As we begin Advent, our season of preparation for the celebration of Christmas, Benedictine nun Joan Chittister explains how learning to gaze contemplatively at the struggles around us and find Christ there may be the best way to prepare:
Christmas is the celebration of small things, particular things, barely noticeable things. It is Jesus in a manger…
It's so easy to get caught up in the magnificence of Jesus and so miss the simplicity of Jesus, the normalcy of Jesus, the invisibility of the Jesus who lives almost totally unseen, unheralded, for the first 30 years of his life. Just like us.
The implications of that reality, especially at a time like Christmas with all the gifts and glitter, all the great Christmas icons and triumphant hymns—cue trumpet, hit flashing lights, turn spotlight on angels—turn real life upside down. There weren't any trumpets, the night was quiet and dark as pitch…
[The Holy Family] were homeless. In a highly communal society their survival depended on the hospitality and support of strangers. That's the real story…
Maybe we've never wanted to face the implications of this birth, its social status, its neediness. Maybe it has been so well-masked that we have never realized the demands it makes on us…
Isn’t it time to realize that this birth is meant to change us all? To make us the bringers of a Merry Christmas to others.