Bringing the ‘holy back’ to Christmas via Mary

The vision of an ideal Christmas generally includes “Silent Night” being softly sung around a manger scene. Snow is falling, family is gathered, and savoury smells are wafting from the kitchen.

Dec 11, 2014

By Louise McNulty
The vision of an ideal Christmas generally includes “Silent Night” being softly sung around a manger scene. Snow is falling, family is gathered, and savoury smells are wafting from the kitchen. Festively wrapped packages are stacked under a tree sparkling with ornaments and lights. All is calm. All is bright.

For some, such dream scenes become reality on the December holiday. More often, the subtle, holy joy of Christmas is obscured by the blurry vision of those who have been sleep-deprived and stressed out while preparing for that “perfect” moment.

What is lost in the blur is the gift of Christmas, the anticipation during Advent, its peace, the humble and quiet beginning of the story of salvation. Those gifts from God are sometimes obscured by exhausting preparations, high-calorie foods, presents that sometimes overtax the family budget.

It’s as if an elaborate celebration was planned and the guest of honour was ignored. And, despite attending Mass on the holy days, it is too often a matter of trying to “fit it in” between family visits and meals and opening gifts.

Returning the Christmas celebration to the silent and holy night on the days that precede it almost seems like an unrealistic goal in our world. That may be true on a societal scale, where merchants of every faith, or none, have been pandering their holiday wares since late August. But changes can be achieved and we can look to Mary as the beacon to help us return to holiness.

How did she handle that first Advent in the days leading to the birth of the Saviour? Consider the tone Mary set. That first Advent wasn’t a time to splurge, to be ostentatious. It was a moment of physical and spiritual preparation. Mary sets the tone, for men and women, on what we should be pursuing as we wait for the coming of our Saviour.

Mary’s quiet “yes” to the angel Gabriel put God's plan into action. When it was announced that she would bear a child, she didn’t ask questions or protest. Instead, we heard: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Lk 1:38)

We can emulate Mary’s quiet holiness at Advent and that doesn’t mean we have to stomp out the joy of past Christmas traditions to do it.

Mary was not idle, nor was she unsocial during the months leading to her son’s birth. Scripture tells us that she went almost immediately to visit Elizabeth and she stayed with her for three months. And she didn’t shirk the civil duty of going to Bethlehem to be counted for the census.

Today, we, too, shouldn’t dismiss the part we usually play in the celebration of Christmas, but we might limit the scope of some plans, and instead steep in the spiritual. What did Mary do leading up to that first Advent? Mary primarily rejoiced in God. She proclaimed “the greatness of the Lord.” She realized what a great gift God had given her. “For he has looked upon his handmaid’s lowliness,” she says in the Magnificat.

No child will be psychologically scarred if there is one less kind of cookie available on the table. If Christmas greetings are only sent to out-of-towners, who in town will know? Perhaps Grandma’s linens that require hours of preparation to look just right on the Christmas dinner table can be left in the closet just for one year.

Instead, focus that energy on bringing the holy day back to a religious focus. Make Advent a true season of awaiting the arrival of the light, as Mary did, of rejoicing for the blessings that God has provided, and of the future promises that come to us by welcoming Christ into our lives.

That means keeping in mind, and in prayers, the needs of the poor, the lonely, those who may need food or those who may need spiritual food. What can we do to help them? What can we do to bring the light to them? What can we do to bring light to those nearest to us, who may be stressed, tired, run down trying to provide the “perfect” holiday?

Once again, consider Mary as she prepared for that first Advent. In all the depictions of their journey to Bethlehem, Mary is seen riding on a donkey and Joseph walking beside her.

It couldn’t have been easy to walk for miles in that climate, on that terrain. Yet Joseph never seemed discontent as he cared for the comfort of Mary and the divine child she would bear. He guides the animal that carries them and looks for shelter. Mary didn’t complain about the shelter he found, or where they welcomed the newborn baby – in a humble manger, where animals are kept.

Though surely they had stresses while preparing for a first-born and on limited finances, they were kind to one another. Mary didn’t rejoice in the material, but in the spiritual fortune she was about to bring into the world.

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