Abbey-Roads2

The suffering of the Infant Jesus and his friends…

The Nativity narratives, and the feast days of the martyrs (especially the Holy Innocents) which immediately follow the feast of Christmas, are fair warning to us that the peace of Christmas does not mean the absence of suffering.  What a great mystery this is for us to comprehend, and maybe, quite the surprise for not a few.  Perhaps this is one reason why families in our country wound, maim, and kill one another at this time of year - because of the stress of the holidays?  Or why others commit suicide.  While others may just over-medicate on alcohol, drugs, food, or find something else distracting enough to get them through the disappointment of the season of unreal expectations.

Unreal expectations.

Religious people have them too, especially around Christmas time.  It is difficult to maintain one’s emotional and spiritual balance during the Christmas season if a person is not well grounded.  Caryll Houselander wrote a wonderful book, Wood of the Cradle, Wood of the Cross,  a book on spiritual childhood in the light of the passion of the Child Jesus.  I expect there can be no greater reality for us than that of our all-powerful God, emptying himself, taking upon himself the suffering of our human nature, born in the extreme humility of a stable in Bethlehem.  [That is, if one is able to ponder the scene realistically, without falling prey to sentimentality.]   

Houselander on reality:

To accept oneself as one is; to accept life as it is: these are the two basic elements of childhood’s simplicity and humility. But it is one thing to say this and another to do it. What is involved? First of all, it involves the abandoning of all unreality in ourselves. But even granted that we have the courage to face ourselves and to root out every trace of pretense, how shall we then tolerate the emptiness, the insignificance, that we built up our elaborate pretense to cover?

The answer is simple. If we are afraid to know ourselves for what we are, it is because we have not the least idea of what trial is.

The acceptance of life as it is must teach us trust and humility. This is because every real experience of life is an experience of God. Every experience of God makes us realize our littleness, our need, our nothingness, but at the same time the miracle of Christ in us. Not only are we one of God’s creatures — which is in itself a guarantee of His eternal creating love — but we are also His Christ, His only Son, the sole object of His whole love. These two facts balance the scales of trust: our nothingness and our allness. 

If, in the light of this knowledge, we give ourselves unreservedly to life, every phase of it, every experience in it will lead us back to the inward heaven of spiritual childhood. “All the way to Heaven is Heaven,” says St. Catherine of Siena, and this is a thousand times true of the heaven of spiritual childhood, because it means becoming, not any child, but the Christ Child who is the life and the heaven of the soul.- Caryll Houselander