December 24, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Several years ago I approached the coming Christmas season working in a small office in a busy part of London. I was one of a four-person sales team managing travel logistics for international businesspeople. The work could be frantic and intense, but as December wore on our clients themselves were gradually absenting their desks – our phones stopped ringing and in a small way, the seasonal drawing in of the natural world could be felt in our little artificial world. The large clear windows from our office’s adjoining shop-front brought in the mid-afternoon gloom which reigns in London until the break of spring.
Though no more than chance acquaintances of several months, our team formed a sort of camaraderie I still remember with fondness. A common sense of humor enriched what, for me, was otherwise a mundane and temporary means to earn my income. Though often crude and chaotic, in the quiet moments such as these, the conversation across the desks could be surprisingly open and sincere.
Several weeks before, one of my colleagues had spotted a small copy of the Psalms and New Testament which I kept in my bag to read and pray with during my lunch break. I spent much of the rest of the afternoon fielding many of the most serious and significant questions that men can ask. I hadn’t sought the engagement but it had found me and I did my best to speak the truth with charity – while retaining a healthy degree of concern that at the end of the working day I would still be in possession of my job!
I was relieved to find that despite the exchange the bonhomie of our little group didn’t diminish at all. Every now and again my colleagues would seek the opinion of the Catholic man in their midst – what did I think about this particular world event, or politician, or disputed historical circumstance? Every now and again I would even offer my opinions voluntarily!
As Christmas drew near and the slowing of business left room for conversation, we each began to share the way we spend the season. My colleague who had first spotted my Bible, and who led the line of questions to me that afternoon, loved Christmas. It was his favorite time of the year.
For him, Christmas was the time of the year when frantic working life slowed down and families could spend quality, loving time together. A time of card games, visiting one’s grandparents, meeting newborn family members, home-cooking, mulled wine, of cherished family traditions, warmth, and good cheer. He didn’t believe that God had become man in the person of Jesus Christ and that Christmas was a time of supernatural gifts more so than any natural joys we can experience. But he didn’t think he was missing out. He loved Christmas all the same, and whatever the historical circumstances that had made its national celebration a custom each year, he was free to enjoy it and enjoy it he would.
But one of our team members objected. Not me, I assure you!
It was hypocrisy, our team-leader argued, and he didn’t have a right to the trappings of the season without embracing its true meaning. Now my team-leader had no more Christian belief than my colleague whom he was challenging – and he too would be enjoying the season in much the same manner as our mutual friend. But he managed to state his objection with just enough apparent sincerity to provoke a reaction. As the dispute developed, my opinion was sought, as one with a stated belief in the true meaning of the season.
And in the intervening years my opinion from that day has not altered in the slightest. I wish all and every man the merriest of Christmases. Christ’s birth is the greatest news the world has ever known and I would not deny a single man the smallest aspect of its fruit. Since the coming of Our Lord in Bethlehem, Christ’s birth has not been celebrated in all times and in all places. The kind and joyous culture that is the fruit of Christendom is not known today in every part of the world. Despite all of her sins and sufferings, it is still known in England. The gentle-sweetness of the crib in Bethlehem still penetrates the spiritual darkness of our age. This land has, in her history, been described as “the most devoted child of Mary” and in the years since that title was bestowed on her, countless souls have lived and witnessed to the faith, many to the point of giving their lives for it.
All of us in formerly Christian nations continue to enjoy the fruits of the good deeds done in times past, as well as having to bear the sufferings of our present time. As T.S. Eliot says in his great treatise on modernity, “Choruses from the Rock”:
Of all that was done in the past, you eat the fruit, either rotten or ripe.
And the Church must be forever building, and always decaying. and always being restored.
For every ill deed in the past we suffer the consequence:
For sloth, for avarice, gluttony, neglect of the Word of God.
For pride, for lechery, treachery, for every act of sin.
And of all that was done that was good, you have the inheritance. For good and ill deeds belong to a man alone, when he stands alone on the other side of death,
But here upon earth you have the reward of the good and ill that was done by those who have gone before you.
Those who don’t make room for Christ will know the sadness of that decision sooner or later, one way or another. In the meantime He makes Himself known to men in countless ways and places. However far we have wandered from the true meaning of the feast, I believe Christ is still revealing Himself to men through the celebration of Christmas. In his poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” the Romantic poet Lord Byron looked on the ruined remains of ancient Italy and said:
Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?
Thy very weeds are beautiful—thy waste
More rich than other climes' fertility;
Thy wreck a glory—and thy ruin graced
With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced.
We might say something similar of the Christmas celebrations of our own times. London’s Christmas markets and neon-decorated high-streets are no doubt tacky and superficial in comparison with the religious houses that filled the city centuries ago. But street-carollers still make heard their song on London’s busy streets, with voices joined in clear and beautiful expression of the deepest and most essential truths. Something remains of that great thing we call Christendom. What remains is a blessing and I pray that it grows and beats back the dark once again.
A merry Christmas to all!