‘Real glory is in the Lord’
CHARLOTTE — Christmas is a time to celebrate God’s glory revealed in an infant sent to save us from our sins, Bishop Michael Martin preached to packed congregations Dec. 24 and 25.
In Bishop Martin’s first Christmas since becoming bishop of Charlotte in May, he celebrated the holy day by offering Masses at Our Lady of Consolation Church and St. Patrick Cathedral.
In his homily, the bishop noted that Christmas is about celebrating the glory of God, the sacrifice of God, and the wisdom of God.
But first, he shared a story about his backyard bird feeder.
‘TRYING TO CLIMB’
“I'm not a big bird watcher, but I will admit I like in the backyard to have a bird feeder. I love feeding the birds and watching them,” Bishop Martin said. Yet his “enemy” is a squirrel that manages to outwit his “high-tech, super-duper, anti-squirrel bird feeder” by dangling sideways on the pole on which the feeder hangs.
“Squirrels have a PhD in how to do this,” he joked. “I don’t know how they do it, but do you think I’m going to let it go? No, no, no...”
“I take a can of WD-40,” he continued, and “spray the pole.” Undaunted, the squirrels keep jumping onto the pole, but then slide down without reaching the feeder.
“It’s more entertainment than watching the birds fly by,” he laughed. “It’s hysterical.”
His voice turning serious, the bishop said that slippery pole is God’s way of reminding him of his own folly.
“I'm the squirrel,” he said, pointing to himself, “too often jumping up, trying to climb, thinking I’m going to achieve something, only to just slide right back down. Plop! Right on the ground, over and over and over again. I think I’m going up – and I keep coming right back down.”
Bishop Michael Martin offered the Christmas vigil Mass Dec. 24 at Our Lady of Consolation Church in Charlotte. At top, he placed the baby Jesus in the manger scene at St. Patrick Cathedral as he began the Christmas Mass at midnight.He continued, “My brothers and sisters: we’re here tonight to redefine glory. We’re here tonight to acknowledge that what the world claims as glory is not what we claim as glory.
“We’re here tonight to stop jumping up onto that pole and sliding down – to realize that real glory is not in our accomplishment. Real glory is in the Lord.
“If we don't recognize that daily, we will find ourselves climbing the pole of life and never achieving what we hope to and always find ourselves wanting more, lacking something, wondering why everyone else seems to be having such a glorious life except me.”
‘GOD’S GLORY’
As Christians, we are called to focus on the glory of God, not glorying in ourselves and our achievements, Bishop Martin said.
“Are achievements great? Sure they are, but who do they glorify? Not me. The One who made me, the One who empowered me, the One who’s given me all that I’ve ever been given – all that I have.”
“It’s God’s glory,” he said. “Our glory is in Him.”
We must let go of focusing on ourselves and what keeps us from serving others and doing God’s will, he said.
‘LET GO’
Jesus followed the will of His Father, and He did so at great sacrifice to Himself – dying on a cross to save humanity from sin, the bishop noted.
Self-sacrifice and serving others – particularly serving the poor and the marginalized – is what defines a Christian and a Christian community, he said. “We have got to let go and be willing to serve rather than to be served.”
“Let’s realize that we have got to sacrifice at a greater level, and we can’t do it by ourselves,” he said. Building a community in which members are emboldened to sacrifice and serve others, he said, demonstrates the glory of God to others.
“Let’s commit to that – to carry the cross together,” he urged.
‘SOMETHING GREATER’
Every child represents to us the greatness of God, Bishop Martin also said.
God could have chosen any number of ways to save us, yet in His wisdom, “He comes to us as an infant.”
Although not having children is “one of the challenges” of a religious vocation, the bishop added, “one of the joys of my life has been being able to hold the infant children of my sisters or my nieces and nephew or friends of mine.
“Holding an infant – there’s a glory in that that is so far beyond who I am … in something greater than me,” he said.
“That’s what God wanted to make manifest at Christmas: that when our senses are piqued, we can realize His glory is what we’re here to praise. His glory is what we’re here to worship – made manifest to us in the most vulnerable, most humble, of a newborn child.”
“May we commit this Christmas to realizing what real glory is,” he concluded. “Real glory is in sacrifice that always and only will be perfected in the cross, and that the true glory of God is made manifest in Jesus Christ.”
— Patricia L. Guilfoyle, Troy Hull and César Hurtado
