(Christmas 1997: This homily was given on December 25, 1997 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani. Read Matthew 1: 18-25; Luke 2: 1-14.)

"Babe Ruth’s Christmas"

Here’s a brief excerpt from a story that appeared in Catholic Digest a couple of years ago. It was written by John Gallagher, and it’s about someone whose name most of us are very familiar with:

Hunger, deprivation, abuse, and loneliness had thrived in the marrow of his bones since childhood. He’d been on a first name basis with the seven deadly sins, too. But the big lug, felled by illness, was finally shaking hands with the one emotion that had been a stranger to him throughout his 51 years: Fear.

And now an avalanche of mail was descending upon New York’s French Hospital, where he lay flat on his back that cold winter’s eve, suffering from cancer. News of the seriousness of his condition had prompted thousands of letters from the famous and the infamous, celebrities and obscure folks, the rich as well as those who couldn’t afford a 3 cent stamp to mail a letter. A diamond in the rough, he symbolized all the possibilities of America. From an orphan’s start, he came to earn more than the president. Along the way, he became a genuine American icon--a sports hero.

The man in that hospital bed, my brothers and sisters, was none other than Babe Ruth--the ex-New York Yankee slugger, and certainly one of the greatest baseball players of all time. (I admit that even though I’m a die-hard Red Sox’ fan.) His wife sat at his bedside on that difficult night all those years ago, and she decided to try to give her husband some comfort by reading to him one of the many letters he had received that day. The letter she chose was from a twelve-year-old boy who was a student at a Catholic school in New Jersey:

Dear Babe,

Everybody in the seventh grade is pulling and praying for you. I am enclosing a medal, which, if you wear it, will make you better.

Your pal,

Michael Quinlan

P.S. I know this will be your 61st homer. You’ll hit it.

Well, when he heard that letter, the Babe was overcome with emotion. He tried to speak, but his throat tightened. He then looked at his wife and pointed to his chest. She put the medal (which happened to be the Miraculous Medal) on his pajamas, and he wore it every day of his life thereafter.

In his Catholic Digest article, John Gallagher went on to say:

That same night, one of Babe’s best friends, Paul Carey, was surprised to spot the medal, but he was also struck by the look on Babe’s face. Carey later described the sight as "fear having a battle with hope."

"Babe," Carey asked, "don’t you think you should get your house in order?"

"For the first time in my life," the old slugger later wrote, "I realized that death might strike me out. I asked Paul to get the chaplain, and I made a full confession. In the morning, they brought me Holy Communion. I thought to myself: What a comfortable feeling to be free from fear and worries. I could now just turn them over to God."

Ten days later, Babe Ruth walked out of French Hospital--and friends saw a man remarkably changed. He was no longer the cut-up, the drinker, the prankster . . . Instead he talked often of his gratitude to St. Mary’s Orphanage and Industrial School, and of his love for Brother Mathias, the tough guy who loved him, taught him to play baseball, and convinced him that God had cared enough to make a place for him in this world. . . . And he did his best to say he was sorry for the bad example he displayed to kids [during his baseball career].

Unfortunately, Babe Ruth eventually lost his battle with cancer. But years later, long after his death, his wife shared this thought. . . . She said, "Everyone talks about Babe Ruth going to a hospital [once] and promising to hit a home run for a sick kid. That was no big deal with Babe. The big deal was when he got that note from a little kid [named Michael]. It was that kid, full of faith and hope, who hit that home run for Babe. He never forgot it."

My brothers and sisters, I share this story with you today in order to make a point: For Babe Ruth, the day he received Michael Quinlan’s letter was Christmas! Now the calendar might have said it was January 10th, or February 2nd, or March 8th--I don’t know; and, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of what the date was, for the Babe it was December 25th--because it was the day that Christ was reborn in his heart! As we heard a few moments ago, Michael Quinlan’s letter moved the Babe to repentance, and motivated him to reach out to Jesus the Savior in the sacrament of Confession. And there, in that sacrament, he received the gift that Jesus Christ came into this world to give us: forgiveness for sins and reconciliation with God. That’s what the angels had proclaimed to the shepherds on the very first Christmas: "This day in David’s city a Savior has been born to you, the Messiah and Lord." A Savior--the one who would suffer and die to take away our sins: our sins which separate us from God. It’s what the angel had prophesied to St. Joseph: "[Your wife Mary] is to have a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

Recently someone I know received a Christmas card from a friend. His friend wrote this: "I want to thank you. Not so long ago, I didn’t have a clue what Christmas (or any holy day for that matter) was about. You were a true instrument in showing me that I had a Savior, and that he came into this world to do just that: save us! Now I know why the shepherds and magi wanted to adore him so much."

Babe Ruth also came to know that. Finally. After 51 years. I’m sure his only regret was that he had waited so long. In this regard, I read a very interesting statistic recently. According to a new Gallup poll, 57% of the people in this country are worried about not being forgiven by God before they die. Imagine that! Over half of the people in our nation don’t realize that they have a Savior, and that they can go to him for forgiveness. They are being ruled by fear, as Babe Ruth was before his "Christmas experience." Remember how Babe Ruth’s friend, Paul Carey, described him on the night he received Michael Quinlan’s note? He said it was like "fear having a battle with hope." Well, praise God, hope won in the Babe’s heart. Will it win in ours? Will it win in ours this Christmas? That’s a question that each of us must answer--and will answer--individually. If we are moved in the near future to seek the reconciliation Babe Ruth sought that night in the sacrament of Confession, then hope will be victorious; if we don’t, then fear will win the day.

In preparing this homily, I couldn’t help but think of Monsignor Struck. Most of you know that Monsignor passed away a couple of weeks ago, after a long battle with lung disease. But for years he heard confessions here at St. Pius. He brought many people back to Christ; many people back to the Church. He did it, pretty much, on a daily basis. And for that reason, you could say that, for Monsignor Struck, every day was Christmas! Scripture tells us that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." (2 Cor. 5: 19) Monsignor Struck was a great instrument of that reconciliation for so many of us. And for that, we are eternally grateful.