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Thursday, December 21, 2000 Coxrimeniiury The Southern Cross, Page 5 Everyday Gr aces A season to acknowledge miracles O ne aspect of my nature that continually frus trates me is my ability to witness a miracle, then develop a ho-hum atti tude, returning to my daily routine as if nothing life-altering has occurred. It’s that sinful tendency to forget, ignore, disregard, sometimes even scorn those heaven-sent moments, events and people whose presence in my life speaks to the glory and good ness of God. A day of giving and receiving, a day of wonder, Christmas is the perfect time to gratefully acknowl edge what I too often take for granted. So, as a way of saying thank you, I’ve come up with a Christmas list. It includes three gifts, three extraordinary blessings in my life. Not very dramatic, they are the stuff of everyday life. Yet they are miracles all the same. The first is the miracle of heal ing. Having been privileged to wit ness and hear others’ remarkable accounts of healing, I should have the faith of a saint. Still I doubt. Still I worry. So this Christmas I will acknowledge one mira cle I have experienced firsthand, one I see in the face of my daughter, Katie. After miscarrying my first pregnancy, two months later and preg nant again, I experienced problems threatening my second pregnancy. Advised by my doctor to quit working and rest, I was afraid to, concerned that by giving up my teaching job, I’d become too emo tionally attached to the baby, and if my second pregnancy ended in miscarriage, I’d have nothing to fill my days. Yet inspired by our pas tor’s homily on healing, my hus band and I prayed fervently. I quit my job and rested. Although my pregnancy remained difficult, the immediate threat of miscarriage ended, and we were privileged to experience another miracle—the birth of a healthy daughter. I realize others have prayed even more fervently, more faithfully, and were not so blessed. My heart aches for those whose prayers seem to go unanswered. Perhaps the greatest healing we experienced at the time came less in a physical form than in the sense of peace throughout the remaining months of pregnancy, a relief from the ter rible anxiety of being in the hands of cruel fate. Through prayer, we were graced with the confidence that whatever the outcome, God is there. The second gift on my list is the miracle of family. Raised in a large family, a secure, loving home, I consider myself blessed to have grown up in such a household. My husband has been similarly blessed. Now, as the parents of four, we are amazed when we stop to consider the joys of family life. When we were married 19 years ago, we had no inkling we’d one day have four children. At a certain time in my life, I believed I didn’t want any. I now know that God had better plans. Of course, life with children can be trying, exhausting, far from joyous every moment of the day. Still, Jim and I can’t imagine our married life more fulfilling (quieter, yes) than it is right now. The last gift is the miracle of friends. As soon as we were mar ried, Jim and I moved away from our families and began a life together in a resort town where we knew no one. We had trouble meet ing people our age, and we grew increasingly lonely. Since I stayed home with our daughter after she was bom, I felt even more isolated. Desperate to meet other young mothers, I would strike up conver sations in the grocery store with any woman I saw pushing a baby in a shopping cart. Finally, through our parish’s Renew program, we found true friends, a group who became as close to us as family and who seemed to need us as much as we needed them. Nineteen years later, many of that original group are still dear friends. Yes, it is the season to acknow ledge miracles. God’s healing grace, the joy of family, the com fort of good friends are three extraordinary gifts, miracles, indeed. May they be counted among your Christmas blessings, as well. Mary Hood Hart lives with her husband and four children in Sunset Beach, N.C. Mary Hood Hart Catholics and Jews today Avoid promoting the notion that the Jewish people are reserved for a destiny of suffering By Father Michael J. Kavanaugh void promoting the superstitious notion that the Jewish people are reprobate, accursed, reserved for a destiny of suffering. It was a common belief in the Judaism at the time of Jesus that every blessing or benefit that came into a person's life was a sign of God's special favor, and every crisis or catastrophe was a sign of God's disfavor. Hence, the father of many sons (daughters were another matter) was said to be, automatically, a holy person beloved of God; the man without sons, on the other hand, was judged to be, at least somewhat, evil or at least disfavored. This type of false understanding of the ques tion of good and evil is still found today among the “prosperity preachers,” often seen on televi sion, who assure their congregations that if their faith is strong enough and pure enough, God will bless them with material riches: expensive cars, vacation homes, even lottery jackpots. It is an attractive idea, but it is wrong. Some people today may try to apply this kind of superstitious understanding of God to the sit uation of the Jews, blaming the evil acts of ban ishment, expulsion, persecution, and even the genocide of the Holocaust, on the so-called sins of the Jewish people; that is, their non-belief in Jesus Christ as the long-awaited Messiah. Beginning with Melito of Sardis (died about a.d. 190), it has been said that the Jewish people would be doomed to wander forever without a homeland because of their “sin.” For almost 2000 years this so-called prophecy seemed to be true as century after century the Jews were expelled from most of the countries of Europe, or forced to live in ghettoes, separat ed from the Christians in that region. Their busi nesses were taken away, their property was con fiscated, and they were never allowed to live in peace and security. Then in 1948, the modem state of Israel was established and once again the Jews had a place, a country. While most Israelites have expended tremendous energy to keep and defend that homeland, and while they have been, at times, guilty of the same kind of prejudices against the Palestinian people that they themselves have suffered, it cannot fairly be said that simply because a person is a Jew, he or she is more likely to suffer. The cause of much of the suffer ing of the Jewish people has not been of their own making, but has come from the unreason able fear and resentment expressed against them by the Christians who were supposed to be their “neighbors.” Father Michael J. Kavanaugh is diocesan director of Ecumenism. This is the eighth in a series of articles on Jewish-Christian relations. Set Your VCR “A Symphony of the Faithful,” a 30-minute history video with vignettes on the Diocese of Savannah and narration by Father Jeremiah J. McCarthy, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in Savannah, will air in the Augusta area on WRDW-TV at 5:30 a.m. on December 25. A one-hour presentation on the November 29 Rededication Mass at the Ca thedral of Saint John the Baptist in Savannah, also with narration by Father McCarthy, will air on WRDW at 6:00 a.m. on Christmas Day. TV Mass Schedule: Augusta Sundays 10:00 a.m. WAGT-TV Macon Sundays 5:30 p.m. WGNM-TV Savannah Saturdays 6:00 p.m. Comcast Cable 7 Savannah Sundays 6:00 a.m. WTOC-TV