WHEN you prepared for today did you evoke traditions?
Write lists?
Did you feel relief as items were crossed off; shopping, decirations, tree, cards, presents?
Were your finances stretched?
There is another list with no cost, and more important; the Christian preparation for the Nativity.
Advent prompts our readiness for the gift unwrapped all those years ago; the birth of a boy whose future is written in the Gospels.
Do you marvel at that New Life?
We read the reactions of people who were told about this event, with its simplicity, humility, poverty, awe.
For some, it seemed too ordinary; they were waiting for something spectacular, not the birth of a child in an animal shelter.
Where was the palace, wealth, power, army?
These things were and are there.
Those with wonder see with simplicity, the stable as a palace; love, as a new wealth; power through humility.
They become an army that believes in a peaceful kind of leadership.
To see these views St. Francis, recreated the Nativity: “…that will recall the memory of that Child who was born in Bethlehem, to see with bodily eyes the inconveniences of his infancy, how he lay in the manger…”
Hopefully you have prepared.
Will you place the baby to complete the Family Nativity?
See the true image of Christmas.
Place Him central to your giving and receiving.
Then surely you will experience the true Joy, Peace, Love and Wonder that is ‘A Happy Christmas’.
Terry Crees is Foundation president of UCM, Corpus Christi RC Church, which meets at 9am and 11am on Sundays.
For information, visit: corpuschristi-wokingham.org
