Merry Christmas!

Christmas: The Winter Name of God

Each Christmas we are reminded of the seeming contradiction between the song of the angels and the headlines filled with stories of human conflict, not to mention the problems within our neighborhoods and our families. Sometimes, even if we do manage to climb out of our entrenched positions on this one day each year, it is only for the briefest of moments before we return to our collective darkness. In the absence of God being able to become human, we have little reason to hope for salvation.

So what are we to do?

One temptation is to anaesthetize ourselves to the pain and spend our way into a “happiness break.” Never mind the credit card bill. We can settle that tomorrow. Or we can take refuge in a cozy Christmas fantasy that never existed and never will. “Santa Claus is coming, and all will be right with the world.”

But if we own the name Christian, there is another possibility. We can enter deeply into the story of Jesus of which we are all a part and, by celebrating it, tell it afresh to each generation. The one who, in his own poverty and humility, shows that true power and authentic freedom are revealed by honoring and assisting the weak and the frail. The faith we proclaim makes us see God’s presence in situations where we think God is absent. In the story of this child, God invites us to be messengers of divine hope and agents of God’s abundant hospitality.

The Christmas story is, by definition, sacred. It rearranges our memory and invites us to seek new life -- fuller life – not by going around our humanity, but by going more deeply into it. To dwell within the human mystery is both menacing and promising, a relationship of exceeding darkness and undeserved light. We tell the story of this winter name of God each year because we cannot help it. We tell it because it fills the silence that darkness and death impose on this world. We tell this story because it saves us.

May we all be agents of hope this Christmas. . .for the sake of the whole world,

Father Paul