Unveiling the Secret of Christmas

Today was a calm and even boring day for the vicar and me, at our sojourn in the parochial hideaway;* the blizzard (so the Cincinnati Enquirer breathlessly proclaims last night's snow) didn't so much keep me from getting out, as it made me wonder if, upon driving over to the parish office, I might not be able to get back, i.e., out of that parking lot; and in any case, my car would then unnecessarily be in the way of the company who will be plowing the lots today or tomorrow. So, having a phone, a pen and a laptop -- with email access -- I stayed home. A shame, really, because going to the office when no one else is around can be nice. Oh well.

Since my Christmas homily is written and a copy of it is in my car, and a surprising amount of office work having been accomplished yesterday, I really had nothing much to do today. 

So aside from other mundane duties (such as the laundry I remembered just now), I have time to contemplate -- and listen to Christmas music. I know, I know, it's not Christmas yet; I'm getting soft in my old age. Across "Music Choice, Sounds of the Seasons" channel came "Believe" by Josh Groban, featured some years back in a popular Christmas film, "Polar Express." Here are the lyrics: 

Children sleeping 

Snow is softly falling

Dreams are calling 

Like bells in the distance

We were dreamers 

Not so long ago 

But one by one, 

All had to grow up 

When it seems the magic's slipped away

We find it all again on Christmas day 

Believe in what your heart is saying 

Hear the melody that's playing

There's no time to waste 

There's so much to celebrate 

Believe in what you feel inside 

And give your dreams the wings to fly 

You have everything you need 

If you just believe

Trains move quickly 

To their journey's end 

Destinations 

Are where we begin again 

Ships go sailing 

Far across the sea 

Trusting starlight 

To get where they need to be 

When it seems that we have lost our way 

We find ourselves again on Christmas day 

Believe in what your heart is saying 

Hear the melody that's playing 

There's no time to waste 

There's so much to celebrate 

Believe in what you feel inside 

And give your dreams the wings to fly 

You have everything you need 

If you just believe 

If you just believe 

If you just believe 

Just believe 

Just believe 

Now, this is a pleasant enough song, and like so many secular Christmas songs, rather vacuous. Does it deserve my zeroing on it? Maybe not; you be the judge. Yet something about this song -- while admitting there are things to praise it for -- stuck in my craw. "Just believe...just believe..." 

Nope.

Now, full disclosure; I never saw the film. So: rebut away in the comments. That said, it occurred to me that while combatting excessive materialism and cynicism is a good thing, the mantra, "Just believe," is drastically flawed: Just believe in...WHAT?

In Santa Claus? In Coca-Cola? In Karl Marx?

I am a relic of a disappearing age, in which it was taken for granted that objective reality existed and was knowable; that we do not merely invent reality, but discover it and work out how to live at peace with it. So I am ill-equipt for the notion that people might seriously embrace "believing" without any consideration of a referent for that belief. Do people actually suppose belief, as such, is worthwhile? Whittaker Chambers, and many others, devoutly believed in the vision of Communism with the fervor of any religion. Only the act of believing matters, not the object focused on? Really?

I am not a pre-conversion Scrooge about all the accretions of Christmas. I do not scorn secular Christmas music; I do not object all that much to feasting, luxury, commercialism and "excess." But it occurs to me that some of us who know the Secret may not realize a growing number of people aren't in on it: the Secret of Christmas.

So I will now reveal it publicly. Please refer anyone here who may have been in the dark.

Christmas has more layers than a well executed Backlava. It's all fun and worthwhile, and more connected than many realize. But let's start pulling back the veils, one by one.

Christmas, at bottom, is not about:

- Presents and children being good and Saint Nicholas making a miraculous circuit of the earth;

- Romance and magic and kissing under the mistletoe and grooms popping the question;

- Bright, rich decorations with lots and lots and lots of lights;

- Family being family;

- Sending cards and calling and connecting;

- Peace and joy and love;

- All the various memorable films, poems and stories;

- (Fill in the blank....).

Or, to be more precise, Christmas is ONLY about these things because -- only because -- it is about this:

In the fullness of time, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law...

-- as Saint Paul wrote to the Galatians (4:4). 

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory,

the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth...

-- according to the Apostle John, who himself saw his glory (John 1:14).

I don't begrudge people enjoying Christmas, without explicit belief; good will and joy are God's gifts, and they can only draw someone closer to Jesus. But from time to time, let's remember the true founder of the feast.

And let me state as forcefully as I can. "Just-believe-ism" is foolish. But the Word-Made-Flesh? Believe in HIM. Don't "just" believe; live for him; die for him; let him live in you, and live forever.

Viva Christo Rey!

* Translation: in my new "family" of parishes, I have three vicars; one lives at Our Lady of Good Hope's rectory; one lives at his own home -- Saint Mary of the Assumption having no rectory of its own; and the third vicar and I live in a house owned by St. Henry, not on campus but nearby. None of these houses is suitable for more than two priests; at some point a new housing arrangement will be made.