At this time, every year, we hear these words from Scripture: ‘The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light’.
Familiar words indeed, and easily left unheeded. But this year the darkness is more immediate, more encircling. Knowing the darkness helps us to appreciate the light.
Have we not seen these months of difficulty during this pandemic marked by countless acts of random kindness, quiet heroism, selfless service, remarkable community efforts, all directed towards those most in need?
In our nature, in our make-up, there is an indomitable spirit of goodness that responds with sacrifice and love.
It is the spark of the divine within us, the sense of a life in essence never private but shared with others, with the whole of creation.
This spark is fully revealed in the person of Jesus, God of God, Light of Light, born in poverty so that all may approach him.
In him, the fullness of light and love comes into the darkness of our world, at present confused, disoriented, trying to feel the right way forward. In his life, he brings this light and love to the darkness of lonely suffering, to the darkness of the torture and cruelty of his death.
He brings a light and a love which overcomes all darkness and death, setting us free, as St Paul says, to be a people ‘of his very own’, having ‘no ambition except to do good’.
For people throughout the world we have been living in a time of crisis. And a crisis is a crossroads in which we face choices about which way to go, about what to do next. At a crossroad we look for the signposts, the indications about the road to take.
At this time of crisis we must set up those signposts, clearly and unambiguously, signposts which signal the kind of society we want to emerge from this period of darkness.
Of course there are the great challenges of economic recovery, of building a deeper sense of mutual responsibility between nations and states, not least in the distribution of vaccines to the poorest.
But I think more of the domestic and local signposts we want to erect. Can we not build back better?
Surely we can create a more kind culture, a daily discourse of respect towards those with whom we disagree, a practice of compassionate standing together in times of stress and hardship, a deeper empathy for the suffering of others.
These we have seen bud as we journey an uncertain pathway throughout this pandemic.
These are the roads we want to take, roads on which we overcome divisions of colour and class, taking us beyond the division of wealth and well-being.
Let us set up those signposts at this crossroads of our history, knowing that the light come into the world this Christmas is given so that we can know the truth, the goodness and the beauty by which to shape our future.
It is in the person of the Christ-child, God in our flesh, that we find our road of life, the ending of our fears and the fulfilment of our hopes.
The words of my favourite carol, O Holy Night – incidentally the most popular carol of all – remind us of the Gospel we have just heard.
The carol invites us, in a soaring melody, to harken to the angel voices announcing this birth. ‘Fall on your knees! Oh hear the angel voices! O night divine when Christ was born!’
The angel voices, in our day, may only be a whisper, easily lost amidst clamour and noise. But listen! Listen to that quiet whisper in the depth of your heart.
Later verses of the carol, in its original text, explain the message they bring: he who has come is our Saviour, our Redeemer.
‘The Redeemer has broken every bond. The Earth is free and Heaven is open. He sees a brother where there was only a slave. Love unites those whom iron had chained. Who will tell him of our gratitude? For us all he is born, he suffers and dies. People stand up! Sing of your deliverance!’
This we shall do! This ‘night divine’ is our time of joy and thanksgiving and our hope for the future we must fashion together.
A happy Christmas to you all!
“A Christmas Childhood,” Kavanagh harks back to the winters of his childhood. This poem was born out of Kavanagh’s loneliness and solitude and he penned it having spent a Christmas season alone in his flat in Dublin.
The poem is filled with nostalgia for rural, farming, family life and his memories come to us through Christian imagery from the story of the birth of Jesus.
Enjoy!
A Christmas Childhood by Patrick Kavanagh
One side of the potato-pits was white with frost –
How wonderful that was, how wonderful!
And when we put our ears to the paling-post
The music that came out was magical.
The light between the ricks of hay and straw
Was a hole in Heaven’s gable. An apple tree
With its December-glinting fruit we saw –
O you, Eve, were the world that tempted me.
SEE ALSO – You can read all of Fr Paddy’s columns by clicking here
