Maria Steen
The View
I was on the phone to a friend recently, discussing the sorry saga of the legalising of abortion in this country when she asked me whether I was reading much about it. I said no, I was considering how to decorate our home for Christmas, which I said was much more important. This might seem like a glib answer, but I really meant it.
It has been a very difficult year for Irish Catholics, with Government and other parties determined on steamrolling one of the most liberal abortion regimes in Europe through the Oireachtas, brooking neither dissent nor delay and belittling and bullying anyone who dares to question their proposal.
Our eyes have been opened to a crisis of faith in our country and in our Church. We see now that we live in a land in which we are surrounded by neighbours, friends and family members, who are happy to strip unborn children of all legal rights so they can be killed. Many inhabit our parishes and call themselves Catholic.
There is a steady stream of ridicule and mockery of Catholics and our beliefs across the national print and broadcast media. And then there is what has been happening within the Church itself, with the evil actions of some priests, bishops and cardinals – some with great influence in the Vatican – having been revealed this summer as sins that are “crying out to heaven for vengeance”.
Antidote
We need to root out iniquity within the Church and to meet it with justice – and we need too at all times to seek what is beautiful, good and true. This is the only antidote when feeling powerless in the face of evil.
“Where do we start?” you might ask. We start in our own homes. This is why I could say that decorating our home was more important.
Like most voters, I have no power or influence over the actions of the people who run this country. But I do have power and influence over my own immediate family, my own environment, and, as the mother of a family, that influence and power are considerable.
As a mother, I also know that with power and influence come duty and responsibility, and I know where those duties and responsibilities lie. Rather than trying to engage pointlessly with those who are hell-bent on implementing an evil law, I’ve decided it is more important to add beauty, goodness and truth to the life experiences of my family – and Christmas decorations are part of that.
As Catholics, we have a rich tradition of marking the liturgical year with fasting and feasting, alternating between penance and celebration. These are important traditions that reflect the truth of the human experience: that we all endure suffering and we all know joy in our lives. Advent and Christmas are times particularly rich in imagery and traditions.
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I love how the Catholic Church understands our limitations as human beings, while at the same time insisting on the grandeur of our mission and duty as children of God. She recognises that we may need assistance to glimpse and begin to comprehend the significance of the central events of our salvation and, unlike other religions, she does not deny us visual aids.
Our churches reflect this in how many are decorated: in the stone carvings, intricate mosaics and translucent, coloured glass that depict biblical scenes and moments from the life of Christ.
We can extend this beauty into our own homes too: it is not only children who benefit from seeing the crib, or lighting the Advent wreath, or meditating on the lineage of Christ and salvation history as we place symbols on the Jesse tree.
These are all things we can do in our own homes – the ecclesia domestica, or domestic church, as it is called. And it is within the bosom of the domestic church that faith is kindled and fed.
Create a culture of beauty, truth and goodness around you. Allow yourself to delight this Christmas season in the coming of the Christ-Child on earth; in the beauty of his young mother, who is also your mother; and in her willingness to facilitate your salvation. Consider the quiet and resolute courage of St Joseph, his adopted father, who removed his family from an environment which sought to destroy the child in his charge, and retreated to a place of safety.
The Holy Family is the model for all families. When all around the culture hangs heavy with evil and dysfunction, retreat. I do not mean in the sense of running away, but rather in the best Catholic tradition – and indeed following the example given by Christ – to retreat from the world in order to become closer to God.
Sometimes it is necessary to remove oneself from a situation to gain perspective, to discern, to engage in self-examination, to grow and then to go back into the world. But sometimes it is also necessary to retreat from a culture, to go temporarily into exile, in order to protect the vulnerable and the innocent – just as St Joseph did.
There was nothing cowardly about the flight into Egypt – quite the opposite. St Joseph displayed the best of masculine qualities and protected the light of the world from a force that sought to extinguish it.
The way to reject and retreat from a dysfunctional culture is to create a new one. There is a long Christian tradition of this. In his book, The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher, who is due to visit Dublin in January, describes how disgust with the decadence and loss of virtue in the crumbling Roman Empire led the young Roman, St Benedict of Nursia, to found monasteries that became incubators of morality, civility and faith during the ‘Dark Ages’.
This is what those of us who love Christ and His Church need to do – to help the domestic Church grow by raising our children in the Faith and giving them homes filled with warmth and love, so that when their time comes, they will have the strength to go out into the world to proclaim the Good News, sustained by memories of beauty, goodness and truth.
Wonder
So next year, rather than dismiss Christmas decorations as frivolities or symbols of a materialistic culture, watch the wonder in your children’s eyes as you mark the weeks leading to Christmas by lighting the candles on an Advent wreath in a darkened room.
Consider making your own Jesse tree and symbols, to help meditate on those who came before Christ and helped prepare the way. Reflect on the transcendent beauty of the crib scene and how little children are magnetically drawn to it. Drink in the children’s excitement as they anticipate putting up the Christmas tree.
These small efforts all contribute to a bigger concept of beauty, goodness and truth each of us craves.
It is to experiences such as these that we return in adulthood to remind ourselves, when needs be, that real beauty and goodness and truth exist, because we have known them before. And that these are things worth fighting for.