Phoning a friend, sending the once a year card or note, buying presents for family and close friends, are all part of the way that we use Christmas to keep friendships alive. In a way, we attempt to cram a year’s friendship into a few days. For some God gets his annual visit and recognition with the unspoken "I must call more often". Perhaps he too smiles and says: "See you next year, but feel free to visit or call anytime, I'll always be in when you call”. All of this is a second cousin to the way conversations run at family relations' gatherings - "We seem to meet only at weddings and funerals". Christmas creates the occasion for everyone to ask: “What is it all about"? From our earliest years we like to know that we are liked and loved. Jesus came at the first Christmas to tell us in person that he loves us individually. He demonstrates this later by being prepared to die for us. In between times he shows us the meaning of life and what really is important. Because it is difficult to grasp it all in one go, he invites us to talk to him daily, to trustingly open our hearts in prayer. Gradually, we will grasp the depth of his love for us and what life is really all about. An annual visit will not satisfy the deeper longings of our heart for God - that takes time, as does any enriching friendship. Christmas has great excitement about it, the homecoming of family, relatives and friends. There are the parties, visits, shopping, cards, the crib, the tree, midnight mass and time to be together with those closest to us. Alongside, there is an extra awareness of those who will be without a family member or friend owing to a death during the year or illness, emigration or imprisonment. The homeless, those struggling with addictions of one form or another, receive more care than during the year. It is a season when it is acceptable to treat people as Jesus challenges us to in the Gospels. There is always the hope that we will continue the “Christmas” way during the year, long after the crib has returned to the attic and the tree to the shredder. The meaning of Christmas is Christ among us. Treating Christ in the person before me and beside me, in the people that I meet each day and not just during the season of Christmas. So extravagant is God’s love of us that he wants to share with us God’s way of loving each other. He challenges us to have a “Premier Division “ standard of care of each other, especially those most in need. He leads by example and put his life on the line in showing us the way. He has given us the capacity through our baptism to grow daily more like Jesus. That demands being “Christian Fit” and like all fitness, it has to be worked on daily by taking time out with God in prayer and not letting the worries of the world “do our head in”. Making room in the inn of our hearts every day and not just at Christmas will mean that every Christmas we will become more Christ-like. The inner peace we all long for will grow stronger, and we will experience that Jesus is “The Prince Of Peace”. +Eamonn Walsh Apostolic Administrator of Ferns and Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Ends December 2003 |