2020-12-25 Christmas Title: Why He Came
[_01_] In New Orleans, there is a professor of law, who wrote this to his law school students, those studying to be lawyers, those aspiring to work for legal justice, because he wanted them to reflect on the reason that they had gone to law school.
He gave this example of what happened during the Christmas
winter / semester break in New Orleans in 2005.
After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, hundreds of law school
student volunteered to work in New Orleans and other devastated communities
along the Gulf Coast during their holiday or time off.
Several students helped out with a case in the lower 9th
ward in the very severely damaged city of New Orleans where hundreds of homes
had been demolished without notice to the owner or an opportunity to be heard.
Most of these homes had been literally swept off of their
foundations by the brutal onrush of huge walls of tons of water when the levees
broke. Many homes were upside down, some were sitting in the middle of the
street blocks away from their “real address” and some were on tops of cars or even
on top of other homes.
So – what the city and government needed to do was to check
– who owned these homes? Where did they belong? It was very difficult because
they were scattered so far and wide.
By the way, do you recall that MARTIAL LAW had been
declared in New Orleans at the time? It was a terrible crisis.
The law school students went out on a mission into lower 9th
ward neighborhood.
Their goal for the homes was either to fix them up or
remove /rescue personal possessions and objects of value. In teams, students
went to each house scheduled to be demolished to see if they could figure out
who the owners were. Then, the teams tried to contact the displaced owners.
[_02_] At the end of the week of
round-the-clock work, the law school
students met together to reflect on what they had experienced.
Sitting on the floor, they shared their
post-Hurricane-Katrina New Orleans neighborhood experience.
As they went around the room, a number of students started
crying.
One young woman wept as she told of her feelings when she
discovered a statue of the Madonna – Blessed Mother Mary – just like the one in
her own mother’s home in California. At that moment, she realized her profound
connection with the family whom she had never met. This was not a “case” but
rather a “life”, a connected to her own.
Another student told of finding a small hand-stitched
pillow with the words stitched/printed as “Blessed are the meek.” It told a lot about the people who lived in
that small home. Not the usual sentiment celebrated in law school.
The last student to speak was also overwhelmed with
emotion. The student felt it was a privilege to able to assist people in such
great need. He said the following: “You know, the first thing I lost in law
school was the reason that I came to law school. This experience will help me
get back on track.” It reminded him of why he had come to law school… the
reason.
[_03_] What is the reason we are
here? What is the reason that we read about the Holy Family, Mary, Joseph, the
shepherds at Christmas?
Jesus comes to
fulfill the law and the prophets, but also to write a new law on our hearts and
to remind us that we are never far from Him.
Some of our traditional regular reasons and rituals may
have been interrupted …or they are about to be interrupted or disrupted.
Our reason for Christmas joy can be celebrated by what we
pay at the very beginning of Mass and every day: “In the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…”
In the Trinity, we celebrate and honor God as 3 persons
with 1 divine nature, with 1 being.
The persons of the Trinity – F, S, HS – are co-equal,
co-eternal, one in essence, action, power, and will.
What is something that will help us to see the existence of
this Trinity-like equality or being “co-equal”.
One event would be post-Katrina rescue effort by the law
school students – they saw themselves as united with the people who needed
their help.
[_04_] Also – consider what happens with the birth of a child or the
presence of a child in your life, in our lives.
In your effort (our effort) to protect and nurture the
child, we do so , acknowledging that the child is more than just another
dependent being, or as being “other”.
Rather, caring for a child reminds us not that the child is “other” but
that the child is a part of us.
In fact, is it not true that very small children themselves
do not even “get” the idea of a separation between themselves and a parent.
Everything is about unity, union.
Putting them down to sleep, we do so very carefully.
[_06_] The reason we
celebrate Christmas so explicity, so intentionally, is to recall that we can be
and we are on the way to being in union with God.
When we say that God sent his son into the world and Jesus
came into the world, we are really saying that God came into the world in a
human form, so people (you and I) could experience a personal relationship with
him, build trust, and understand his love for all people.
He came that we might also find a house and home with him
at our own address and remember that Jesus is looking for us, searching for us
at our home, wherever that might be. That’s our Savior’s way of practicing law. He will spend his Christmas break – and longer – waiting and
searching for you.
If your house or home feels “displaced” or “disrupted” or
unmoored from its foundations, he is still looking for you, wherever you are.
This the reason we came.
This is the reason He came. [_fin_]
Bibliography Reference: William P. Quigley, “Letter to a Law Student Interested in Social Justice” Duke Law School Journal Fall 2007
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