Christmas is heaven breaking into our humdrum world (complete text)

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Dec. 19, 2010
Fr. Anthony Brankin
Gospel: Matt. 1:18-24. The angel’s command to Joseph
(Sorry, no audio.)

Complete text of homily: I write this on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, and, really in less than a week, it will be Christmas. If you are at all like me you are getting pretty desperate about what to do about gifts and dinners and cards and thank-yous and menus and whatever. And for me as a priest it is all compounded by worrying about Mass schedules and confessions and sermons to write and servers to call. You know things could be better when you begin to look forward–not to Christmas–but to the day after Christmas!

Saint Francis de Sales’ “little virtues” of gentleness, kindness, humility, and cheerful optimism shape the monastic life of the Visitation Sisters. Consider a life of prayer and teaching. Washington, DC.

I remember at a certain point in my childhood–and it was probably about 5th and 6th grades–I would get to the middle of December and notice that I wasn’t in the “Christmas spirit”.

And I would say to my brothers, “Are you guys in the Christmas spirit?” and they’d shrug and say “No”. And we would then spend the next two weeks doing whatever 6th graders do in preparation for Christmas asking ourselves everyday, “Are you in the Christmas spirit yet?” “No.”

Now I think this thing we were calling the “Christmas spirit” was a feeling we remembered from when we were a few years younger. It was for us little guys the delightful heart skip of anticipation–the awe-inspiring wonder about the marvels of Christmas day. The smells, the sights, the hopes, the mystery even!

We were almost paralyzed with the happy expectation that there was something supernatural that was going to happen to us and with us and in us on Christmas morning. And this something thrilled us even days before the event. It was almost as if another world from beyond was going to visit us and break in upon our hum-drum lives and transport us–if even for only one cold morning in December–from the alleys and garbage cans of the South side to a fairy-tale world–that was actually real.

I remember one year, maybe I was third grade and my brothers were in the first grade–well, the sisters had told us that if you peer at the moon on Christmas Eve and look close enough, and hard enough and long enough, you could see the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child right there in the moon. And I remember sitting on the front-room couch most of the early evening with my brothers looking and looking through the night sky at the moon trying desperately to see the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus. I think we saw them! But we wanted to believe so badly. This was part of the magic of Christmas. Christmas was more than just different– Christmas was heaven breaking in on earth– and what could be more marvelous than that.

Even the things we ate and the way we ate them told us this was quite a moment. We were too young to have any notion of things like Midnight Mass, but we knew that we could not eat meat on Christmas Eve–no Catholic could–it was like Friday– and a mortal sin if you did eat meat, so my Italian mother made meatless spaghetti for my Irish father– and of course, he taught my mother how to make oyster stew with bowls of half and half milk and butter. Steamed up windows and blazing stove were all part of the magic of Christmas for playroost us all.

And of course there would be the midnight visitation by Santa Claus while we were asleep– but who could sleep knowing that once you did fall asleep you were going to miss it all. As I say, those days before and during Christmas were like living within a fairy-tale. What could be more beautiful than that? All bets were off–this was different–this was the beautiful life promised by God to those who love Him–this night was the meeting of the supernatural and the natural–they came together–and we were there to see it and young enough to believe that it was happening right before our very eyes.

There is nothing wrong with any of that. It was and is a beautiful thing for families. This whole notion of “Christmas Spirit” was basically what happens when innocence and belief come together.

You see, an innocent five year old has no trouble believing that there is a world beyond this world. After all– isn’t everything he sees and experiences here–for those first years–isn’t every inch of it new and fantastic and startling? So of course, angels speak and shepherds listen. What is so unbelievable about that? Why not look for the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child to appear in the Moon? And wouldn’t anyone expect animals to recognize the Saviour of the World even when He is lying in a manger?

And this is what by 5th or 6th grade, we had lost–and we couldn’t get it back again. We could not resurrect that old feeling. It was probably the first time we had ever experienced something we could call nostalgia. We did not know it in 5th or 6th grade, but the reason we no longer felt like we did when we were 4 or 5 or 6 years old was that we had pretty much gotten into the business of Christmas.

