Christmas Cheer
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Hello girls and boys.
So, Christmas again. Celebrated as the birth not just of Jesus Christ but of life in general, it coincides with the last week of the calendar and, more importantly, with the first of the new year. I love those festivals that remind us of new life, new hope, for a world that seems always in need of encouragement. For you as a student, it is the end of your study year and the warning of exams in the not too distant future, God help you. If you are past the student stage, then it is a climax of all that the year has meant to you, a ringing down of the year's curtain.
It's a romantic story, the birth of the child Jesus in the cave in Bethlehem that you have heard every December. Mother Mary could not find place in the inns that were packed out with locals returning in response to an order from Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus who was taking a census of all his subjects by insisting that they return to their mulluck. And she was nine months pregnant. So she and Joseph had to settle for a cave in which the birth took place – not unnoticed by all sorts of unexpected events, as becometh one who was to be later a history changer. A strange star, travelling kings, a murderous monarch, shepherds following an angelic choir – a great and moving story it is. One of the songs associated with it runs "Joy to the world"…
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But you know, your birth too is "Joy to the world", as every birth is. You bring a new something to us all, as something that no one else but you could bring, your way of simply being you. That's why we celebrate birthdays. May this particular celebration bring you too joy this year, 2016, and enable you to experience the fullness that it promises.
God bless.
Brendan MacCarthaigh
macbren82@gmail.com
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