CHRISTMAS SPIRITUALITY

Jack Finnegan SDB

Christmas lies at the heart of a bright cycle of light in the Church’s liturgical world. Today, a light has shone on us! A child is born! Rejoice! Christmas also sits at the centre of a health-giving cycle of joy. Embrace the light! Embrace the joy! Emmanuel has come! Rejoice! The ancient promises have been kept! Today, the Holy One, a babe in a manger in a real place surrounded by animals, overcomes all distance between us and God, and shows creation how to be true to itself. In the birth of Jesus God wants to get the job done, and we are invited to be part of that heart-warming move.

At Christmas, Christian spirituality is born with Jesus in a stable in Bethlehem in a darkness that was not his own. Today, we celebrate the awesome moment in history when deep human longings for divine love and meaning are satisfied and new light shines. The ancient prophecies are fulfilled! The promised Messiah has come! An angel visited. Mary said yes. The Babe has been born and lies in a manger! The Saviour of the world is here! This is the time when Christ wants to be born again deep in our hearts and minds, deep in every aspect of our lives. Are we ready to be born anew with him today? Are we inviting him to come in? Remember: he became one of us so that we could become, through him, with him and in him, one with God.

Here is the message of Christmas spirituality: light blazes in the darkness! Christ, the light of the world, smiles on us and laughs away our fears! The power of the world’s darkness has been broken! We have been liberated and redeemed! We can walk and dance for joy in the Light! We can sing our songs of gratitude and praise! We can lift loud alleluias to our God who has come among us with awesome love! Our Healer is among us! We are invited, now, to dwell in the bright memory of his coming among us. We are invited to allow our hearts to be touched by the new promise of his coming again in glory. Christ has come! Christ will come again!

Christmas spirituality reminds us that ours is a God who dwells with people, a loving God who is part of our story, part of our journey into the fullness of light and life. Christ has come to restore us and all creation to what God intended from the very beginning. Today, we meet the paradox of life. In the God-man Jesus, we meet our human destiny, and at the same time we meet the destiny of the universe and all creation. Here is the starting point of all Christian spirituality: the divine-human encounter mirrored in the bright eyes of a new-born babe. In those eyes we glimpse the promise of oneness. St Augustine says that Christ’s birth is always happening in human hearts. What matters is that it happens in us today.

At Christmas, in our Christmas prayer, in the incarnation of Jesus, God becomes one with us. The way is made clear for us: every human person, every man, woman and child, can become one with God in Christ. This is the radiant gift God offers us at Christmas. Are we ready to dance for joy in all its transforming richness? Here is an ancient prayer you might like to make your own:

Today is born of the Maiden the One who holds all creation in the hollow of his hand. The Holy One whose essence is untouchable is wrapped in swaddling clothes as a babe. The God, who from old made the heavens, lies in a manger. The God who showered the people with manna in the desert feeds on milk from his mother’s breasts. The Bridegroom of the Church invites the Magi, and the Son of the Maiden accepts gifts from them. We worship your nativity, O living, loving Christ.

And here is an ancient thought you might like to make your own imaginatively today as well: Such is God’s love for us that God chose to stammer with children by becoming a child! That is a wondrous thought! Can you imagine the infant Jesus clasped to Mary’s shoulder, babbling contentedly as she rubs his little back? Can you discern the universe babbling with him? Can you hear birds sing, dogs bark, and cows low with him? Can you take in the enormous fact that this babe in a manger contains the divine reasons for every living being and the whole cosmos?

When you look at the crib this Christmas Day what do you see? Just a babe? When you contemplate the babe in the manger can you gaze beyond appearances? Can you begin to understand the reality of everything in all its truth and beauty, in all its relationship to the living God? Can you sense the creative meaning and mystery hidden in the sunny murmur of a vulnerable child? Can you bridge the gap between ordinary, everyday standpoints with their often-reactive pragmatism, and the prayerful perception of deeper, spiritual things, golden with redeeming grace?

And so, as we make time to meditate this Christmas, we put on radiant garments of light and joy. We recall the words of the shepherds and remember angel choirs singing. We rejoice that our Saviour is born and praise his glorious name: God-with-us, The-Lord-our-Integrity. In all of this, we become one with all of creation. We lift our songs of intercession and thanks to a God who has come among us, a loving God, born one of us, whose feet know the feel of the earth, who walks the whole human journey with us.

Today, Jesus begins to bring God’s project to completion, and he wields the intuitive power of paradox, a soft power to touch and assuage hardened hearts. Will he find room among us today? Will we let him touch and soften the hard places within us? Are we willing to let Jesus live in and through our lives? Here are some hints for prayer based on the psalmody of Morning Prayer:

Inspired by Psalm 62/63 we pray for the lonely and the homeless: pray that doors of love open all over the world. Pray that many may be inspired to perform kind acts. Pray for those who are grieving. Pray for sick children in hospital. Pray for children in emergency accommodation. Pray for refugees wherever they may be. Pray for people trapped in violent places or relationships. Pray for the victims of addictions. Pray for the lost. Pray for those who seek God. Pray for those who seek joy and meaning. May all come to know the loving nearness, the blessing touch, of the Almighty. May all find the way to spiritual integrity and peace.

Inspired by the Canticle of Daniel we pray blessing and gratitude: this is a day of joy even though it is hidden in the depths of winter. It carries with it rugged challenges of peace and good will. How will we respond? Today, we share in the songs of angels. We become one with the delight of shepherds. We learn from the quiet attention of animals. We give voice to the songs of mountains. We join an earth blessing the Lord. We become one with the worship of wise men and women whose contemplation fills this awesome space. Find time to sit quietly and let the mystery and the gratitude wrap you round.

Inspired by Psalm 149 we sing a new song of praise with all creation: we rejoice with all God’s people on earth. We make great music with bodhran and stringed instruments for today above all days God takes delight and crowns the poor with salvation. We pray this Christmas morning that people of good will everywhere may listen to God’s call and embrace the challenge of promoting God’s reign in the world. That is why the babe is born. The military language of the psalm may be off-putting, but it is in fact a metaphor for the transforming power of the prayer of praise, a power that not only works at the personal level but at a world level as well. It is also a metaphor for visible fidelity to and public praise of God, things not so noticeable in contemporary Ireland. So, pray for your place today, pray for Ireland. Pray for spiritual integrity. The country needs all the help it can get! So does the world.

Happy Christmas!