While Christmas is nearly a month in the rearview mirror, I can’t help sharing a Christmas story printed in the most recent newsletter of St. Thaddaeus’ Episcopal Church.
The story represents Christmas in action or, more accurately, Christ in action. While most churches are involved in outreach during the holiday season and many throughout the year, this story bears retelling because of the circumstances involved.
When the Rev. Hugh Jones arrived at his church just off Highway 58 on Christmas Eve, a message on the answering machine voiced concern about a woman who lived not far from the church and was hungry.
“There are those right in our very own neighborhood,” the congregation’s interim rector said in the newsletter, “who are hungry and hungry regularly.”
The caller had once worked with the woman’s mother, she explained, and had been trying to look out for the woman but lived in another part of the area, which was now covered in several inches of snow.