2001-12-30 If we have kept a diligent Advent, we shall be able to celebrate Christmas better...

December 30, 2001

If we have kept a diligent Advent, we shall be able to celebrate Christmas better than those who have been trying to inflate an imitation of it ever since Halloween without understanding what it is all about. The Incarnation of Christ the Son of God is celebrated for twelve days, and in the Catholic Church the Christmas carols begin, and do not end, on Christmas Day.

When I lived in Rome, I came to learn different Christmas customs, and among them was the singing of a hymn by Saint Alphonso Liguori: "Tu scendi dalle Stelle" (You come down from the stars) with these lines:

Great King, from heaven's high throne descending low,
In Bethlehem's stable born in cold and woe,
Thou shiverest in a manger, Babe Divine,
Much hast Thou borne for sins: how much for mine!

The season of gift-giving begins on December 25 and reaches its climax on the Epiphany, when the Magi brought their offerings. In Italy and other places January 6 continues to some degree to be the chief day for unwrapping presents.

The Holy Trinity needs nothing, but the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit want us. In other words, we are not necessary but we are willed by the Divine Love. With nothing to offer God that he needs, the best gift we can offer is a humble confession of the various ways the human soul has blocked the will of God. Sin contradicts our existence. The number of confessions seems to be increasing in our parish, and this will spread many graces. Sins are forms of selfishness, but when confessed they become the greatest gifts, offerings of the heart, and they place us back into God's plan for the human race.

You might give yourself a fine gift by getting one of the many books written by the twentieth century English convert. Monsignor Ronald Knox. In his "Stimuli" he writes: "To us Christians, the first Christmas Day is the solstice or bottle-neck of history. Things got worse till then, ever since we had lost Paradise; things are to get better since then, till we reach Paradise once more. History is shaped like an X". A very happy and holy Christmastide to us all.

Fr. George W. Rutler