Christmas season brings chance to ponder silent tenderness that is joy

December 16, 2004

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Christmas contains powerful imagery. We see Christmas trees, decorative lights and presents. We have our memories of Christmas past, particularly of our childhood. All are very powerful images and all are very important to our celebration of this incredible feast of Christmas.

What we celebrate is incredible. It is so incredible that it is hard to grasp what has happened to us. What God has done is almost incomprehensible, the mystery so big and so deep that its meaning and significance can be lost on us. Because this is so, the sights and sounds of Christmas are important and the frenzy of decorating, readying our homes and tables - preparations that take days if not weeks - help us to say to ourselves that this event is different from anything else we celebrate. We even bring this frenzy into our churches: trying to outdo last year's decorations and symbols, children's liturgies and pageants, music sung by the choir. And each year these Christmas traditions make us feel good and warm, and help us to feel something of the miracle that is Christmas. The trees, lights, gifts, parties, memories, our Masses on Christmas each have a role and place of importance - with some things definitely more important than others. But each is a legitimate part of our celebration as each helps us to fathom this thing God has done. Each year, these things help us remember that God has entered our lives.

There is a limit, however, to the power of our Christmas past memories, traditions and symbols. While these things are powerful and evocative outward signs and symbols, they do not always take us to that deep place in our hearts wherein we ask, "What does it mean?" What does it mean that "God is with us"? We celebrate well the fact that God has done something. But we often have a problem in understanding it, because, as it sometimes happens, we are asking the wrong question. We should not ask, "What does Christmas mean?" Instead, we should ask, "What does Christmas do?"

To achieve this we eventually have to move past our decorations, gifts and memories and permit ourselves to go to Bethlehem where we find the images very different. Here we see a husband and wife, Joseph and Mary, far from home and struggling to find comfort as they share the joy of a new child, a joy shared by only a few shepherds huddled together with their flocks near the manger. A new image - all is quiet and still; stark in its simplicity. This is a startling contrast to our more public, bright, noisy sound of Christmas - and we find comfort in this silence and an unexplainable peace that we don't want disturbed. We don't want words - we only want silence. We want to look at that child and just simply take Him all in; as did Mary and Joseph pondering these things in their hearts. What we feel and ponder is only one thing - the silent tenderness that is love. This is what Christmas does. In its silence it not only tells us of love but also lets us be in love. Our God has entered into this world to whisper to us in the silence of that holy night that He loves us, and in the same silence we realize how much we love Him. The dream given to us is that, in the silence, we have come to know that we can love one another. But we will wake and know that dream given to us in not fully upon us. But this Christmas reminds us again that the gift is here, if we wish to unwrap it and use it.

How can we unwrap it and use it? This child, Emmanuel, God is with us, remains with us in the Holy Eucharist. Our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, is well aware of the extraordinary power contained in the Most Holy Eucharist. In October 2004, he announced this to be the "Year of the Eucharist", following his Encyclical Letter on the Most Holy Eucharist issued on Holy Thursday, April 17, 2003. Just as we silently want to look at the Child Jesus in the manger and simply take Him all in, so too may we acknowledge the beauty and love of the "hidden Jesus" "by contemplating with greater perseverance the Face of the Incarnate Word, truly present in the Sacrament" says the Holy Father.

It is my hope that as we celebrate Christmas this year, we may not forget that the gift is here ever present in the Eucharist: may our hearts be softened and strengthened so that each one of us may progress along the path of holiness that leads us to our salvation - Heaven. And as we grow in our love for Jesus may the dream that we can love one another be achieved. Then there will be peace on earth as God's powerful and unexplainable love is shared by all. "This is truly what Christmas does."

A Blessed Christmas,

Rev. Msgr. Roger J. Augustine
Diocesan Administrator