Festive messages from the Bishop and Dean of Waterford
Bishop Alphonsus Cullinan
The Waterford News & Star have graciously been offered Christmas messages from both Bishop of Waterford & Lismore Alphonsus Cullinan, and Dean of Waterford The Reverend Bruce Hayes.
Every life is built on foundations. The question is - what foundations do we build on?
Some build on things which don’t last - pleasure, wealth, fame, honour, etc. Others build on things which do last – faith, hope and love.
Christ is continually challenging us to decide for the latter but the choice is ours. Ultimately he is the one who is the object of our faith and hope and He is love itself.
Of course we can find this difficult to understand or accept. He comes to us born in a stable and is so unlike what a saviour should be - with power and wealth and might. As G.K. Chesterton wrote: “Christmas is an obstacle to modern progress.”
Christmas is a survival of the past, rooted in the long distant past and is the story of a miraculous birth in a simple stable. It grates upon a modern scientific mind, which can only accept what can be empirically shown and proven. And yet there is something about Christmas, which goes very deep into the human soul and tugs at our heart-strings.
It is a reference point for life - something solid on which to build. We all have memories of past Christmasses, memories which are precious and, hopefully for the most part, happy ones.
Isn’t it strange that all time is measured from Christmas. We are now living 2025 years after the first Christmas and everything before it is BC - before Christmas!
The One born in the stable claims to be the Saviour of the whole world and of each person – healing us of our sins and offering us eternal life. He does not promise a life of ease and continuous joy on earth but the commercial world, which does, never achieves its aim.
We are never fully satisfied by anything earthly, only by something which is not merely earthly. The Child born at Christmas is both earthly and divine and so understands our human condition to the full and yet can do things which no mere human can do – like rise from the dead, forgive sins and offer us eternal life. He alone gives life its true meaning.
We are not made for this world alone but for the next. He plants a seed which flourishes in eternity. Our job is to guard that seed and make it grow by following the way of the Christ-Child, which will mean taking the rough with the smooth, knowing that life is a mixture of joys and sorrows but love will always win out in the end if we don’t lose hope.
Christmas is the root of something which gives solidity to our whole lives. It is important then to really celebrate it well and to try to realise its essential importance. The Christ Child calls to us all to believe in him and to allow ourselves to enter into the mystery of it all – to lower our heads and let go of our all-too-stubborn desire to be in control and figure everything out with our own intellect. We can’t. Even if we try to do so we find ourselves rootless because we are merely human and therefore limited and weak. Thankfully there is One who is strong and eternal but who makes himself weak for our sake in the stable in Bethlehem.
I hope that all of us will make Christmas a real reference point for life and find in the Christ Child our Friend and Saviour and that we and our children will have something solid (the only truly solid thing) on which to build their lives.
The opening prayer of nearly all the Masses during the Advent preparation for Christmas have these or very similar words, “May we judge wisely the things of earth and love the things of heaven.”
Happy Christmas.
I was getting worried there would be no Christmas trees left anywhere in Waterford when I finally got a chance to go out and look for one. Thankfully, one appeared in the house yesterday, and all I had to do was put it in the stand. I came back into the room an hour later and it was all decorated. I got off very lightly!
When I was a small boy getting the Christmas tree was one big adventure. I remember running in amongst the trees and hiding under branches, holding my breath in excitement. When we agreed on one, it would be tied to the top of the car and we would travel home, hoping it would not be lost on the way.
Without fail, every time, we’d chose a tree that was too big; Dad always had to saw a piece off the end to get it to fit in the room. Then we would have the job of putting it in a bucket and packing rocks around it, obviously in the days before Christmas tree stands were invented. Then we decorated. And the tree was slowly transformed.
We carefully hung-up decorations that were years old, together with things we had made at school. There was no colour co-ordination, or theme, everything we had went on. The lights were always troublesome, they’d never work, bulbs had to be changed, wires twisted and held together with some tape. Finally: the star, or an angel, or even one year, a teddy! I remember my little sister saying it had to be an angel, but I told her there were no rules about what you were allowed to put on the tree!
At the heart of Christmas, in amongst all the decorations, all the negotiations, all the family, and all the food, there are those who broke all the rules. There is the child Jesus who was born out of wedlock, he who was eventually executed as a criminal, and from his birth was hunted down by the authorities. There is the young woman, Mary, who declared that all rulers should be overthrown from their thrones, and who had to flee the country with her baby. There are shepherds, who were seen as barely better than robbers, and foreigners who come travelling with abundant gifts. It was far from normal. The first Christmas was a tumultuous affair.
At the heart of Christmas is boundary-crossing grace and love. It is a time when sorrow and joy are intertwined. There is loneliness and community, fear and security, what is completely new, and what is very old. A meeting place between heaven and earth, for at Christmas God was born as a child.
I think of my childhood Christmas tree with joy, because it reminds me that Christmas is for people, not about rules. The tree gives me, every year, a reminder that Christ was born to share our chaos and our darkness. And that means that no matter what Christmas will be like for you or I, it will be a real Christmas.
