How are we doing with Christmas this year?

Just days before the celebrtion of Christmas, Pope Benedict XVI probed the mystery and reality of what it’s all about. Good timing, now that the annual ritual of stripping Christmas symbols from Christmas is in full swing.

If we do not recognize that God was made man, what sense does it have to celebrate Christmas?

I kind of posed a similar question yesterday in the post about Barbara Walters, Planned Parenthood and Christmas cards. It’s a question of logic and reason. Christmas is…what? The event of the birth of the Christ Child.

He Who was generated by the Father in eternity became a man in history thanks to the Virgin Mother. The true Son of God is also a true Son of man. Today, in our secularized world, these concepts do not seem to count for very much. People prefer to ignore them or to consider them superfluous to life, advancing the pretext that they are so far distant as to be practically untranslatable into convincing and significant words.

(Hence, the indignant reaction to Christmas cards containing Scripture, or references to Christ.) 

“Moreover,” he added, “we have formed a view of tolerance and pluralism such that to believe that Truth has been effectively manifested appears to constitute an attack on tolerance and the freedom of man. If, however, truth is cancelled, is man not a being deprived of meaning? Do we not force ourselves and the world into a meaningless relativism?”

Yes. Hence, the Planned Parenthood cards that say “Choice on Earth.”

Nonetheless, Benedict says,

We Christians must reaffirm with profound and heartfelt conviction the truth of Christ’s nativity, in order to bear witness before everyone of the unique gift which brings wealth not just to us, but to everyone…

May the wishes for goodness and love that we exchange over these days reach all areas of our daily lives.”

“May the message of solidarity and acceptance which arises from Christmas,” the Pope concluded, “contribute to creating a more profound awareness of old and new forms of poverty, and of the common good in which everyone is called to participate.”

I received a small, simple Christmas card in the mail yesterday with a two line message on the front that struck me as packing a walloping message for the time. It was from Luke chapter 2, verse 10.

But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”

I was preparing to go on radio to discuss presidential politics and other news of the day (a controversial abortion film, attacks on religion in the public sqaure, etc), so those two lines hit me with this message…..

Do not be afraid. A lot of people are afraid right now, and fear drives anger and hostility and even violence.

I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Most of the news we’re hearing is bad, no question. Joy?! Where’s that been lately? And on that last part, is there one person….say, running for president right now….who is speaking to all the people?

There’s opportunity here, I think. At least that’s what I take from this little card. We are badly in need of good news and joy. So let’s bring it.