I got this from a website called Skin Ministries: I was looking for the story about ‘a God with skin on him,- about the boy that was crying and him Mom tried to comfort him by telling him that he would be ok, because God was with him all the time.  I found this:

1 John 4.12 says, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

A little boy was scared and wanted to crawl into his parents bed. They told him not to be scared because God was in his room. The little boy said, “But mom, I need God with skin on him.”

When I talk to people about God, it isn’t what I say that they pay attention to, it is what I do. Do I talk about loving the unlovable, but only love the lovable? Do I talk about forgiveness, but hold grudges in my heart?

The way we live our lives makes a difference in how people understand those ideas and so much more. We make God real when we demonstrate love to the unlovable. When we forgive someone, they can start to believe that God can forgive them, too.

Skin Ministries is about helping people put ‘skin’ on their faith.

SO… on this Sunday, December 30th, 2012, when we celebrate the Feast of the Holy

A Palestinian Boy, with the same skin-colour as Jesus,- as God!

Family, and think of Jesus growing up in Nazareth with Mary and Joseph, maybe we could look at them as ‘Wholly Family’! Not wooly, but wholly! In other words, they all got stuck in to being together, looking out for one another, caring, wiping tears, cleaning the house, preparing the food, doing the daily work, having plenty of laughs and of fun, going for walks, giving little Jesus the ‘UpsyDaisy’ treatment, as they swung him between them as they walked along. They were very ordinary, and very human. Jesus has skin on him, and so had Mary and Joseph. And Jesus of Nazareth was and is ‘God with skin on him’. That’s what the word Incarnation means,-  ’in flesh’,-  having skin and bones and blood and flesh and breath. They were wholly human, and, like every other human on the planet, immensely sacred and precious.

And being Wholly Family means being Wholly Neighbours as well. That’s what we all need in our country at this time,- to be wholly for people, like Jesus,- to let God have skin in us!

1 John 4.12 says, “No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

Fr. Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.

seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com

(For today’s Readings, click on Mass Texts, on HomePage.)

Weekly ‘Soul Food for the Hungry Adult’:

A few years ago, under a previous Government in Ireland, there was a cartoon about the Taoiseach (Leader) of the country at that time,- Bertie Ahern. It went: ‘Infamy! Infamy! They all have it in fa’ Me!’

Well, in today’s first reading, they all have it in for somebody or other, some totally innocent person. Who was ‘the virtuous man’ that the writers of The Book of Wisdom are talking about in today’s reading: ‘Let us like in wait for the virtuous man for he annoys us and opposes our way of life…he accuses us of playing false to our upbringing… Let us test him with cruelty and with torture and explore this gentleness of his…’ And so it goes on, ‘Let us condemn him to a shameful death, since he will be looked after,- we have his word for it’.

And still, today all over the world, innocent people, working for justice and right, are often hounded and even killed. Oscar Romero, in El Salvador, Sr. Dorothy Stang in the Amazon, , Gerardo Orteaga in the Philippines… the list goes on and on, still.

And Jesus was not immune to this, by any means. After coming down from the mountain,- that is, after his Transfiguration when his glory was revealed to three disciples- he begins to warn them, over and over, that yes, even if he was indeed the Messiah/ the Christ/the Anointed One, still he would be delivered into the hands of his enemies, who will put him to death, and that three days later he would rise again. The disciples couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t take it in. But Jesus kept telling them.

And then, as they squabbled later about who was the Greatest among them, who was The Most Important, Jesus took a child, set the child in front of the Twelve, and told them that welcoming such a child was welcoming Jesus himself,- because Jesus stood with the children, saw their dignity, and that they too were ‘Most Important’.  Did the Twelve grasp this bit, either? Probably not right away. It took a lot of living before they came to recognize the truth of it. EVERY child is a V.I.P. !

And if the Twelve were slow to get it, maybe so are we. Food for thought, food to satisfy the hungering soul.

‘Infamy! Infamy!’ The world will have it ‘in fa’ Me’, if I follow this Jesus. He never said it would be easy, he just said it would be worth it!

Bon Appetit!

Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R., Esker.