Christmas Tag (A short one)

"Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb..."*

1) This is my favorite time of year. I absolutely love Christmas and all its meaning, even though it's highly commercialized and secularist and irreligionist forces try desperately to commandeer it.

2) Like most of you I despise "Happy Holiday" greetings. It's a cowardly way of wishing someone a Merry Christmas.

3) Unlike most of you - probably because you've never heard it before - I prefer the expression "May Christ be born in you." This prayer/ blessing is spoken by monks during Advent at an Abbey whose name, regrettably, I have forgotten.

4) I struggle with science and faith as often as I think of God, which leads me to number 5

5) I think about God and His existence constantly, around the clock, while driving, while walking, while reading, while working, while listening to music. I contemplate different ways of finding Him; perhaps looking at something or at some thought from a different angle might yield a greater understanding into who He is and how I can live comfortably with that understanding. Perhaps during the times I toiled I was looking too deeply or not deep enough or I thought I understood my own struggles to believe when in actuality I didn't. Even doubts are sometimes difficult to understand.

6) During Christmas, I reflect on the words of Teilhard de Chardin and his assertion that Jesus Christ was the most perfectly evolved human being that ever lived. In Jesus Christ, Chardin saw "both matter and the spirit of God definitely combined", as well as our ultimate destiny. Be careful how you interpret this. Chardin was a Catholic priest and NOT a pantheist.

7) In Church tradition the Holy Spirit is often described as the Love shared between the Father and the Son. This is one of the most beautiful thoughts that can enter my feeble mind. That God would Love so incomprehensibly and place the fullness of Himself behind that Love is an idea that can move any unbeliever with an open mind.

8) Even during the times I struggle with believing in God, I think faith in Him is a magnificent and beautiful gift to mankind. I'm seized by the impression that faith in the Creator will someday yield a good conclusion.

May Christ be born in you.

*Taken from John Donne's poem Nativity.