Fr Bob Maguire
‘Father Bob’s True Christmas Meaning Porch Thoughts’
Growing up, Christmas seemed so different, more relaxed and as a family we enjoyed singing carols together, attended church and we always ensured that our older relatives were never alone on Christmas Day. My grandparents always set an extra place at the table for a neighbour or a member in their community who didn’t have any family to enjoy Christmas Day with. I recall meeting someone new every Christmas, and although they were with us for the day, I never knew they were truly alone. As a parent in 2012, all I seem to be focused on is reading store catalogues, buying an abundance of gifts and making sure I have an endless supply of AAA batteries and tiny screw-drivers on standby close by the Christmas tree.
With late night shopping, toys, rising credit card debt and batteries clouding my festive mind, I sought the Porch Thoughts from one of Australia’s inspirational leaders, Father Bob Maguire. Throughout his life, his goal has always been to provide a semblance of basic human relationships and trust to people who are alone in the world and has been an advocate for the poor and disadvantaged since the 1960’s when he first began parish work.
The Father Bob Maguire Foundation was created in 2003 to raise funds to aid the underprivileged and homeless and with his innovation and vision to nurture disadvantaged people from all walks of life, I believed Father Bob may have the answer I was searching for to help me reconnect with the true meaning of Christmas that I could share in some way with my children. Father Bob was also happy to share his thoughts with everyone to ponder in the lead-up to Christmas.
Don’t Curse the Darkness. Light a Candle
Churchgoers will be familiar with the Christmas song “Glory to god in the highest.” I would hope they would before Christmas becomes familiar with another Christmas song, which appeals more to me, “Glory to god in the lowest.” This last declaration seems to me to express, more clearly what I personally believe about the meaning of Christmas.
I want to recommend to all, the pressing need, in these confusing but exciting times, a clarion call to “Occupy Christmas.” By this I mean Christmas should not be left in the hands of priests, prophets and kings. Christmas should be entrusted to shepherds, not religious, least likely spiritual advisors and off-duty angels of our better nature.
Christmas, as many of us have experienced, can be the loneliest day of the year. Our western culture has emphasised gift giving and profit making, as the key to the Christmas. Nothing could be further from the truth.
What the world, that is you and I, needs now is a full and frank disclosure of selves. Wall Street and its local equivalent champion the former while Main Street and its local equivalent champions the latter.
The deepest and most meaningful exchange of selves is what we call home. My colleagues and I, here at the Father Bob Maguire Foundation, have incontrovertible evidence that most street people find Main Street can be as homely as they have experienced to date.
We moderns occupy at least two worlds… One so called real, the other virtual or cyber space. Christmas needs to make a home in both worlds, not only for its own sake, but also for ours.
2012 has seen many examples of cyber bullying and other weapons of personal and mass destruction. During the same twelve months, however, many personal friendships have begun, even flourished, and many communities have successfully sought and found justice, if not peace.
Christmas is all about the Unknown god, risking everything by joining the human race as its most vulnerable member, a baby born dangerously close to an empty home.
Home is where you can go, when nobody else will have you. Four walls do not make a home… people do… home is where the heart is.
Share yourself and heart with an unloved, even unlovely person, this Christmas, and give glory to Unknown god in the lowest.
Fr. Bob Maguire