Seize The Day!
More than any other day of the year, Christmas Day is a day of rejoicing. After four weeks of hope and anticipation, the day’s traditions are slowly fulfilled as we treasure every familiar aspect of our most beloved holiday. The wrapping of presents, Christmas caroling, Midnight Mass, the unseen visit from Santa, the gifts piled high around the Christmas tree, the smell of the Christmas turkey—it’s all here at last, and, especially if you have children young enough to really appreciate it with you, it’s going to be a wonderful day and already is!
It is this beautiful familiarity that is so comforting at Christmas. All those wonderful traditions we treasure so dearly, many of them particular to our own family, fill us with happy memories of our own childhood, when we were young and innocent, and had no worries to distract us from this most exciting of celebrations, this highest of holydays. Most uplifting of all, and something we adults should never grow out of, is our faith in the underlying reason for all this happiness and celebration. It’s something we think about often, especially when we recognize the Christmas melodies and carols with their profound consideration of the day’s original events of the First Noel. But alas, we are no longer children, and often find ourselves distracted with logistical considerations that rudely and without warning take our minds far away from the Little Town of Bethlehem, from the peace of the Shepherds watching their flocks by night, that Silent Night into which the noise of the modern world insists on intruding and disturbing us.
How difficult it can be to keep our focus on what really matters. And sometimes it’s that very familiarity with our Christmas traditions which becomes our adversary in this inward battle for peace. We are tempted to look at the things of Christmas without really seeing them. As we kneel before the manger after Mass and say our prayers of adoration to the Infant King, we gaze at the figures in the Nativity scene but do we really see them? Do we see what is really happening in this scene? The momentous event of Christ’s birth into this world of sin, the unparalleled joy we should be experiencing at the glad tidings of our Saviour’s birth? Or are these meditations disrupted by the constant barrage of practical concerns. Can we truly find peace today? If we have to fight to attain that peace, then is it really peace?
The fact is, life goes on, and in spite of the arrival and departure of Christmas, it will eventually continue the same life as before. And yet, and yet… during the course of this most beautiful of holidays when peace and joy cannot be entirely obliterated by the fluctuations of this world, we will surely find a few moments, unexpected perhaps, in the middle of the turmoil, where we realize the meaning of it all, when we are suddenly overcome with a sense of profound tranquility that God’s plan was and always has been perfect and designed not only for his glory but for our own happiness too.
I’m reminded of another Christmas, not that long ago, in the lifetime of my grandparents, when the world was embroiled in a terrible war. When men were fighting with rifles, bayonets and grenades, dug into trenches and under almost constant bombardment from enemy artillery. This was the Great War of 1914-18, a terrible time, especially for those who fought in those rat-infested trenches, expecting to die at any given moment. And yet, something, quite unplanned, took place on the night of December 24, 1914. It happened in dozens of places up and down the Western Front, as thousands of troops put down their weapons and walked out of their trenches unarmed, greeting their counterparts in the enemy army. They sang carols together in their own language, exchanged chocolates and cigarettes, played games of soccer and even attended Midnight Mass together, celebrated by the army chaplains in the common language of Latin. This was the great Christmas Truce of 1914, in which about 100,000 troops took part, to the horror of the political high command. It was an amazing example of the power of that Christmas peace to still even the weapons of war and allow fighting forces to really see the enemy for what he was, a fellow human being like themselves, with wife and children waiting for him back home, wishing he was there with them for Christmas. Surely, if these toughened soldiers were able to find that Christmas peace that cold winter night in 1914, we should have no trouble today in putting up with and swatting away those annoying distractions that, by comparison, are a mere nothing.
Wherever you are when you hear the angels’ voices, stop, take a moment and allow your hearts to fill with the supreme love of our newborn Saviour. Whether you are kneeling at the manger, or watching a small child squealing in delight as he opens his gifts, whether you’re spending some precious quiet time with a loved one, or alone in the silence of your thoughts, make the most of that moment for it is truly a gift of grace from the most holy Trinity. God the Father today smiles down from heaven, the Holy Ghost fills our hearts with the joy of Christmas, and Christ our Saviour is born this day and dwells amongst us. Joy to the world!