When I was a boy, I loved basketball. Starting from about the age of 11, it became all-consuming to me. I played so much that by the time I was 15, I needed right-elbow surgery.
Now the most important thing to a person who loves basketball is the basketball itself. There’s a certain relationship between a basketball fanatic and his basketball. The feel of it, how it bounces, the width of the grooves, the material, how much it’s inflated, the color, the label – yes, even the smell, … everything is an object of interest.
One Christmas, I had a certain basketball that I picked out that I wanted more than anything else. A Spaulding NBA Game Ball: real leather – none of that synthetic leather or rubber stuff. The Lexus of basketballs. It was so special, it could only be used indoors. As Christmas approached, I could see the box under the tree. Now, a basketball – even in its box - is tough to hide with wrapping paper. You can just pick it up and feel around a bit and, well, you know… I wondered: what’s it going to look like? What will it feel like? What will it be like when it is in my hands and I can use it?
That Christmas I was ecstatic when I got that basketball. I took it everywhere. I played at the Y with it each day. I held it while I was hanging out around my house, and I even slept with it. I loved the sport and I loved the ball. It was everything to me, and I held it close.
At Christmas, Mary is about 15 years old and is going to get the one gift that she desires: her Son. He is everything to her. He is her only God and her only Son, and the only Savior of all mankind. She has nothing else, and she loves nothing else outside of Him. And as her pregnancy progresses through Advent, she wonders what He will look like, what it will be like when she can hold God in her arms.
But unlike me in my boyhood, Mary has the Heart of God. When she gets her Gift of gifts, her everything, she is not going to hold onto Him for herself. “Freely have you received, freely give.” (Mt 10:8)
She’s going to give Him away.
To you.
Merry Christmas.