Faith in the Family

It echoes through the first Reading, the Acclamation and the Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent – Emmanuel, God with us. In the Gospel for the Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve we are reminded that Jesus is embedded in history. We are given, as my father used to say, the “seed, breed and generation” of Jesus, so that if anyone should ask who he was we would be able to say: “Sure you know his people!”

Then in the Gospel for Mass during Christmas day we are thrown a total curve ball with the proclamation that this same Jesus is the very Word of God, with God in the beginning and through whom all things came to be.

It is mind-blowing! What are we to make of it? Perhaps what we need to hang on to are those first most comforting words – Emmanuel, God with us. Then and now, God at the heart of our humanity and our humanity at the heart of God. It is worth pondering.

God’s desire to be with us is given form in the birth of this little babe – one who, later, at that last supper with his friends would quite clearly put himself utterly in their hands, “this is my body, this is my blood’. For now, he lies within the arms of Mary – and she must have wondered: “How can this be?”

When it comes to faith, we too have our questions and our struggles but perhaps this Christmas is a time to lay those to one side and instead, to ponder on those words – Emmanuel, God with us.

What does it mean for us to say that God is here among us? We could go rummaging in a few theology books but I would suggest a much more fruitful approach would be to practise some Christian mindfulness this Christmas. What would it be like to approach this Christmas prepared to ponder the idea that here, now, in Donegal or Dublin, Roscommon or Roscrea, in the midst of all the glitz and glitter is God, in whom we live and move and have our being?

Mindfulness is an invitation to be present. I often spend the run up to Christmas in a frantic tizzy. I want to slow down this year, to go and visit friends, not rushing in like a hyperactive elf depositing a gift of caramel squares and wheaten bread on the table before running out again, but sitting down, talking, accepting the offered cuppa – being present. In the Incarnation Jesus entered into relationship with us and in doing so opened up every relationship to the possibility of the sacred, to being a place of encounter with God.

Jesus, God with us, was nurtured at his mother’s breast and then by the food she made him gathered round a table almost certainly made by Joseph. I want to taste every bite of my Christmas dinner not fuss over who has what and what may be needed next. I want to appreciate and give thanks for the work of others which went in to rearing a turkey, growing the veg, making a cranberry sauce that has just the right tartness, growing the luscious grapes to make the full-bodied red wine in my glass. I want to notice and I want to acknowledge that without God’s good fertile earth these things would not happen.

I want to sit amongst my family and simply delight in their presence. Our Advent wreath has looked a little lost on our big kitchen table where only two places are set for dinner these evenings. I look forward to the noise, the craic, the energy of a full house – and to know that here, Emmanuel, God is with us.