Silent Night, Holy Night: The Importance of a Contemplative Christmas

Christmas is one of the holiest seasons of the liturgical year. It is also the time of year that we seem to have the least availability for silence and prayer; in the busyness of celebrating and doing good for others, our encounter with God through prayer is put on the back burner. Shopping, cooking, social events with friends and family, and the endless other things on our to do lists, have us scurrying in a million directions, all with Christmas music blaring in our ears everywhere we go. A 'contemplative experience' couldn't be further from being a description of how this season is!

Any reading of Scripture or spiritual works shows us that God is found by the soul in silence. God is encountered in solitude. God is heard when the world is withdrawn from.

As the celebration of Christmas is the celebration of the arrival of God Himself, and therefore a season for receiving all the more abundantly the presence of God, ought it not to be a season of greater contemplativeness, greater silence, and therefore greater encounter?

Perhaps this is why Christmas fails to impact our souls as deeply as it ought to - we are so swept up in externals that we fail to be present to the tremendous internal mystery that Christ is inviting us to.

In Carmel, there was the sweetest combination of the interior and exterior celebration. We had all the Christmas Masses given in the Missal (midnight, dawn, day), and festive mealtimes and recreations; yet in between, we parted ways to solitude, prayerfully entering into the spiritual richness of the day (and opening our mail from loved ones!). I found the quiet on Christmas surprising - I was used to the festive bustle of Christmas in the world, surrounded by family and friends all day, with little time outside of Mass for meditative pondering. To be honest, at first I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself, left alone for those hours on Christmas Day. Yet I quickly realized what a gift such quietness was, as I returned to the chapel, meditating on the Mass readings, and pondering with awe the joyous reality that there before my eyes in the Christmas manger, lay God Himself, become man. What tremendous grace! What tremendous love! How can one not be moved to tears at such a gift?!

With Mary and Joseph, may we take time to contemplatively gaze upon the face of God...

My friends, I encourage each of you, as we

prepare to delve into the Christmas season, to keep a contemplative heart. Set aside time in addition to Christmas Mass to quietly gaze upon the Infant in the manger. Bask in the radiant glow of graces He seeks to pour upon you. Ponder the mystery of being so loved by

God that He became man, so as to pursue more intimately His beloved. As lay people, we do not have the luxury of solitude that the cloister offers those within its holy walls; but as we go forth to mingle at Christmas celebrations, we do still have the cloisters of our hearts. In the midst of the festivities, return often to the quiet of that little cloister; a whispered prayer repeated throughout the day, "welcome, little Lord Jesus," "thank You, my Lord, for coming to us," "I love You, sweet Jesus," can go so far in re-focusing our hearts on the profound mystery of the day; such prayers also open our hearts each time to the abundant graces that await us, if we will only take a moment to receive them.

May you all have a blessed Christmas!