While Christmas bells can still be heard, however faintly now, and twinkling lights reflect more a princess fairy tale, rather than a straw-filled manger, with simple shepherds, a demure Mother, too filled with God’s workings to traffic much in words, and a father, strengthened by the sacred responsibility for the Child, a Prince of Peace, born into a world, where soldiers gird for war and kings vie with one another for so-temporal a seat of glory, millions of Christians are pondering over the question: “What can I do with my life to return the gift of Christ’s life to me?”

Fans of Jack Shea, no longer in active ministry, but still a priest and evangelist, writer, teacher, and theologian, might be overheard asking one another, “When did you first fall under Shea’s spell?”

I don’t remember the year, but I certainly remember the book, An Experience Named Spirit, which still sits on my library shelf, marked up, sporting a disreputable cover, but containing one of my favorite stories from the master storyteller.

During the summer of 1961, Shea tells us, at the age of twenty, he was assigned as head counselor at a camp connected with a Catholic boarding school.

The campers arrived on Sunday night, and by Monday morning, disaster had struck. Someone was missing a hunting knife, another, a baseball glove, and a third young capitalist found himself short five dollars. Obviously, a thief had infiltrated the ranks.

By Tuesday afternoon, Shea had tracked down the eleven-year-old culprit, caught him red-handed with the glove and knife in his locker, but he refused to own up to his crimes.

The boy wasn’t the least afraid of Shea. There was no expression on his face, and no light in his eyes.
On Wednesday afternoon, he was out in a rowboat, and stuck a fish hook in another youngster’s leg, which he also denied, though there were witnesses to his deed.

In desperation, Shea consulted the Head Sister, who turned the criminal over to Sister Fix-It. Her real name was Sister Ruth Ann, but all the kids called her Sister Fix-It, because she could repair anything, having been well-taught by her father, who had been a janitor.

She was old now, tired and afflicted with arthritis, but the only concession she made to her growing infirmity was to wear a pair of red gym shoes that peaked out under her habit, as she shuffled along.

The next morning, at seven o’clock, Sister Fix-It shook Shea awake.

“Which one?”

“Top of the last bunk.”

Sister walked down to the end of the cabin, and Shea heard her say: “Wake up. Come. I need you.”

From then on, the old nun with the red tennis shoes and the boy with no light in his eyes could be seen together, planting something in the earth, or painting the side of the chapel, or sitting out on the pier eating baloney sandwiches and drinking Orange Crush.

Two weeks passed, and Sister Fix-It asked the parents to leave the boy for two more weeks.

The new batch of kids asked Shea: “Who is the kid who hangs around with the old nun with the gym shoes? Think he wants to play baseball?”

“Ask him.”

They asked him, and the boy looked at the old nun, who said, “You go play baseball, and when you are done, you come back here and we will hoe the garden.”

The kids were organizing swimming races, and the boy with no light in his eyes was standing on the side.

“Wanna swim?”

He looked at the old nun. “You go now and play at swimming, and when you are done, you come back here. We have much work to do.”

And so it went as the old nun let him out and reeled him in, let him out and reeled him in.

At the end of the week, the kid was integrated into the life at the camp, all because of the old nun in red tennis shoes, who knew how to fix the heart of a boy with no light in his eyes.

And so, in this Year of Our Lord, 2007, we may not be wearing red tennis shoes, but our job is the same as that of the old nun: To bring the light of hope and love into the eyes of kids of any age, of any social or economic strata. beginning with those whom we meet at the breakfast table, on the school bus, or in the hallowed halls of Congress. Shea would tell us so. He would be right, the consummate evangelizer that he is.

No excuses. You say you can’t find the right words? No need for words. Your life will do just fine. Trust God. Trust God within you. Within those you meet. You don’t evangelize alone. That’s what Christmas is all about. He came to be with us, to be one of us. And, as Dorothy Day would remind us, “We are not alone anymore.”

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