go into the barn where they would be warm and safe.

Frustrated and exhausted, he said to himself, "Why don't they follow me? Can't they see this is the only place where they can survive the snowstorm? If only I were a goose, then I could save them!”

Then, all of a sudden he had an idea! He went into barn, got one of his own geese and carried it in his arms as he circled around behind the flock of wild geese. He then released his goose, which flew through the flock and straight into the barn -- and one-by-one, the other geese followed it to safety. He stood silently for a moment as the words he had spoken a few minutes earlier replayed loudly in his mind: "If only I were a goose, then I could save them!" Then he thought about what he had said to his wife earlier that evening. "Why would God want to be like us? That's ridiculous!” 

Suddenly it all made perfect sense to him. That is what God had done! We were like the geese -- blind, lost, and perishing. God had His Son become like us so He could show us the way, and save us! Now he understood why Jesus Christ had come as one of us. Years of doubt and disbelief vanished with the passing snowstorm. He fell to his knees in the snow, and said his first prayer: "Thank You, God, for coming in human form, to get me out of the storm!”