But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the Law (Galatians 4:4). (Extra)
December—the year is fraying out. There’s a sadness when the last page of a calendar appears. The weary year has now run its race. She has known some youth and age and heartbreak and, hopefully, love. The year’s shortest days come now with their latest sunrises and earliest sunsets. There are more than fifteen hours of darkness and nine hours of daylight. Soon after three thirty in the afternoon the light begins to fade.
The woodchuck and chipmunk, the frog and turtle and snake are all hibernating. I understand the fish in a pond go down deeper for the winter and seals migrate south to wintering locations along the coast. The crows and blue-jays remain part of the winter scene.
December 21 is the longest night of the year and the time we slip into winter. It is the winter solstice; from now on the days become longer. The ancients took to measuring the shadows. If the length shortened by a finger’s breath, it proved that the days were beginning to lengthen.
The date for Christmas was chosen for its connection with the winter solstice. There is rejoicing just before Christmas at the natalia solis invicti, the birthday of the invincible sun.
December is the nativity. In the child in the manger we see God made visible. Eternity enters into time. The invisible becomes visible. The Absolute comes into history. The reality that sustains existence becomes one of us.
The Creator of the universe becomes a dependent infant. One can imagine a mother burping God on her shoulder. God slept on our earth, sneezed, coughed, and blew his nose. He walked to school and spilled his milk.
Christmas can be a special hell for those families who have suffered a major loss. Christmas is a time when we are aware of whom we lack, of who is not home. There are those of us who sit alone and cheerless at Christmas time thinking of happier times, remembering the faces of those who are dead. The Christmas of my childhood has gone. Christmas is a memory of other days.
Still, Christmas, as Titus 3:4 says, is the time when the goodness and loving kindness of God our savior appeared. Therese of Lisieux said that the meaning of the Incarnation was to make love visible.
The gift of time is perhaps the most meaningful gift. As has been noted, the most significant gift of the Magi was not the myrrh and frankincense and gold, but the time and trouble they took to bring them. The hours and efforts at crowded stores can serve as a testimony of love and a gift of self.
The philosopher, Duns Scotus, and the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins did not understand Christ’s descent into creation primarily as the reparation for sin. They saw it as an act of love which would have taken place whether there had been any sin.
The God whom earth and sea and sky Adore and laud and magnify,
Whose might they own,
whose praise they tell,
In Mary’s body deigned to dwell.
(Hymn, Liturgy of the Hours, Evening Prayer, Common of the Blessed Virgin Mary)
I often think about the shepherds. It says in the Gospel that the shepherds spoke with angels and became heralds. Apparently, their eyes were able to see the Divine One in the stable. What happened to the shepherds afterwards? Did they simply go back to the homely obscurity from which they came?
As time passes, I grow more enamored of God. I may even be beginning to fall in love with God. I have a growing interest in spirituality. I think that, at some point in life, we acknowledge the ache we feel deep within for something more. We know we wanted something more besides one another—quite a different kind of something, a different kind of want. There is a problem with the capacity of human love to satisfy fully the hunger of the heart.
The Scriptures tell us that mercy is the deepest quality of God’s love. There are the beautiful words of Lamentations 3:22-23: “The favors of the Lord are not exhausted. His mercies never come to an end. They are renewed every morning.” Hopkins put it this way: “Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward springs—Because the Holy Ghose over the bent world broods with warm breast and Ah! Bright wings” (God’s Grandeur) At the heart of reality is mercy.
St. Teresa of Avila used to call God a Gardener. She said she knew that the Divine Gardner paid special attention to her.
Finally, great things happen in silence. On that first Christmas Eve Jesus came in silence: “While all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of its course, your almighty word, O Lord, leapt down from your throne in heaven” (Wisdom 18:14-15)
