Catholic Diocese of Spokane, Washington

From the

Official News Magazine of the Diocese of Spokane

Spirituality:
Pack it away; take it down

by Father Michael Savelesky, for the Inland Register

(From the Jan. 13, 2005 edition of the Inland Register)

Aren’t cardboard boxes a delight? Especially the type with the four tight-folding leaves? Where would we be without them? In addition to being valuable mailing containers, cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes are so convenient for taking care of one of life’s most commonly experienced necessities: storing stuff.

In our culture, we seem to be obsessed with amassing things, using them for a short while, then stuffing them into boxes which fight their way into attics, basements or hallway closets. A tour of any of our homes would produce scores of such boxes, holding contents from used clothing to discarded magazines.

Foremost among our collection of boxes most likely are those which hold the decorations for our religious seasons. Boxing the trappings of the season and stuffing them away in closets is part and parcel of the rhythm of life – especially this time of year. We save these things so that they will be available for our use come next year when the occasion returns once more.

This year as we pack away our Christmas decorations we may just as well take out the Easter stuff – or, for those of us with refined liturgical taste, our Lenten purples. The Christmas season has come and gone this year with amazing speed because of its calendar configuration. Set by the movements of the moon, the Easter season shocks us now with its earlier-than-normal arrival. So pack one box away; take down another.

Much of life is characterized by packing and unpacking the things which decorate our surroundings. This form of human behavior may well foster a mentality that time is but a passive plane which, being basically dull, needs occasional decorating to give it luster. If we do not think this is the case, we might well look at how our culture – especially advertising – measures time in terms of holidays or the hyped sports event. Everything “in between” is presumed to be without much meaning.

Our behavioral and cultural practices have an impact on our spirituality. We are body-soul unities, and how we use things available to us makes a difference. As we pack up and store away our Christmas decorations, for example, we might be led to think that Christmas and its brief four weeks of Advent preparation are stuffed away until the next time around. The result is a sense that the effort spent on softening our hearts and renewing our spiritual lives during Advent-Christmas somehow should lessen or be set aside once the Great Feast has passed.

Christmas and Easter are the two central religious celebrations of the Christian year. Each deserves its share of decoration and glitter. And, yes, the decorations would look a bit absurd if left out all year ’round. It’s okay to stuff them in cardboard boxes and squirrel them away in less trafficked places. Decorations can be so stored.

On the other hand, the relationship with Jesus that these seasons celebrate cannot be boxed up and stored away. Relationships are personal encounters which call for continual nurturing. Through his birth, death and Resurrection Jesus calls us, his disciples, to continual growth in faith and commitment to service. We are to walk with him every day of our lives. In that sense, the trite adage is true: Every day is Christmas; every day is Easter. Every day is a dying and rising with Jesus. The spiritual life knows no in-between times. It only knows seasons of intensified celebration and decoration.

Even Christians cannot always live at the crescendo of religious celebration. We, like the rest of humankind, know the calm – even the welcome calm – of ordinary daily living. Yet, for us, life is never fully ordinary. The one who was born of Mary, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, is still alive and among us. Jesus, the babe in the manger – or Jesus, the Risen Lord – will not fit neatly into any cardboard box. He cannot be stored away with the decorations of the season. He who was born, lived, died and rose is alive, beckoning his faithful followers to continue our walk with him. No matter how ordinary our lives might seem, in light of Jesus’ resurrection, they are filled with new life and zest. Time – with or without the decoration – is rich and full.

(Father Savelesky is pastor of Assumption Parish in Spokane. His book, Catholics Believe, is available from Harcourt Religion Publishers.) (Download an order form in pdf format to print)

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