Is not God with us here on earth?

With the hurry and excitement of Christmas over, we can now quietly appreciate the peace and good will that Jesus’ birth brings to the world. The world is a special emphasis of Christmas. The Star over Bethlehem points to a lowly stable and a baby in a manger. Christmas brings heaven to earth. God is now with us, here on earth, in the flesh.

Now when we pray to God, we don’t have to look “up” to heaven. Heaven is here. We can simply look around, at one another, at our family, community, society, nation and world. It is here that we see why Jesus was born. All around us is the challenge to bring Jesus’ peace and good will to the world.

I like to explain the meaning of Christmas with a joke: When I was a young man I prayed to God for a million dollars. God replied, “OK. First, get a job.”

Christmas means that God, now with us here on earth, is empowering us and making us spiritually responsible for our own lives in his grace.

From now until Pentecost we can re-imagine what it was like for the people of Jesus’ time to experience him living among them. They watched him grow and flourish as a good and loving son, and work hard as a carpenter. They saw how he loved his friends. They listened to his message and wondered how such a young man could so deeply touch their hearts.

And what a surprising young man he was! He cured the sick and blind. He told the poor, who were oppressed and depressed, that the Kingdom of God was theirs. He made a hated Samaritan the hero of one of his stories. He shocked the people’s social sensibilities by telling of a father who humiliated himself by running out of his house to greet his prodigal son.

Who was this young man who was living and teaching such world-shaking values, who was loving them so deeply that he was literally changing their world? In Jesus’ everyday life we see the meaning of Christmas, and we see what Christmas is intended to mean for us. God is with us! We can see him. We can hear him. We can imitate him in our own lives. In fact, he is calling and empowering us precisely to imitate him in our own lives. The peace and good will that he promised by his birth is ours to cherish deep within our hearts, but only if we bring that same spiritual peace and good will to others. We have peace by making peace. We have good will by showing good will.

Because of Christmas it is not enough for us to pray, “Dear God, bring peace to the world.” Or, “Help our government bring social justice to all.” As God non-jokingly replied in my little story, he now replies, “If you want peace and social justice, look to the peace and good will that I have given you, and go to work to bring peace and justice to the world. Show the world what I look like in human form.”

Economic inequality is as great today as it was in the 1920s; unemployment is at an unacceptable high; many are hungry and broken; our politics are mired in “talking points” and lies; many people have lost their homes. As a result, it is difficult to “see” God in many parts of our society.

Shall we look to God in heaven to correct all these injustices on his own while we do little or nothing? Is not God with us here on earth?

There are now 74 million Catholics in the U. S., not to mention millions of Protestants, Jews, Muslims and others of good will. What would our country be like if we Catholics were able to organize a truly effective movement of peace, justice and good will? What would our parishes look like if they were part of such an organized country-wide effort? No, the church should not get directly involved in politics. But yes, we Catholics are spiritually responsible to use the grace of Christmas to elevate and correct our society by making it more peaceful and just, more of good will and more effectively fostering the common good — in sum, more luminously human. This is the spiritual work that Christmas calls us and empowers us to do. This is the work we have to learn how to do.

It is time to bring the full meaning of Christmas peace, justice and good will — the meaning of Christ with us and among us — to our society.

Anthony T. Massimini of Woolwich holds a doctorate in spiritual theology. He can be reached at massimini7@gmail.com