A student of mine gave me a book for the end of a semester. She is Jewish but wanted to give me a Christmas card with it. She told me, “I looked but there are no ‘Christmas Cards’ in the shop, only ‘Holiday Card.’” Her card said, “Seasons Greetings.” It was decorated with shiny green leaves and an elegant red artificial flower. One has to be touched by the effort.
This comment about “Holiday Cards” made me take a second look at the cards I have already received. I tend to get actual “Christmas Cards.” From Australia, I have a card with a green wreath on a door with “An IRISH Christmas Blessing for You and Yours.” The blessing reads: “May your hearth be ever warm, your table ever full, your joys ever new, your love ever growing, and your memories ever lasting,” followed by something which is probably “Merry Christmas” in Gaelic.
The President of Georgetown’s Christmas card shows a lovely sketch of our elegant Gothic Healy Building from below the library steps. Off the steps, a lamp post with a green wreath and a red bow are seen.
Friends in Salinas, California, who visited me this year here in Georgetown, sent a lovely Madonna and Child card with the words “Peace on Earth.”
Another friend in Virginia sent a very cute card with three identical little angels, each with hands folded, blond hair with halo. Two have eyes piously closed, but the last one has hers wide open, and we see her toes sticking out of from under her long gown.
Many cards have photos of some family scene, often before a Christmas tree, snow or festive dress. This sort of card keeps visual touch with growing and changing families.
From England, I have a card, a sketch on red paper showing a happy Joseph and Mary gazing at the child in a crib with the star behind and above them.
From my Catholic Indian friends, Maya and Peeya, I have a card with “Christ Is Born”. Against a night scene, we see a hut and stable with Joseph and Mary. A light shines on the child. Behind we see a faint Crucifixion against the back wall. On the sides, a sheep and a donkey gaze into the scene.
From friends in Aptos, California, I have a very lovely scene with Mary sleeping and a very handsome Joseph holding the baby; again we are in a grotto while a donkey and a sheep look on from behind.
“From the widow of one of my cousins in Iowa, I have a card showing Joseph with a staff, leading a donkey on which Mary is sitting side-saddle. The star is behind them; they are still going to Bethlehem.
From Florida, I have a different version of the same scene, a much more tropical setting against a palm tree.
From England again, I have a lovely card of a stone Irish Cross sitting alone in a wintery scene, against a stone fence and gate. Reddish hills are seen in the background. The script is “Peace of the Season.”
From Missouri, I have a card that shows a much-crowded scene in the inn-stable. The donkey is right on top of the crib looking in. The sheep is on the other side. The shepherds are there along with what looks like the three kings. Another donkey and sheep are at the side
My cousin in Detroit’s card shows a very lovely winter scene, with snow falling on the pines. “A Christmas Wish—May God’s peace surround you this Christmas and always.” That is quite nice.
Finally, from Kentucky, we see a small church in the woods. There is a brook with a stone bridge over it. A horse pulls a man in a small sleigh towards the church. Snow is falling all around; heavy snow is already on the ground. Lights come through the church windows.
Christmas is not what we call a “holiday”. Christmas is indeed a “holy” day, which is what the word “holiday” really means. It is not a good idea to pass through the Christmas season without reflecting on what it is. Catholicism is an intellectual religion, and the Feast of Christmas follows logically from the Annunciation, from the Incarnation. It points to the adolescence, to the public life of Christ; then as several cards depicted, to His Crucifixion. It is the same man who is “conceived by the Holy Spirit,” who is “born” in Nazareth, during the reign of Caesar Augustus.
It is my view that the reason we do not see “Christmas cards” has to do with a deliberate choice, to a conscious choice that we “will” not know, that we “will” not allow anyone to think of what the Nativity of Christ might entail. Christmas cards do not disappear for no reason. In one sense, we can say that they disappear because there is no “demand”; it is a market thing. There is some truth to this. Today, if we buy a nice card and mail it, the cost is not insignificant. We can now email our greetings to Aunt Margaret for nothing; we can even access her living room and chat online.
Christmas is a public feast that, at its best, is wholly private. No one really knew the significance of the event in Bethlehem at the time it happened. God did not come into the world in power and drama. A few shepherds noticed, but even they had to be prodded by sounds and sights, by curiosity.
