What is this Christmas?
A message from Fr Michael Fuller
I often wonder how the Christmas celebration has acquired the hype that it has? When did the celebration overtake the significance? During Advent my mind was drawn to the idea of the possibility of knowing God by being still; this idea did not seem to appeal to many as the run up to Christmas seems even more ‘energetic’ this year than previously.
During Advent we have been thinking homeless in our small way. Collecting blankets for The Upper Room Project to distribute to rough sleepers and working with the Broadway Homeless Trust at Shepherds Bush to raise funds. Both of these organisations are concerned with helping people to find the light within themselves and have the courage to follow it to a new future. What has struck me, though, has been the idea of ‘Inner homelessness’; my own and that of others. This is about the effect that our own circumstances have on our ‘inner beings’ or as someone once put it, ‘our unsettled and ever restless souls’. It is a fact, as we can see in our community and society, that material well-being and improvement does not equate to inner ‘settled-ness’. Satisfying the physical does not necessarily means emotional, intellectual and spiritual well-being.
Each of us at sometime suffers from a form of spiritual homelessness. Dark times can beset us in many ways and it’s often hard to climb back into the light. But the extraordinary resilience of the human spirit demonstrates that the light is always there, even if it has become dimmed by our circumstances.
Christmas is built on light. It comes at the darkest time of the year, from pagan times, when these sensible people celebrated the sun that had almost disappeared. That’s why we switch on the lights and try to dispel the fear that the darkness can bring. For us, as Christians, the true light of the world is Jesus Christ, and His birth brings hope, to Christian and non-Christian alike. The angels sing and Jewish scripture tells us: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light; on those who live in a land of deep shadow, a light has shone”.
For some this Christmas the light will be overshadowed by sadness, pain, illness, addiction, despair or the loss of a loved one. Perhaps our task this Christmas is, each in our own way, to bring light into the life of someone else, so that our own light will shine a little brighter and their world will be the better for it. May you find rich blessing at this time as you are a blessing to others.
Fr Michael Fuller : December 2007