Receiving Christ Anew

Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol ends with that memorable line, “and it was always said of him [Scrooge], that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!”

Are we ready to “keep Christmas well”? I hope so. Over the past five weeks of the Church's journey through this season of expectancy, we have reflected together on “attitudes of the heart” that might better prepare us for Christ's coming. Central to preparing “well” for Christmas, we have learned, is both receiving the Lord's forgiveness and extending it to others.

Imagine how many enemies Scrooge must have made in his miserable existence. We read, “Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! … [T]he cold within him froze his old features.”

Dickens's descriptive language captures something of the spiritual paralysis we experience whenever we withhold forgiveness. Our features, our vitality, our very ability to love all become constricted, leaving us closed off to Christ's love and blind to Christ in our neighbor.

In the end, Scrooge was able to open his heart and “keep Christmas well” because, thanks to the aid of his ghostly visitors, he realized that he had become imprisoned in himself, in his greed, misery and selfishness. The coming of the Christ Child is God's way of aiding us to break free of our own selfishness and misery.

This liberation was brought about through the reconciliation and forgiveness Christ accomplished by His death and resurrection. In the paschal mystery, Christ reconciles us to the Father and teaches us that we must not only be willing to be reconciled, but also to extend that reconciliation to others — family, friends, those in the Church, ultimately even our enemies. In fact, we are called to be “ambassadors of Christ,” entrusted with “the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:20, 19).

This Christmas, still at the outset of a new liturgical year, we join Christ anew in His birth, only to walk more closely with Him, as He carries His cross, to the culminating point of the paschal mystery at Easter, when He reconciles all of creation to our Father in heaven. As we contemplate the mystery of Christmas, we see the very forgiveness of God personified in the Christ Child. “For the grace of God has appeared for the salvation of all men” (Ti 1:11)!

Christmas is the fulfillment of God's pledge — of His promises to us. No doubt the simplicity and beauty of the Christmas story appeals so much to us because the birth of a child is such a natural cause for rejoicing. We rejoice at the newness of life in our midst!

During the Christmas season, we will likely sing that familiar carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” which includes the line, “God and sinners reconciled.” May we truly live those lines. As ambassadors of His message of reconciliation, let us live forgiveness anew, and keep Christmas well. Come, Lord Jesus! Come!

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Bp. Paul S. Loverde is the bishop of the Diocese of Arlington in Virginia.

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