When we celebrate the Great Feast of the Nativity of the Lord, we cannot avoid memories of past years. But, we don't have much control over the memories that arise. The best we can do is sit with them. The sounds of "O Come All Ye Faithful" or "Silent Night" may trigger the memories of THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER, or the Christmas during which we were being crushed with pain, sorrow, grief, or a Christmas somewhere in between. The memories are unique to us and may be difficult to share. The memories attached to this Christmas are only now being formed but they will echo throughout the year. The saddest part of a secular observance of Christmas is that it has been detached from the reality of Jesus coming into the world. For many, if the holiday does not go according to a tightly written script it will be remembered as somewhere between disappointing and disastrous.
Unlike the secular observance of the politically correct Happy Holidays, the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord always reflects our lived reality. It is never at odds with our experience, whether it is of Christmases past or the Christmas we are living today; whether it was that best Christmas ever, or a Christmas of pain and distress.
At the Masses of Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Son of God, Son of Man, and Son of Mary, whom the Eastern Church refers to as the Theotokos, the God-Bearer. We recall the birth of Jesus, fully divine and fully human, True God and True Man like us in all things but sin. We celebrate an event from two millennia in the past that remains immediate today.
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius include meditations that bring the reality of Jesus' birth to a deeper awareness and place that birth into its true context. The meditations help remove crusted eggnog from a sleeve, get that last annoying piece of tinsel from the fingers, and perhaps reduce road rage. At the beginning of the long meditation Ignatius instructs: “Imagine Mary, with child, seated on a donkey, setting out from Nazareth. She was accompanied by Joseph. They are going to Bethlehem to pay the tax imposed by Caesar Augustus."
Bethlehem is 90 miles from Nazareth, about the distance to Hartford, CT--or at least to UConn. Despite the sentimental greeting cards showing Mary, Joseph, and the donkey crossing sand dunes alone guided only by a star. No one of the time would have traveled alone without the protection of a caravan. Robbery, abduction, and death while traveling through the desert were as much of a risk then as mugging, robbery, and death are today or anyone foolish enough to wander the streets of some of our major cities at 3:00 AM. The journey would have taken at least a week or longer. It was not easy.
A bit later in the contemplation Ignatius reminds us of something we cannot and must not forget or ignore if Christmas is to make sense. He wrote. “They made the journey and struggled that our Lord might be born, and that after his labors and hunger, his thirst and travail, and after insults and suffering, that He might die on the cross. And do this for me.”
So that he might die on the cross for me.
Today we recall not only Jesus' birth but the entire arc of His life. Jesus' life on earth changed the history of the world, it would never be the same. We cannot celebrate His birth detached from all that preceded it or all that followed. The observance of the Nativity is not to be a break in life's tedium. What we call the Christmas story cannot stand alone. It was the beginning, of the story of our redemption but was not and is not the fullness of that story. There was, there is, and there will be, much more.
The wood of the manger in Bethlehem led to the wood of the cross on Calvary. It could not be otherwise. Without the wood of the cross the wood of the manger is meaningless. Without his passion and death, Jesus is just another kid born in Bethlehem. Without his resurrection and ascension there would be nothing to celebrate today.
Dag Hammarskjold, third Secretary General of the U.N. captured the entire meaning of Christmas and the reason we celebrate, in a haiku. He did so in just twelve words, with a total of seventeen syllables arranged in three lines. It explains everything we celebrate today.
On Christmas Eve, Good Friday
Was foretold them
In a trumpet fanfare
As Apollo 8 astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman orbited the moon, on Christmas Eve 1968 each man read part of the Creation narrative from the first ten chapters of the Book of Genesis. Borman, who died two years ago at age 95, also wrote a prayer for Christmas Day which he read at the end of the broadcast.
"Give us, O God, the vision
which can see Your love in the world
in spite of human failure.
Give us the faith to trust Your goodness
in spite of our ignorance and weakness.
Give us the knowledge that we may continue
to pray with understanding hearts.
And show us what each one of us can do
to set forward the coming of the day of universal peace."
By way of response we can only say: Venite Adoremus, Dominum.
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The photos are from three different Christmas locations. They are in order from top to bottom: the tree in front of Gasson Hall on the BC campus, the Charterhouse of the Transtiguration. The tree is not in the church, and the Straw Nativity in Ljubljana.
Fr. Jack, SJ,, MD
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