c. 1999 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 _ I won’t have much time to celebrate Christmas this year. I’m too busy preparing for the millennium. I have to lay in five or six florescent lanterns, 10 buckets to fill with water, $1,000 or so in gold coins, a ton of flashlight batteries, a good supply of blankets, a couple of cellular telephones, a huge supply of candy bars and 300 rounds of ammunition for my automatic weapon.

To survive the millennium I must ignore Christmas.

I’m kidding? Yes, of course. Except for two florescent lanterns. (And I don’t own an automatic weapon!)

My point is that the millennium is phony and trivial and Christmas is not. Millennium hyperbole threatens to dim the light of Christmas, unless each individual person makes up his mind Christmas is important and the changing numbers in an inaccurate calendar is not.

Double 0 means nothing at all. Bethlehem means everything.

Who cares what the greatest novel in the century is or the man of the century or the athlete of the century or the best film of the century?

Who believes all the scare talk about the Y2K bug? Who believes all the happy talk that the worst that could happen would be like a winter storm? Who really cares whether the lights go out for a while (as they surely will in my city where the utilities have been brain dead for a couple of decades)? The lights will come back on eventually and life will go on and we’ll all have stories to tell

Who cares about all the bashes and blowouts and TV coverage as we cover the last seconds of a millennium that actually ended five years ago?

The answer seems to be that a lot of people care _ the wide-eyed media goons, the apocalyptists who seem to think Jesus will come back on their timetable, the party givers and the party goers, the drunks and the buffoons, the adulterers and the fornicators, the weapons nuts and the looters, the thieves and the phonies, the liars and the cheats, the crazies and the fools.

Also pious Catholics who will go to Rome to visit the four basilicas to gain the Great Jubilee indulgence which is, I’m sure, worth a lot less in God’s eyes than a week of patience with those whom we love the most in our family.

All in all, it’s a shame Christmas has to get in the way of our millennium preparations. Just like each year it’s a shame Christmas has to come during the holidays.

Indeed it’s kind of a shame Jesus came at all because if he hadn’t we wouldn’t have to pretend that the millennium we celebrate doesn’t mark years since his birth, however inaccurately. Moreover, if he hadn’t come we would be able to say”happy holidays”this time of the year without a sense of loss over”Merry Christmas!” The millennium? Bah! Humbug!

Love came into the world at Bethlehem; light came into the darkness and the darkness will never put it out. Love without end or limit, light without flaw or imperfection. Forgiveness came that can never finally be rejected. Mercy that is implacable. Goodness that always wins. Life that is stronger than death, much stronger.

If we are to sing and dance and celebrate and light up the skies with fireworks, then Christmas is the right day to do so, not Jan. 1.

I’m a curmudgeon, you say?

No way. I don’t begrudge people their parties. I’ll go to the Chicago mayor’s party at McCormick place. I’ll watch the fireworks over Lake Michigan until the lights in the city go out one by one. I’ll wish people Happy Millennium, though I know full well that it’s just another artificial New Year’s day. I’ll try to imitate and reflect God’s forgiveness by controlling my rage at the morons who are firing off weapons all over town.

I will, however, still think it’s much ado about nothing.

Christmas, on the other hand, is much ado about everything.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

DEA END GREELEY