By Father Casey

The twelve days are over. The gifts have all been opened and the cookies eaten. The nativity is packed away, the greens are ash for the garden, and the magi are headed home by another road.

But I tell you, I'm not through with Christmas.

Oh, I'm happy to say goodbye to commercial Christmas. It always arrives too early, and I'm sick of it before my family has even put up our tree.

No, I'm talking about Christmas. The Incarnation. Love in a tiny fragile body. Salvation swaddled in a mother's arms. I'm not through with Emmanuel. I hope you aren't, too.

Holding onto Christmas is an act of hope in a weak and weary world.

Holding onto Christmas is an act of faith in a world that seems deaf to the angels' song of peace.

Holding onto Christmas is an act of courage in a world that is every bit as hostile to the kingdom of God as it was when the Word became flesh.

The Christmas I'm trying to hold onto isn't the sweetly sentimental scene of so much art through the ages. It's not a snow globe fantasy of silent serenity in which the Holy Family didn't seem to have a care or concern. No, the Christmas I'm holding onto is the one in which God enters our real world, our dangerous world, our world of injustice and oppression, of cruelty and violence. The Christmas I'm holding onto is the one in which God enters this sinful and broken world in utter vulnerability, with nothing to protect himself but the power of love. And it is enough.

It was enough then, and it is enough now.

A betting man would have put his money on Herod. After all, he was the one on the throne. He was the one with the weapons and wealth. He was the one with a tiny conscience but a massive ego. He was the one everyone was so afraid of they let him do whatever he wanted.

But Herod did not win. He flailed and raged. He lashed out against his opponents and made victims of the innocent. He clung to power by fear and intimidation, by threats and bullying. But Herod did not win. He never does, and that is the gospel truth.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.

So let's hold onto Christmas, now more than ever. Let's listen for the angels' song of peace instead of the harsh voices clamoring for war. Let's refuse to be intimidated by Herod and his henchmen. Let's stand with refugees and migrants, who are just like the Holy Family. Let's double down on truth and beauty when so many are trading them in for lies and ugliness. Let's choose mercy over might, compassion over cruelty, generosity over greed. Let's face this sinful and broken world just as our Lord did, with nothing but the power of love, trusting that it will be enough.

Fr. Casey +