The Star

Dear Faith Family,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season. With this today being Epiphany Sunday, I also hope that your celebration has continued up to this point.

I had a wonderful Christmas! There is nothing like spending time with family and celebrating the peace that comes with our beautiful faith. My family and I spent a lot of time baking cookies, wrapping presents and just being in each other’s company. It’s a blessing to have this time of year to put your loved ones in perspective.

This year, my wife and I tried something a little different with our daughter Reggie. We decided to watch a Christmas movie on Christmas Eve. Usually, I’m not a big fan of Christmas movies but in the spirit of Christmas, I decided to be a team player. We logged into Netflix and we started a movie named “The Star.”

When the movie started, I almost completely tuned out. The Star is an animated film about animals, so I thought I was a little too old for it. Again, I exercised patience and focused my attention. To my surprise, I really enjoyed the film! In fact, there was a lot that I learned from it.

The animals in the film were helping Mary and Joseph to find a birthplace for baby Jesus. In the film though, there was a very different portrayal of Mary and Joseph that I found appealing; they were real people.

I know it sounds crazy that through a film for children that I found myself drawn to the holy lives of our Holy Mother, her husband and her Son, but there is something about a human portrayal of the Saints that we admire to help us understand that grace is real and available for anybody. I can honestly say that the movie was not a masterpiece, but its attempt to show Christ was effective to me.

Please understand that this letter is not intended to be a promotion of a film. In fact, I would say the film wasn’t even that good. In the film, there wasn’t a giant theological disposition and there wasn’t the most accurate movie when it comes to telling the story of the Nativity, but somehow it spoke to me. A simple, imperfect portrayal of the Greatest Story Ever Told somehow helped me to understand the holiness that Mary and Joseph had.

Sometimes we think that we aren’t smart, charismatic or holy enough to bring people closer to God. But when I watched this film it helped me to understand that we just need to tell our story. It may be imperfect, it may be strange and it may not be the most refined, but our own story can bring people closer to God, no matter how boring you may think it is.

Though this Christmas season is coming to an end, I invite all of you to be the star that leads people to Christ. I invite you to tell your story, as a Church, we need your story to be told. Even if you think it’s a waste of time, I guarantee it isn’t.

God Bless,

​Brett Becker
Youth and Young Adult Minister

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