THE TABLET DECEMBER 24, 2005

We Keep Christ in Christmas

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This year we have witnessed a new assault on Christmas. The media has brought to our attention that many businesses are not displaying the word Christmas, but rather Happy Holidays, and that Christmas trees are no longer to be called that, but rather Holiday trees. There is nothing new about this erosion of the true understanding of Christmas. This year in some ways, however, there has been a greater emphasis, and many evangelical Christians have taken up campaigns to restore the meaning of Christmas. Such campaigns are not new to our Catholic understanding of Christmas. As long as I can remember I have heard the phrase, "Keep Christ in Christmas," and certainly we should.

The lessons of history teach us much about not repeating errors of the past. In the worst days of the French Revolution, the government attempted even to change the calendar so that there would be no more Sundays or feast days. It was a short-lived attempt at reconstruction. The era of Communist domination in many countries also attempted to eliminate, or severely restrict, the ability of Catholic Christians to worship on Sundays and feast days, and we have seen that this attempt too has failed.

The greatest dangers to our faith come not from without, but from within. It is our faith that truly must be practiced so that we can affirm our belief in the Incarnation. That is what we celebrate at Christmas, the very fact that God has become man. Externally we celebrate this great event with the giving of gifts and the decoration of our homes and churches, because truly it is a mind-boggling event that God, who created the universe, would send His Son, Jesus Christ, to take upon Himself human nature. The wonderful unity of God and man gives new meaning to humankind.

Christ is the ultimate meaning of man. If God had not become man and redeemed us, our life in this world would have little eternal meaning. Today there are many people who search for the meaning of life in the wrong places, and wind up being disillusioned.

Christmas is the time when we can rediscover the true significance of life as we celebrate the birth of the one Life that gives meaning to all of our existences. The birth of Jesus Christ in Bethlehem to the Virgin Mary, protected by Joseph her spouse, gives us the image of that sacred family that took up residence in Nazareth and became the model of every Christian family, as I said in my October pastoral letter on the family. One way in which we can live out the faith we have in the Incarnation within the context of this "domestic Church" is by the mutual love and respect that we manifest to each other, and to all those with whom we relate outside the family context.

This Christmas we wish each and every family of the Diocese of Brooklyn the joy and peace that this special celebration brings us. To find its true meaning we must put out into the deep, we must leave behind the confusion and distress of our times that cloud the real meaning of Christmas. Yes, we must keep Christ at the center at all times, each and every day, and especially at Christmas.

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