Keep Christ in Christmas
Next Monday, 25th December, is Christmas Day. You can find the readings for each Mass here. Fr Liam Cummins’ offers this thought provoking Commentary on our diocesan Liturgy Project website where you can also find some useful Liturgy notes from Paul Inwood..
What comes to mind when you think about the work of Christmas?
For most of us, I suspect, it’s things like shopping, wrapping presents, decorating, cleaning the house, buying groceries and cooking Christmas dinner. It’s getting ready for Santa and opening presents. It’s getting to church on time for the start of the Christmas Mass. I know for some it’s a lot of work just getting through these days. They’re hard days of grief, sadness, depression. For some the work includes planning the liturgies and preparing homilies. We do a lot of work leading up to and in anticipation of Christmas Eve.
And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if today, Christmas Day, after the child has been born and after the dishes have been done, there’s a collective sigh of relief that our Christmas work is done. But what if it’s really not? What if that’s when “the work of Christmas begins?”
Christmas is God continuing to give life to his people.
Christmas, says St. Gregory of Nyssa, is the “festival of re-creation.” It is God giving God’s own life to his people. It is as if God said, “I want humanity to see my face. I want them to hear my voice. I want them to touch me. I want them to eat my body. I want to live their life. I want them to live my life.”
