The King of Kings was born in a barn….Are we willing to find him there?……In the world of the forgotten……Born in a barn, Christ came into the world

Today Advent begins in the Universal Church….A time to prepare for the birth of Jesus Christ…Advent is like a “mini” Lent…A time to increase our prayers and fasting to focus our mind and heart towards Christ's birth….During this time I often spend some time sitting before a Nativity scene after daily Mass….The statue of the Child Jesus is not in the manger yet but Joseph and Mary are there…Siting in a barn full of animals…..During the time I spend kneeing before the Nativity…I think just how hard is was for Joseph and Mary…They were fully human…They had so much faith and trust but that did not take away what they had to endure and what they were up against….Then here comes baby Jesus, the King of Kings…Born poor and born for the entire world……The Nativity scene, set up in Catholic Churches around the world during Advent is in a sense a mirror image of what our hearts should look like before the birth of the Christ-Child on Christmas Day - Humble……When we acknowledge out own “poverty” before God - God “raises us up” and fills us with Himself

“Your ways, O LORD, make known to me; teach me your paths, Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my savior, and for you I wait all the day”

Its hard for me sometimes to focus on the true spirit of Christmas in the New York Metropolitan Area…So much “flash” and “bling”…..Before I was married I would spend the three weeks before Christmas in India serving the poor with Mother Teresa’s sisters….There was no “flash” and “bling” there….When I would fly out of JFK airport in New York and land in Kolkata it was like flying back into time….Life was “stripped down”…..I lived, ate and saw a side of life that is so different from what I was used to in New York….Coming from the “flash” and “bling” of a New York Christmas and landing into a third world city always made me reflect…It helped me to “enter into” Advent…To prepare my heart for the birth of the Savior of the World…………In every city there is what is commonly referred to as an “under-belly”, where a segment of society lives what is invisible to the rest of “polite society”…..Even where we live in New York / New Jersey….You do not have to go too far to find this “under-belly”…....This was the segment of the world Jesus entered…...Born in a barn - The first people to find him were shepherds in fields, the lowest rung of society…..Many times its in this “under-belly” of cities around the world where the Catholic faith is strongest……On Wednesday’s in Lower Manhattan the Missionaries of Charity would give out food to shut-ins living in boarding houses above storefronts in Chinatown…I have gone with them there a number of times….My eyes could not believe how people in my city, one of the richest cities in the world lived - Living in closets with next to nothing - I remember this one man who would only open his door a crack to receive the food the Sisters gave to him…He was clearly mentally handicapped and all alone in this world…This is the world Mary and Joseph entered when they gave birth to the King of Kings….The world of the forgotten……Born in a barn, Christ came into the world for us……I have learned that we do not have to fly halfway around the world to “find the Christ child” as I would do before I was married…Jesus can be found broken and alone right on the street you live on!….In order to find him we must “enter into” Christ’s poverty making our hearts humble, recognizing our own poverty, which we “mask” with “flash” and “bling”…..It’s there we will encounter something we never knew existed

“Good and upright is the LORD; thus he shows sinners the way. He guides the humble to justice, and teaches the humble his way”

So the question today is…How will you make this Advent special?…How will you prepare your heart for the birth of the King of Kings?…..”Then the LORD said: Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD; the LORD will pass by. There was a strong and violent wind rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the LORD—but the LORD was not in the wind; after the wind, an earthquake—but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake, fire—but the LORD was not in the fire; after the fire, a light silent sound”…….Christ is found in the “under-belly” of our heart….Under our “mask”…..In the “flash” and “bling” of what we Americans know to be Christmas we will not find him….The King of Kings was born in a barn….Are we willing to find him there?……In the world of the forgotten……Born in a barn, Christ came into the worldrist came into the world