Michael Kelly
Normally at this time of year our parishes and churches would be abuzz with preparations for carol services. Christmas has the ability to turn the heart of even the most devoted cynic. Who can fail to be moved by the sight of wide-eyed children dressed as Mary and Joseph carrying a doll to a makeshift manger?
There’s something powerfully simple about Christmas – and this year we’re experiencing that simplicity acutely. The frenetic toing and froing of previous years is not a feature that we can risk this year.
There’s nothing good about this pandemic, but it is in times of crisis that we can grow. Next Christmas, please God, things will be better. But do we need the stress of stockpiling and distributing presents to people we don’t see from one end of the year to the next? Is the credit card bill in January really the price we have to pay to have a cheery December?
Pope Francis
Back in March, Pope Francis said that the coronavirus is a call “to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing.
“It is not the time of your judgement, but of our judgement: a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not.
“It is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others,” the Pope said in his March urbi et orbi address.
Nine months later that remains true and the light of Christmas this year is an ideal opportunity to look at the child in the manger and re-commit ourselves to a more simple way of living and being in the world. Presence, for example, is irreplaceable – as anyone missing a loved one at this time of year will tell you. It means more than a bottle of cheap wine or another box of Christmas biscuits.
The first Christmas in Bethlehem was a very simple affair and I can’t help but think that part of God’s plan in confounding worldly notions of kingship and power is a plea for simplicity.
Simplicity has been thrust upon us, but we don’t have to become puritans or reject pleasures like good food and good wine with great (socially distanced!) company this Christmas, but we can give thanks for all that we have and make good out of a dreadful year by seeing simplicity as both good for us and good for the planet.