Shepherds, sheep, and poverty

A very Merry Christmas season to all! I hope everyone is enjoying some time off and abiding within a sense of greater appreciation for the incarnation. SPIRITUS has off from December 19th to January 2nd; and the beginning of my break was a bit crazy! I arrived home at around 9:30 Friday night and by 8 am Saturday morning my friend Julia and I were on our way to Door County to catch the most of a Catholic Youth Expeditions... expedition. It was so good! I received a boost in my relationship with the Blessed Virgin Mary, spent a lot of time with Jesus, and was able to be in beautiful Door County with some of the world's greatest Catholics. Part of every expedition is some time of formation; and during our formation on Saturday morning we spoke mostly about poverty and death. Wahoo! As morbid as the topics seem the way the Lord touched me through this time was incredible, and I wish to share some of that with you now. Father spoke in his own beautifully human style and one of the things he mentioned was that we can forget that we are poor; according to Johannes Metz there are six ways that humans are poor in spirit. We can try to do things ourselves, or become absorbed in our own vain plans. This is a dangerous path, and we risk deceiving ourselves as King Herod did and even passing right by Jesus; but the Shepherds in their poverty could not afford this "luxury." I imagine there were many a night when the Shepherds out in their fields looked on from a distance to Herod's palace wishing they could trade places with him, thinking of how much better off he was than they. Then the Glory of Heaven made manifest in a child was revealed to them, not Herod;  if Herod only knew how much he had cheated himself! I realized that I was running from my poverty, afraid that God would be scandalized by my weakness. Then a few days later I turned on the T.V. searching for Christmas movies and ran into Pope Francis celebrating midnight mass in Saint Peters Basilica, live, and totally gave up my search for Christmas movies. In his homily, Pope Francis spoke mainly about the tenderness of God; "The message that everyone was expecting, that everyone was searching for in the depths of their souls was none other than the tenderness of God. God who looks upon us with eyes full of Love, who accepts our poverty; God who is in  love with our smallness." I realized in a more profound way how I need not fear my weakness; and I have been praying to know my poverty, because it is through our acknowledgement of our poverty that we are drawn to the Lord. Finally, Father Quinn left us with a quote that I believe is from Aelard Rievaulxs, and please forgive me if I am incorrect! " How could He be more with me? Small like me, weak like me, naked like me, poor like me. In all things, He has conformed Himself to me, taking to Himself what is mine and giving me what is His. I lay dead. There was no voice in me, there were no senses in me, and the very light of my eyes was no longer with me. Today, that Great Man, that Prophet who is powerful in word and in deeds came down to me, put His face and His mouth upon my mouth and His hands upon my hands and thus He became EMMANUEL, 'God with us!'"