As the year draws to a close, we enter into a familiar series of sharp contrasts. Along with the calm and quiet of winter comes the frenzy of December’s last-minute preparations: there are decorations to be hung, parties to be planned, and trips to be made—or travelers to welcome. Christmas always has this dual aspect: no other spiritual feast brings such a flurry of material considerations. And while there is reason to lament the ever-present threat of commercialization, the exigencies of Christmas are also, in their way, strangely fitting. No Christmas could have been more distracted by practical considerations and concerns than the first one: as the Holy Family approaches Bethlehem, so too does the momentous event of a Child about to be born.
This is the paradox at the heart of the Christmas feast: no wonder could be more astonishing than the appearance in the flesh of the God-made-man; and yet, what miracle could have a more unassuming appearance? Angel choirs were sent to simple rustics so that at least some branch of the human family could be acquainted with the coming of the One expected for all ages, the deepest longing and desire of every human heart.
And so a new star glows in the sky to light the footsteps of the sages, who come from afar; and so do angel voices pour out seraphic praise as they direct poor shepherds to the great prodigy of God’s love. But what did those foreign kings and humble countryfolk find at the end of their journeys? The most supernatural of miracles in the most natural of forms: a babe asleep in the arms of His mother. What contrast could be more striking?
Christmas, then, is a reminder. We, in the pro-life movement, spend our days mired in the trenches of controversies, contending with the evils of our day while appealing to the consciences of our countrymen. But what is it, after all, that spurs us to this struggle which always seems to demand so much more than it can give? It is the miracle of human life that God both creates and, as the feast of Christmas reveals, in which He Himself participates.
God’s incarnation is ultimately motivated by our need for redemption. But that very redemption itself reveals the incalculable value of human life; God came to save us because the crown of His creation was too precious to Him to be forfeit to the perdition which, through the Fall, it had chosen. Thus does Bethlehem open again what Eden’s transgression had closed: a path for man back to the homeland of Heaven.
What we celebrate at Christmas, then, is not only God’s coming into the world. We mark, as well, the miraculous arrival of every human being. This, after all, is what we mourn at every funeral: the passing from our midst of a being of immeasurable worth. Abortion is such a barbaric evil, and euthanasia such an obscene indignity, for this same reason. At the very moments when fledgling life in the womb should be surrounded by love, care, protection and concern, it is snuffed out in the name of freedom, feminism, and self-determination. So too, when the elderly and ailing stand on the threshold of the hereafter, instead of holding the hands of those about to embark upon their last and greatest journey, we coerce them into—or impose upon them—a humiliating substitution. With assisted suicide and euthanasia, we submit the sacred mystery of death to the arrogant mastery of man; and we subject the awful arrival of the Angel of Death to the timing that no mortal has the right to decree.
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given” (Is 9:6). The prophecy of the Messiah’s coming is not different than the announcement of any human birth: to us all, a child is born. But while the birth of Christ inaugurates the era of our redemption, it is also evangel in itself, a lifting of the veil on the sacredness of every human life. If, in the Christ-child, we see the face of God, so too, in every human face should we see God’s own image, someone upon whom He has set His very Heart. Let us celebrate, this Christmas, both the mystery of the incarnation and the mystery in which we ourselves have been immersed: that sojourn of four-score-and-ten years on which an eternal weight quietly rests. Let us be grateful for having been given another year to do God’s will upon the earth, and to advocate for the God-given dignity of the children whose ranks, at Christmas, He joins.
We, at The Interim, wish you and your families a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
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