COMMENTARY: Surprises of Christmas herald a light that never fades

c. 1996 Religion News Service (Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.) UNDATED _Christmas is all about surprises. Our pagan ancestors were surprised each year when […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

UNDATED _Christmas is all about surprises.


Our pagan ancestors were surprised each year when the sun stopped running away, turned around and came back again, right on time. It happened with such astonishing precision that they began to suspect a plot. And, as G.K. Chesterton once remarked, if there was a plot there had to be a plotter. Or maybe a Plotter.

Mary and Joseph were surprised by the son that was born and laid in a manger. The shepherds were dumbfounded by the angel singers _ when was the last time you heard angels singing on a starry night? The Magi were astonished by the star in the sky. Ever since then, anyone who takes time to reflect on the meaning of Christmas is overwhelmed by amazement at what is alleged to have happened in the cave.

As long as a touch, a smidgen, a minuscule molecule of surprise remains in our Christmas celebration, then it is still Christmas no matter how exhausted, irritable, frustrated or disgusted we might feel.

(I want to go on record, by the way, as being sick and tired of media carping about the”commercialism”of Christmas. At best, it is only half-true; at worst it is a mindless cliche.)

What is there to be surprised about?

Every Christmas card is potentially a surprise _ someone still thinks about us and may still love us. Each time we open a gift, surprise lurks, both in the present itself and in the presenter. Even if the same person has given us the same kind of gift for a half century, there is still surprise that the person cares enough about us to give us something to which, strictly speaking, we have no right.

I am opposed to Christmas bonuses (though I do give them) because they are not gifts so much as obligations in justice. Better that we exchange such things on January 2 than on the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus.

The Christmas tree is a surprise, representing as it does, Jesus the light of the world. The candle in the windows is a surprise, welcoming us home again. Above all, the lights all around us are a staggering surprise, symbolizing as they do the promise of a light that will never fade. Never.

Christmas fails only when we become so jaded that the festival is nothing more than a monotonous routine, from which all surprise, all wonder, all astonishment has been drained. When we begin to be grateful that Christmas is almost over, then have we surely lost the Christmas spirit.


The real heroes of Christmas are mothers and grandmothers and mother surrogates. To this outsider, it is a matter of amazement that they can labor so long and so hard over Christmas dinners and still come up smiling _ well, most of the time. In a better-organized world, they would receive help from the other gender to equalize the burden. In the present state of the world, however, most males would risk their lives if they attempted to interfere in what goes on in the kitchen.

So the”women of the house”are yet another Christmas surprise, to whom we express our deepest gratitude.

Sometimes people must wrestle violently with Christmas demands in order to be alert to new surprises or sensitive to old ones. My own worst enemy is the automobile and the time I must spend in it as I wander from place to place, eating too much at every stop.

At the end of most of these festive days, I want only to sleep and wait for Lent to begin. A trivial problem indeed, but it is the trivial problems that dull us to surprise.

Only a few more days left _ busy, hectic, often madcap days. Have their been any surprises? Not since they turned on all the lights on Michigan Avenue a month or so ago. I must open up to surprises, now, today before it is too late.

So, too, must all for whom this is a sacred time. To celebrate the biggest surprise of all and not to be open to all the delightful little astonishments that fill our life is to miss the point. Or as the Irish would say, to miss the point altogether.


MJP END GREELEY

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