Now there’s a thought …

October 15, 2006

It’s a bit of an occupational hazard… me and parish magazines. I get asked to contribute to them and I get to read others. And at Christmas time well-meaning clergy tend to follow the predictable theme of lamenting how Christmas has been hijacked by commercialism and how we need to get back to the peace and calm of that first Christmas.

I’ve always been uneasy about that approach. I came across this recently:

The sermon annoyed me. Which was doubly frustrating, since I had deliberately gone to Mass on my own to have a quiet hour without the usual distractions. It’s not that I question the priest’s right to interpret the Christian message. But what about my right? I’ve studied the Gospels too. Why is he allowed to monopolise the pulpit week after week?

He was talking about preparing for Christmas. All our rushing about, our shopping and planning special meals, our worries over choosing presents, our paper chains and tinsel, our frantic last minute sending of cards – all this was worldly and contrary to the spirit of Christmas. Christmas, he said, is about the quiet coming of Christ into the world. We can only recognise it in peace and stillness.

At this point I wanted to stand up and shout “objection!” God only present in peace and calm? Surely the whole Christmas story is about God being present everywhere, especially in the most ordinary events of life. Certainly the ordinary event of the birth of a baby is not a calm and still experience. Ask the women who have been through it.  (Clare Richards)

I like that. Certainly Christmas at the church on Fairford Leys is busy and bustling and I love it! It’s a reflection of the real world that we seek to engage with. So I wish you a very busy, bustling, frantic, hectic, fantastic Christmas. Please find time to rejoice that God is with us in the here and now, the everyday, and offers joy, hope and peace where it really matters: in our hearts and minds; once the wrapping up is done!

Rev Fred Ireland