We were now concerned about gifts and how much we were going to get from these adults with seemingly limitless Christmas budgets. And woe to them if they were to make light of it and tease us that maybe we wouldn’t get too much this year.

We whined and complained if we thought our parents weren’t going to get us enough. Hey, make no mistake- Christmas–is about what we get and how we feel. Christmas is about us and–yeah yeah–it is better to give than to receive–but lets see what we’re gonna get.

And then we spent our private hours figuring out how much we could spend and how to keep it fair and even so that no one would get more than anyone else.

We had actually commercialized our own Christmas. We were buying the message that was bombarding us 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Christmas was about gifts and fun and all manner of superficial things.

Sure for us little Catholic kids we had the added dimension of the Baby Jesus. We had Christmas cribs in our homes and Mass on Christmas day. But that was really a side light to the real Christmas that was shaping up in our lives–the one with tons of stuff and squeals of delight and all underneath a pine tree in our front rooms and even hoping for snow.

How weird it was for 6th graders to be hoping for a White Christmas! What could snow on Christmas have possibly meant to someone who was only 11 years old?

Well maybe what it meant was that that 6th grader had finally bought into the notion that Christmas was about everything else but Jesus–that it was about cinnamon bears and silver bells and tinkly music.

We had surrendered to the Christmas of the merchants–the ones who didn’t believe in Jesus–but only in what sales they could rack up. Christmas had now become a season–a fashion–a sound–a look. All of which was designed to get us excited about shopping. All those Christmas smiles on all those mannequins and models in the windows and in the ads were telling us that what we buy will ensure our happiness. No wonder by 6th grade we were looking for that lost Christmas spirit. Because Christmas had become a whole season revolving around weather and wrapping paper and gift lists and checking it twice and self-conscious songs about our Christmas emotional state–but no real reason for those emotions.

Christmas was no longer two worlds, earth and heaven, that would kiss that night–where supernature and nature would embrace in one marvelous moment–and in one miraculous Baby. Christmas was now about things in general and no thing in particular-no focus–no point–no reason–but shopping.

When innocence and belief no longer meet in the child–or in the adult. That is when Christmas dies.

That is when the spark of Christmas goes out–and that is why we end up every year depressed and argumentative and ready for the big Christmas fight–That is why we all ask ourselves every year, why aren’t we in the Christmas spirit yet.

We never will be in the Christmas spirit again until we start believing like we used to when we were little children.

And how do children believe? Firmly–that there is a God and there is a Virgin Mary and there is a star that brings three kings and shepherds to His Crib, and there are real angels who come from a real heaven and announce the Birth of Jesus–and that He is really God and really loves us and wants us to love him. And until we start believing with the open innocent hearts of little children, we will never have Christmas again like we used to.

Now, how do we recapture Christmas for our hearts and our children? By maintaining as many of our old fashioned religious traditions as possible. Because if we lose our traditions, we will lose our faith, and if we lose our faith we will lose our families. It is that simple. It is that true.

Our Christmas traditions–particularly our Catholic traditions–were all intended to help remind us–not of our emotional state at Christmas–which is self-serving and fruitless, but of what we believe about Christmas–and why there is a Christmas.

And what we believe is that this Birth is the most momentous birth in the history of mankind–because in this little Baby Boy, God Himself has come to earth–so that we might ascend to Heaven. That’s where the all the magic and marvel comes from– that’s where heaven and earth kiss– in Bethlehem– and that is the source of the Christmas spirit. Nothing less than that,

Today on this Last Advent Sunday, I suggest first of all turning off the television and radio. End the flood of silly stuff pouring into your ears and hearts about Christmas. It is lies and garbage, and will not help us understand our lives or Christmas–really,

And then, secondly maybe we can revive at least one old, old tradition–and one that was incredibly effective because it involved our stomachs. Do not eat meat this Christmas Eve. Go ahead–eat seven types of fish– make a feast if you must–but abstain from meat- just like we used to–Try it–No meat on Christmas Eve.

You will notice it, I promise you, and even your stomach will remember that it is Christmas–and not because of what you received, but because of what you gave up.

And when we remember why we gave it up–reverence for the Birth of Jesus into our souls. That is when the Christmas spirit will return.