We are in the midst of Christmastide, the twelve days of Christmas, spanning Christmas Day to the Feast of the Epiphany, January 6. During this holy time that turns the corner of the old year and slips into the new, we try and make sense of the stupendous events of Christmas.
Christmas reminds us, as we act it all out in our lives, that God became man and lived among us. How could this be? He loves us so.
And so the Church sings the glories of Heaven meeting Earth, tells the story of Incarnation, humility, and majesty. Each stroke of the painting, each phrase of the poem, each note and word of the carol, relives the story so that we will not forget, for we must not forget.
Familiarity has bred forgetfulness, however, and we say words by rote, sing songs without thought, observe holiday rituals from hollow habit together or alone. Other gods have replaced the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Other imperatives have replaced the laws of the Creator of the Universe. Sirens pull us away from truth, away from the glories of Christmas.
And so we look for the star that will bring us to where we want to be. We follow the star to Bethlehem, to Nazareth, to the child that will change the world with love.
But as we follow the star, we step through the twelve days of Christmas, recalling saints who knew the Lord of all, Stephen the first martyr, John the great evangelist. Then, abruptly, we halt in midweek to remember The Holy Innocents, the slaughter of the children, 2 and younger, by Herod, searching for Jesus. It is a shock. Not all was silent and not all was holy when the Son of God came to Earth. The light of life entered the dark of death. For us.
Recalling the loss of these innocents, our journey through Christmastide takes us by surprise. The shock and the brutality of these true events in history, revealing the true nature of mankind, the true mourning of Rachel weeping for her children, brings us face to face with the dark, the reason the Christ Child was born, our need for a Savior.
We look back to October 7, 2023, another slaughter of innocents, and we mourn anew. We look toward January and recall the slaughter of the unborn, claiming 100 million lives in the course of five decades of death, and so many generations lost. We have slaughtered our future and armed the present with danger. We have become Rachel weeping for our children.
And so, having allowed such holocausts we have opened the door to suicide, addiction, and violence, to silencing and censoring, to lies believed and truth denied.
Yet those of us who believe in the Child of Bethlehem are immune from the dark, from death. We have been vaccinated by God-in-flesh, Jesus Christ. With Christ we are born again and again, as we repent again and again, so that when he knocks, we open the door of our hearts once more. We see the star and in its light we see the path through the dark of the world. We know our destination; we know the Way, the Truth, and the Life. We cry to Our Lord, on our knees, to save us from these sins, to save our people, to save our families, to lead us out of the wilderness of death. We cannot do this alone. We need our God with us, in us.
We sing our songs, and we harken to angels singing with us around the creche, these twelve days of Christmas. The magi are coming from afar bearing gifts, for they see the light too. We join together in the Church, Christ’s bride, and form a rosary of prayer and petition and offering.
In the dark of winter on this last day of the year, we step into time, telling the Story of Glory, the story of Love Incarnate, the story to redeem all stories, as we birth the savior in the creche of our hearts.
Christine Sunderland
Christine Sunderland 