Timothy Cardinal Dolan shares his inspirational Christmas message
Archbishop of New York Timothy Cardinal Dolan provides advice on how to find hope and joy during the Christmas season on 'America Reports.'
I received good advice early in my legal career. "You know, Mike," a mentor began, "most people take a shower after their workday is over, not before it." The twin fruits I took from this homespun wisdom – my problems generally are first-world, and never disrespect a working man – came to mind earlier this year, as I witnessed two beautiful acts, of all places, on the hardwood.
According to Andy Williams, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. This, by my lights, is not only because it’s Christmastime. It’s also because the college basketball season has begun. This is especially true in the Tar Heel State, where I live. Despite early losses, the University of North Carolina men’s squad, runners-up in last year’s national championship, is poised to go the distance.
As nice as that is to contemplate, it’s at best the third-most beautiful thing that has happened around college basketball.
Coal miner Michael McGuire sits with his son, Easton, to watch the Kentucky Wildcats' Blue-White scrimmage in Pikeville, Kentucky. (Mollie McGuire)
More beauty was on display in the actions of two strangers to me, one famous and the other a regular joe. It didn’t happen in Chapel Hill, but in Lexington, Kentucky, home of the University of Kentucky, a land of darker-than-Carolina blue. During a scrimmage, UK men’s basketball coach John Calipari spotted a young man sitting in the stands with his Wildcat-loving toddler.
No ordinary duo, Calipari used social media to track down their identity. Michael McGuire, the father in the picture, had come directly to the game from his shift as a roof bolter in an Eastern Kentucky coal mine. Still in work clothes and boots and covered from head to toe in soot, McGuire had hustled to the game to ensure his young son, Easton, didn’t miss tip-off of his first Kentucky game.
This was the first beautiful act.
Head coach John Calipari of the Kentucky Wildcats looks on during warmups before the North Carolina Tar Heels game at T-Mobile Arena on Dec. 18, 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)
Moved by the sight, Calipari, whose family’s American dream began, in his own words, in a Clarksburg, West Virginia, coal mine, pledged to show the McGuire family the VIP treatment it so richly deserved.
On Veterans Day, the coach delivered on his promise. Michael, his wife (the perfectly named Mollie McGuire), Easton and a dozen or so other family members rode the team bus to Rupp Arena. Seated directly behind the Wildcats bench, they took in a Kentucky victory over Duquesne.
This was the second beautiful act.
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It’s that after work shower, though, that stands out in my mind as Christmas draws near. McGuire skipped it – and the chance to wash the day off of him – to ensure his son didn’t miss tip-off. He knew in his tired bones that moments like this are met or lost forever. The father didn’t find time for his son, for he didn’t have the time to find. He made the time.
The viral image of a dusty dad forced me to confess that, looking back, I have done less with more. I’ve missed events with my five kids over the years because work did not permit, or so I believed. Yet here is a man who labors in a dangerous industry, someone with more worries than I could ever imagine, who made the time.
Especially as Christmas approaches, Michael McGuire’s selfless gesture reminds me what truly matters. It's not presents that my children need from me. It’s presence, on Christmas and every day. For what is Christmas but the eternally loving gift of real presence?
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Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but willing the good of another – loving – is godliness itself. Michael McGuire’s fatherly love was on master class display; I continue to learn from the working man.
May presence, not presents, be the gift that you give to and receive from all you love, this Christmas and beyond.