Nativity Catholic Church
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Ready or Not, Hear I Come!
A "FIRESTARTER"
Spiritual Essay by Rev. Dr. Benjamin Berinti, C.Pp.S. The sun would just be starting to set, late on the wonderful summer nights spent at my grandparents’ home. The neighborhood gang would be gathered, sitting on someone’s front porch (we’d take turns “hosting” the evening’s gab-fest), probably finishing off some ice cream purchased from the “Hagen Man” as he drove his goodie truck around the circle. And, of course, there’d be the Pittsburgh Pirate’s baseball game blaring from station KDKA, serving as a grand backdrop to our daily summer ritual competitions of “flipping” baseball cards. Once the dark began to settle in, and we lost interest in the Pirates and coughing up more baseball cards than we cared to admit, we’d pack what was left of our individual collection of cards back into our shoeboxes, and get ready for another round of hide and seek. Although most of us were in our pre-teens, we never considered ourselves too old for the game, especially when you had as many awesome hiding places as we did around the bend of Eileen and Kathleen Drives! Once the “seeker” was determined (usually starting off with the person who lost the most baseball cards that evening), the “hiders” made their way to all the secret nooks and crannies behind bushes, at the edge of the woods, under the gliders, behind the bathtub Blessed Mother grotto sitting in front of someone’s house, huddled beneath the old furnace tank, or dozens of other primo spots. The game officially commenced when the seeker yelled out, “Ready or not, here I come!” As the seeker scavenged around the block looking for us (we did set some limits to the distance one could go to hide), our gang provided an exciting twist to the hiding and seeking. If you were “found” by the seeker, you still had a chance to run away and try to make it the “safety zone” before getting tagged by the seeker! We’d all take turns hiding and seeking until we withered from exhaustion, or the sound of someone’s parents’ or grandparents’ voices sounded the death-knell for one of us to be the first to get called home. A night full of “ready or not, here I come” was more engaging than anything the Pirates, baseball cards, or a mouth full of Dreamsicles could offer. As we contemplate the many mysteries and wonders of this Christmas Season, still unfolding with the great feasts of Mary, the Mother of God and Epiphany, and concluding with the Baptism of the Lord, it’s almost as if God is constantly playing this summertime game with us—continually shouting to us—“Ready or not, here I come!” Funny, though, in our relationship with God, we often picture ourselves to be the “seekers,” chasing after an often too-hidden God. But in reality, it’s the other way around. God is the ultimate seeker, trying to find us in our hiding places. And whether we are ready or not, God keeps coming, and seeking, and sometimes even finding! The three great “manifestations” of God we celebrate in this Christmas Season point to a God who doesn’t wait around for us to get our act together. Our God doesn’t wait for the “right” times and places to make God’s appearance among us. As the long history of the scriptures attest, God seems to have a penchant for prying God’s way into people’s lives when they are most “unready”! Mary and Joseph had not yet completed their engagement rituals, when God decided to show up through the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is born in the middle of a messy census, not having the forethought to arrive when the place wasn’t so overcrowded. Shepherds are simply minding their own business, keeping the night watch and staying as far away from the townspeople as they could, when God sends angels to bring “glad tidings.” Magi from the East set out on the most improbable of journeys to seek a king, who manages to be found resting upon a most un-kingly throne. John the Baptist, ranting and raving alongside the Jordan River, mysteriously luring people into a repentance for their sins in broad daylight, is surprised by the appearance of the “Lamb of God,” who will eventually baptize with more than water! As a New Year breaks upon us, I can only wonder how many times God will invite each of us into yet another game of hide and seek. I wonder how many “ready or not, here I comes” will be floated our way. I wonder how many times we will allow ourselves to be found by God — even when we aren’t as ready as we’d like to be.
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