The Christmas season has only just begun

The church continues to be swathed in white — billows of satin cloth, hundreds of shining lights, and the serenity of simple vestments. It is still Christmas! After four weeks of Advent’s humble, penitential purple the celebration is much longer than one day, lasting until the feast of the Lord’s baptism on Jan. 10. White is the liturgical color for the season. It is the color of light, purity, triumph, and glory; it is the color of angels and the Transfiguration and the white-robed armies of saints in heaven. The incarnation (literally, “enfleshed”) of God truly is luminous and pure, a triumph and a glory both for the Creator and for the created.

From the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: “During the Christmas season, the [Scripture] readings and reflections center on the birth of Christ into our world and into our hearts, and reflect on the gift of salvation that is born with him...including the fact that he was born to die for us. He is incarnate (in flesh), transcendent (we must rise above our present condition to meet him) and Emmanuel (he is with us as we rise).”

Jesus being born to die stirs up much spiritual contemplation, but chief among my thoughts is his real, earthly mother. She loved her baby. She would bury him. Even knowing that her boy was the messiah, his suffering and death must have broken her heart. A sword did indeed pierce her heart. We have cystic fibrosis in our family, which presently has a median life expectancy of forty years. Many mothers whose babies are diagnosed with it in utero opt to end their children’s lives. Jesus was born to die at 33. My greatest fear. And yes, I know it was the plan of salvation with great eternal meaning and he was the Son of God and our children with problems do not save humanity from sin. But, our lives our precious to our Lord. I am reminded of the Ghost of Christmas Present speaking harshly to Ebeneezer Scrooge while they watched the Cratchits: “‘Man,’ said the Ghost, ‘if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is, and where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child.’”

No humans are worthless of course, no matter how long they get to live; and that’s the point.

On Jan. 1, still during the Christmas season, Catholics celebrate another feast of Mary’s motherhood, Mary Mother of God. That beloved title was contested in the fifth century by the Nestorius, who promulgated a heresy holding that she was the mother of a man who put on divinity sometime later and that the title should not be used. A church council met in Ephesus in AD 431 and cleared it up, defining that Jesus was fully God and fully human (the theological term is hypostatic union), so she may properly be called the mother of God; not that she created God but that she carried and cared for God Incarnate (that theological term is theotokos, God-bearer). After all, it’s what Elizabeth exclaimed while they were both pregnant, “How is it that the mother of my Lord comes to me!”

We also have Epiphany on Jan. 6, remembered in the Mass on Jan. 3. This commemorates the visit of the wise men from the East, learned astronomers who charted the stars and had read Hebrew prophesies. Also called Twelfth Night in England, this is a joyous feast to be celebrated enthusiastically with roaring fires, juicy meats, music, and mulled cider! I make a fancy cake and hide a bean inside; whoever gets the bean piece is king for the night, which just means that he or she chooses the evening book and goes up to bed last. It is said that Shakespeare’s comedy of the same name was first performed on Epiphany.

So the Christmas season has only just begun, the liturgical calendar with its colors of nature calling us around once again in a reassuring cycle of theology, humility, penance, joy, and celebration. The plan of salvation is brought to mind yet again. Soon we will decorate in green for a time of growing in work as we buckle down and tackle Scriptures and feasts to learn more of Jesus, our faith, and being his hands for others. It is how we can, along with Mr. Scrooge’s vows, honor Christmas in our hearts and try to keep it all the year. But for now, we are bathed in glorious, luminous white – it’s still Christmas!

Allison Howell and her family are longtime residents of the Valley. They are Catholic converts and keep a hobby farm full of animals and children.

Opinions expressed on the Faith page are the author’s and are not necessarily those of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman, its staff or its parent company, Wick Communications Co. To submit a column or other news for the Faith page, email news@frontiersman.com, or call 352-2250.