Beautiful reflections on Chanukah and Advent

Archbishop Prendergast posted an address he gave this week at a testimonial dinner in Toronto in honor of Rabbi Erwin and Mrs. Laura Schild. Here's a portion of this beautiful talk. He has many pictures and much more over at his blog.

Our gifts to the world at Chanukah and Advent

Allow me to conclude with a thought on the feasts we are about to celebrate as Jews and Christians. It is good to reflect on the symbols of light and hope that mark the Jewish feast of Chanukah and the Christian season of Advent that prepares us for the birth of Christ. This is a time when Jews and Christians use the symbols of candles and lights to shatter the winter darkness.

Chanukah [beginning this year at sundown on Thursday, December 2] means “dedication,” and commemorates the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its desecration by foreign forces and the Jews' victory over the Hellenist Syrians in the year 165 B.C. For the rededication celebration, the Maccabees desired to light the menorah and looked everywhere for oil, finally finding a small flask that contained only enough oil to light the menorah for one day. Miraculously, the oil lasted for eight days. The message of Chanukah may be found in the name of the holiday itself: dedication—not only of the temple building but of individual lives to the pursuit of high religious and human ideals.

The biblical selections read during Chanukah and Advent can become a new summons to the Synagogue and to the Church to reach out to one another, to recommit ourselves to the truth of God’s saving Word, to human solidarity, fidelity, and to bearing God’s light to the nations, together as partners in building up the kingdom of God.

Both Jews and Christians are invited to go beyond the outward symbols and ask the deeper questions: how do we continue to long for the truth and salvation that the Messiah will bring? Advent teaches Christians about the relationship between the Scriptures and the Covenants that God has made with the human family.

During the upcoming seasons of Chanukah and Advent, Jews continue to long for the Messiah’s coming and Christians celebrate his birth in human history. Christians believe that Jesus is the promised Messiah who has come (Luke 4:22), but we also know that his Messianic kingdom of justice, love and peace is not yet fully realized.

It is the sacred vocation and mission of the Church to prepare the world for the full flowering of God's kingdom that is “not yet”. The Jewish Kaddish and the Our Father exemplify this message. Both Christianity and Judaism seal their worship with a common hope: “Thy Kingdom come!” There is much unfinished business. The world looks to us—Jews and Christians—for a message, an example and a reason to hope and believe.

We cannot forget the deeply Judeo-Christian ethics and values that lie at the heart of our nation. We start by working together to protect the most important human values that are threatened by a world in continual transformation and upheaval. In the first place comes the right to life, to be protected from conception right up to natural death. Life is a most precious gift from God, the precondition for all other divine gifts. Next comes the dignity of the human person and the rights which flow from it.

Our common longing for the fruits of the Messianic kingdom invite us—Jews and Christians—into a knowledge of our communion with one another and, a recognition of the terrible brokenness of the world. As Pope John Paul II taught us so powerfully through word, gesture and deed during his historic Pontificate, and as Benedict continues to remind us day after day—nothing and no one can ever wrench us away any longer from that deep communion.

The “tikkun ha’olam”, the healing of the world, its repair, restoration and redemption depends upon us, working together. It is precisely that healing and collaboration that have so marked Rabbi Schild’s life and ministry. For those great gifts, we give thanks to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the God and Father of Jesus Christ.

L’chayim, dear Rabbi and Mrs. Schild!