Soon the couple known as Joseph and Mary packed up and went home with the new baby who was not, evidently, born where He was by total accident, even if it looked that way. No sooner than they got there, they had to pack up again and be off to Egypt. It seems the king saw this Child as his potential rival. He even killed young boys who might be this child the Magi evidently told him about.
What is the Nativity? The Lord now actually appears. He is no longer in eternity, no longer in the womb of Mary. He is already a sign of contradiction. Many of the prophets of Israel longed to see what those shepherds saw and did not see it. Why did they not see? Was it because they were blind? They had eyes. But they did not want to see either. They had to lie to themselves lest they see.
What exactly happened here? The Child that was born was Christ the Lord. To explain Him, we need to talk accurately, to distinguish. If we get it wrong, we won’t know. If we get it right, we will see a plan being worked out in the person, in the life and death of this Child now born in Bethlehem. Christmas cards, in fact, often do a good job of depicting what actually happened there in the stable, with the donkey and sheep, with the shepherds and Joseph and Mary.
Great things do not always happen in great ways, or at least, in ways we think are great. But great things did happen here, once and once only. It was not necessary for Christ to come more than once into this world, our world. His reality is still present. We seek to flee its import to us. We want every explanation but the one that explains.
Christmas is about the Word becoming flesh and dwelling amongst us. The Word is within the Godhead, in His active, eternal life. The Word seeks to lead us back to the purpose for which we are created, to share His eternal life. These things really happened. The world cannot pretend that it did not happen, though it has no alternative if it does not want to know the truth of who He was.
Christmas 2011 is in its very name. The “Mass” of Christmas, the Nativity of the Lord among us, the Word made flesh, the dwelling amongst us—these things we know and ponder. The song goes, “joy” to the world. Not joy for no reason. Joy because the Lord has come. We did not know He was coming. He came to dwell amongst us that we might eternally dwell with Him. There is no other reason, no other explanation of our being, of “why we are rather than are not.”
We are now at an advanced status of our civilization wherein we have to say to our friends: “Pardon me, would you mind if I wished you a Merry Christmas.” The only people who mind, I suspect, are those who are worried that what the Christians say about who is born in Bethlehem might be true. They prefer not to know. And that defines their souls.
Related Ignatius Insight Essays and Excerpts:
• Ox and Ass Know Their Lord | Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
• What In Christmas Season Grows: On the Days Leading Up to the Nativity of the Lord | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• Mary Immaculate | Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J.
• Mary's Gift of Self Points the Way | Carl E. Olson
• Immaculate Mary, Matchless in Grace | John Saward
• The Mystery Made Present To Us | Fr. Alfred Delp, S.J.
• The Disciple Contemplates the Mother | Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis
• The Incarnation | Frank Sheed
• "Born of the Virgin Mary" | Paul Claudel
• The Old Testament and the Messianic Hope | Thomas Storck
• Christmas: Sign of Contradiction, Season of Redemption | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J.
• The God in the Cave | G.K. Chesterton
Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., is Professor of Political Philosophy at Georgetown University.
He is the author of numerous books on social issues, spirituality, culture, and literature including Another Sort of Learning, Idylls and Rambles, A Student's Guide to Liberal Learning, The Life of the Mind (ISI, 2006), The Sum Total of Human Happiness (St. Augustine's Press, 2007), The Regensburg Lecture (St. Augustine's Press, 2007), and The Mind That Is Catholic: Philosophical and Political Essays (CUA, 2008). His most recent book from Ignatius Press is The Order of Things(Ignatius Press, 2007).
His new book, The Modern Age, is available from St. Augustine's Press. Read more of his essays on his website.
An awesome reflection, poignant but joyously triumphant; the "world" doesn't really want to know but Christ comes anyway, always.
Posted by: Agnieszka | Saturday, December 24, 2011 at 04:35 AM
I had the same problem buying them. My local Hallmark shop had about two Christmas cards. The Metropolitan Museum catalogue, however, had a lot of them so I ordered from them.
Posted by: Gil | Wednesday, January 04, 2012 at 04:42 PM