Christmas 2016.
Dear
Brothers and Sisters in Christ, in the course of our Advent preparation Mother
Church bade us pray:
Lord, as we walk amid passing things, teach us by them to love the
things of heaven and hold fast to what endures.
In
accordance with the spirit of that prayer I would like to bring to your mind
this Christmas morning a very popular character of great importance to
Christmas celebrations throughout the world: Father Christmas. Even though there may be little attention
given, in the media at least, to the Person of the Child Whose coming is so
blatantly exploited in this season, Father Christmas is, on the other hand, to
be seen everywhere feted, surrounded by wondering children, and being
questioned about the gifts he is bringing … will his sack be big enough to
hold, and his reindeer strong enough to carry, them all? How the media love to plug Father Christmas
and his gifts for the financial advantages such a presentation of Christmas
rejoicing brings for their sponsors!
Practicing Christians rightly reject such a distortion of
Christmas. However, many of them, while
rejecting the commercial Father Christmas, tend themselves to overlook the real
Father of Christmas, the heavenly Father, and in so doing concoct another –
admittedly much less objectionable -- distortion of Christmas, by smothering it
with excessively human sentimentality centred exclusively on the birth of the child and the joy of his
mother. You might have noticed that I
have not emphasized ‘the child or his mother’, because the Catholics and
Christians I have in mind celebrate Christmas much as they would any other
mother and baby scenario, and in so doing seem to have no doubt that their
emotional extravaganza is a fitting, contemporary, expression of that spirit
of devotion which drove the Three Kings across desert wastes; indeed, of
that spirit of holiness which
caused the angels from heaven to burst forth into joyful chorus and filled the
hearts and minds of Mary and Joseph with wonderment and joy.
Now, whilst that extravaganza might possibly be considered
acceptable piety for many who are otherwise preoccupied with the cares and
distractions of the tumultuous world around them, it is certainly not
satisfactory for those who have the desire, and even perhaps sense a kind of
‘calling’, to seek for themselves a deeper spiritual appreciation of the wonder
and the beauty of this joyful season.
Father Christmas …. Father Christmas … I repeat the name, the
sobriquet, because I am sure the world will never fail to remind you of him no
matter how many future Christmas seasons may lie before you, and I would
therefore like to draw some advantage from that very worldly fact in order in
order to help you come to love more the things of heaven, by impressing upon
your Catholic mind and Christian sensitivity the real, indeed the vital,
connection between Father and Christmas.
Moreover, such a purpose is very much in tune with the character of
authentic Christian Liturgy which, while recognizing, highlighting, and at
times embracing human and worldly realities, always and above all savours,
appreciates, and treasures heavenly ones.
As in the beginning, the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of chaos
and creation, still today, for God’s chosen ones, the Spirit of God can be
experienced hovering over the world He brought into being, the world which is
still recognizable as His creation and still able and ‘eager’ to bear witness
to its Creator and Inspiration.
What is the essential character of Christmas?
Those sentimental Christians to whom I earlier referred would say
that the beauty of Christmas, its ‘pulling-power’ so to speak, is centred on
the Child of both wondrous beauty – which, of course, pulls at the heart
strings of every mother -- and of soul-stirring innocence, which disarms all of
us who are aware of sin in themselves and in the world around. However, if we know ourselves well enough, we
must admit that many other pictures of tranquil beauty and unstained innocence
-- be they pastoral scenes or even perhaps pictures of wide-eyed puppies or
playful kittens -- can stir up in us fleeting emotions of a similar
nature. The Christmas spirit must
therefore lie deeper, indeed it must be something other than such openly
emotional sentiments.
We are told, by the evangelists Matthew and Luke, of some who came
in a spirit of joy and wonder to see the new-born Child:
The wise men set out, and there, ahead of them, went the star that
they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the Child
was. When they saw that the star had
stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.
On entering the house, they saw the Child with Mary His mother; and they
knelt down and paid Him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they
offered Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
When the angels had left and gone into heaven, the shepherds said
to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken
place, which the Lord has made known to us.”
So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Child lying
in the manger. When they saw this, they
made known what had been told them about this Child; and all who heard it were
amazed at what the shepherds told them.
However, the Wise Men and the shepherds, on leaving that scene of
innocent and yet solemn beauty, seem to have returned to their former lives,
for they are not to be encountered again in our Gospel story. They admired, wondered at, the fact of
Christ’s advent but did not realize its full significance, were not able to
appreciate its depth of meaning and purpose.
We have, therefore, to find somehow a way that will lead us deeper than
the wondrous beauty and peace of that manger scene, towards the eternal wisdom
and divine truth hidden in the silent embrace of the as yet speechless Child
and His adoring mother.
I remember when I was a classical singer that those audiences who
burst out into immediate applause as soon as a musical item came to an end were
not appreciated half so much as others audiences who – at the end of a performance
-- were seemingly beauty-bound by a gossamer web of silence, and only
reluctantly broke that spell by giving place to applause which was felt, at
that moment, to be an almost unworthy sign of appreciation. On such occasions, the audience were more
than mere listeners, they had become fellow travellers sharing with the artist
in a beautiful musical experience.
Now let us turn to St. Luke’s observation of Mary and Joseph at
the Birth of the Lord:
Mary treasured all these words (that is, all that had happened) and pondered them in her heart.
