Saint Hilary of Poitiers said, “I will not endure to hear that Christ was born of Mary unless I also hear, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God.'” Today we read the Prologue of John’s Gospel and it is an important part of faith in the Incarnation. Christmas has so much humanity about it, and yet we must make an act of faith to be lifted into the true meaning of Christmas. We can tell from John’s first letter how important the truth is, and how tempting it can be to depart from the truth. The “latest Christian breakthrough” should never be something we consent to without “testing the spirits.” Saint Hilary was fighting against those who wanted to reject the Divinity of Christ over a thousand years ago. That’s a heresy we refer to now as Arianism, and even though we could say that we’ve “dealt with it” at this point in the Church’s history, Arianism was very popular for hundreds of years and the same ideas resurfaced in the wake of Protestantism. Even today, the Jehovah’s Witnesses espouse similar principals. The temptation to look at Christmas as a very touching human story of a birth of a religious teacher that took place under adverse circumstances, is the same temptation of Arianism. What’s important about the birth of Jesus Christ is who He really is: God, the Son of God.
Holy Family
The celebration of Christmas contains within it the celebration of the Holy Family. This special feast day was promoted by Pope Benedict the XV to be celebrated by the universal Church in 1921, then in 1969 it was attached to the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas. Christmas is an important celebration in the Christian calendar because it is one of the central mysteries of our faith. Because of its centrality and perhaps because of the intimacy of what is being celebrated – the birth of a baby who is also the Savior of the world – it draws families together. Even though our society isn’t particularly Christian, Christmas continues to draw families together, inviting them to express love and affection, to share joy and to be generous with each other. In a world that is increasingly fractured, where the family is threatened from within and without by destabilizing societal forces like divorce, gender confusion, redefining marriage, abortion, social media and individualism, Christmas is still a reminder of what human beings can be for each other, and how we yearn to belong. Christmas, as societal pressure, directs us to look for the place where we belong, and the Church tells us that the family shapes our core sense of belonging.
Saint Stephen, First Martyr
On this first day in the Octave of Christmas we celebrate the heavenly birth of the Church’s first martyr, St. Stephen. It is a reminder to us that as powerfully hopeful and joyful as Christmas is, there is division and hatred that come with it. We could ask St. Stephen for the grace to always react well when we find ourselves on one side of a division. It can be tempting to want to be right, or the one who is in the right, but it isn’t what Christ needs most from us. In these divisive moments, even when extreme violence is employed, we can open our hearts to see Jesus and allow Him to be the judge. Resisting the temptation to judgement, even of those who are “clearly” in the wrong, can make space in our hearts for what our Christian calling is about: loving and forgiving our enemies. May St. Stephen grant us simplicity and grace when we are persecuted so our prayer for our enemies might be filled with the Holy Spirit and love.