St. Perpetua: What Christmas Means In Today's World

It’s amazing how the beginning of December finds people everywhere decking their halls and homes with unabashed fervor for the Christmas season. Believers and non-believers, churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike outdo each other in lights and decorations. Nothing escapes the magic wand of Christmas passing over it – not the towels in the guest bathroom, the dog’s collar and leash, or every mantle and ledge, nook and cranny in the house. With no guidelines or rulebook to follow, everyone “lets loose” and goes on a holiday frenzy that sometimes defies explanation.

There is a “reason for the season.” Yet, while, for Christians, the Feast of Christmas marks the commemoration of the birth of Jesus Christ in the little village of Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, the one we call “Prince of Peace” and “Light of the World,” midwinter festivals have been shared throughout time by every country and culture.

Celebrated on or around the longest night of the year, people gathered evergreens, bright illumination, large ongoing fires, feasting, communion with close ones, and even physical exertion by dancing and singing – all signs that beckon the light to break through the darkness.

Our world is still enveloped in darkness and strains to hear the voice of that heralding angel promising “peace on earth to people of good will.”  The Christmas Season is a time to seek that peace, a time of generous hospitality. We seem to be more open to people – shoppers on the street, co-workers at the office party, the unknown guest your son or daughter or grandchild brings to your house for a holiday dinner. Friendship flourishes and barriers are down. We feed one another with spinach and artichoke dip, pumpkin bread with cranberries and slivered almonds… and love. We toast one another with Pinot Noir and sparkling cider… and acceptance. This open welcome seems so evident at this time of the year. It’s the gift that everyone can share and the desire in the heart of all of us. That desire is wonderfully expressed by Maya Angelou in Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem --

We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.

We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.

We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come.

Peace.

Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.

We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,

Implore you, to stay a while with us.

So we may learn by your shimmering light

How to look beyond complexion and see community.

…..

We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Non-Believers,

Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace.

We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace.

We look at each other, then into ourselves

And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation. 

Peace, My Brother.

Peace, My Sister.

Peace, My Soul.

Merry Christmas! Peace!