Christmas Lessons

We must remind the world that if Christmas comes in the depths of winter,
it is that there may be an Easter in the spring.

--Horacio de la Costa, S.J.

The Christmas season is not yet over, but time inexorably slips by our fingers and soon it will be spring. Father Horacio de la Costa was a Filipino Jesuit priest, historian and academic. He was the first Filipino Provincial Superior of the Society of Jesus in the Philippines, and a recognized authority in Philippine and Asian culture and history. Born in 1916, he died at age 60 in 1977. He gave this 7-minute Christmas homily in the mid-1950s. The homily has been quoted many times since. I quote it again today because it so beautifully encompasses the festival of surprises and paradoxes and hope that are part and parcel of life on Earth. 

“This is the night when shepherds wake to the song of angels; when the Earth has a star for a satellite; when wise men go on a fool’s errand, bringing gifts to a Prince they have not seen, in a country they do not know.

This is the night when one small donkey bears on its back the weight of the world’s desire, and an ox plays host to the Lord of heaven. This is the night when we are told to seek our king, not in a palace, but in a stable.

Although we have stood here, year after year, as our fathers before us, the wonder has not faded; nor will it ever fade; the wonder of that moment when we push open that little door, and enter, and entering find a mother who is virgin, and a baby who is God.

The only way to view Christmas properly is to stand on one’s head. Was there ever a home more topsy-turvy than the cave where Christ was born?

For here, suddenly, in the very heart of Earth, is heaven; down is up, and up is down; the angels look down on the God who made them, and God looks up to the things He made. There is no room in an inn for Him who made room for all of us by creating the universe and where God is homeless, and all men are at home.

We were promised a savior, but we never dreamed God Himself would come and save us. We know that He loved us, but we never dared to think that He loved us so much as to become one of us.

But that is the way God gives. His gifts are never quite what we expect, but always something better than we hoped for. We can only dream of things too good to be true; God has a habit of giving things too true to be false. That is why our faith is a faith of the unexpected, a religion of surprise.

Now, more than ever, living in times so troubled, facing a future so uncertain, we need such faith. We need it for ourselves, and we need to give it to others.

We must remind the world that if Christmas comes in the depths of winter, it is that there may be an Easter in the spring.”

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