I suggest, and I have no doubt that you will agree, that Mary’s
attitude of awe-inspired reverence and total loving-commitment penetrates most
surely and deeply the significance of the Christmas mystery, while most truly
and fully rejoicing the heart of the Father in heaven.
Moreover, we find that same attitude to the Incarnation of God’s
Son in the Gospel of John, who, as you will remember, took Mary to his home in
obedience to the dying words of Jesus.
For John, when speaking of the Birth of the Messiah paints no
emotionally moving picture, but simply says:
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. (John 1:14)
On both occasions, however, notice that he brings the Father into
prominence; and from that basis he then goes on to develop all his teaching:
Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:11)
In this is love … that (God) loved us and sent
His Son to be the propitiation for our sins … (yes, God) sent His only begotten Son into the world,
that we might live through Him. (1
John 4:9-11)
Dear People of God, the wonder of Christmas is indeed found in the
Child but not if we see the Child merely as a child of wondrous beauty and
innocence. Such a child can most
certainly stir us emotionally but otherwise has neither character nor teaching
to which we can relate or respond.
Christmas is only to be appreciated aright when He, the Child, is seen
as the One Who is potentially the fullest possible manifestation, and
Who is already the most wondrous expression, of the Father’s love for
us; He is the absolutely unique One in and through Whom the Father’s love is
preparing to touch, change, and save, all of us.
If we recognize the Child as the Father’s Gift -- the
supreme manifestation and expression of the Father’s love for us -- then we
will be ever on the alert for the Good News the Child brings, we will watch Him
grow up, desiring to know from Him ever more of the Father’s love, and wanting
to learn how to embrace and respond to that love in and with Him Who is the
only-begotten and well-beloved Son.
All that would be somewhat in the spirit of those words spoken
with regard to John the Baptist:
“What then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord
was with him.
Looking exclusively and emotionally on the Child turns Christmas
into an occasion when we can pour
out our feelings and affections upon Him and for His mother. However, like all children, He will grow up;
and then, in adult situations having at times to speak hard words and warn of
dire punishment, He will lose something of that which so charmed us in His
Nativity, with the result that the Gospel’s most treasured message will be for
us but the recollection of His past Infancy, and the Christmas season a time
for us to re-savour it as much and for as long as we possibly can before the memory inevitably fades as we have
to face up to the bleak reality of His subsequent life and death.
On the other hand, seeing the Child as the expression of the
Father’s supreme and astounding love leads us to forget ourselves in
immediate and heartfelt gratitude to the Father; whereupon, turning to the
Child with wonder and joy, we then experience a deep longing for and
anticipation of His future manhood that will reveal to us the deep, mysterious
depths of the Father’s ‘incredible’ love for us, the hidden wonders of the
Child’s Personality and Being, and the unimaginable destiny God has in store
for us.
The greatest moments of the Christian life are not times in which we do something for God or get
something for ourselves, rather are they moments when, first and foremost, we
humbly receive, before subsequently trying gratefully and patiently to
appreciate, God’s marvellous gifts and inconceivable goodness. Ultimately, no human being could ever have
found God; we only come to truly know and really experience Him when He
graciously reveals Himself to us, and when we are in a state of such spiritual
peace of mind and humility of heart as to be able to welcome Him. Consequently, since a supremely significant
step in God’s self-revelation to mankind is made here in the Incarnation, this
Christmas is a time, an occasion, to be lived above all in company with, and in
imitation of, Mary.
God originally created us out of love; we sinned, personally
becoming subject to Satan, sin and death, and allowing chaos and disruption to
enter the beautiful garden that had been entrusted to our care: thereby we
involved the whole of God’s ‘good’ creation in the consequences of our own fall
and failing.
Now the great mystery
of Christmas is that God -- having originally loved us enough to create us --
showed us, even after such a betrayal in the Garden, yet greater love by
sending His only-beloved Son as One-like-us to redeem us.
Now that, that wondrous and mysteriously overflowing love
is the driving force of Christmas today, for, it is still being offered anew,
still at work, in this Christian year of celebration 2016! For those who are mature enough to
appreciate Mother Church’s yearly celebration of the Child’s coming, Christmas
recalls the Father’s love to our minds and offers us grace to open up our
hearts to it anew; the liturgical year in its subsequent progress will invite
and enable us to grow with the Son-made-flesh in that reverence and love and to
respond to it by the power of His Spirit to be poured out upon us! Christmas, dear brothers and sisters in
Christ, is, supremely, a time for gratitude to the Father and of hope in the
Child … what will this Child of Love become, what will He show us, what will He
teach us, where will He lead us??
Father Christmas … Father …. Father …. Heavenly Father, thank you
for the Infant Jesus! Help me to follow every stage of His life and teaching
that I might learn from Him how to know and love You, because Jesus said that that was the purpose of His coming: He
had come to make Your name known!
Father, You give us Jesus, You offer Him anew to us this Christmas …
give us, likewise, to Jesus,
for He Himself again said that none can draw near to Him unless You, Father,
send them, give them, to Him. Father,
give me to Jesus this Christmas, that in Jesus, by the Spirit of Jesus, I might
become like Him a true child of Yours!
