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Ongoing Mystery - Christmas continues
“Commercial Christmas” ends on December 25 with the removal of all related to it. And many of those who have been hearing Christmas music in public spaces and on digital media since before Thanksgiving, have grown tired of it and are glad that it has ceased. Some, even those who had looked forward to the prayerful celebration of the Christ-Mass have already focused on the coming events associated with New Year’s Day. However, since we are not coerced into moving on from “Real Christmas,” we are free to reflect on the ongoing mystery of God being infinite and yet born a frail human, of being eternal, and yet having entered our limited environment of chronological time. We might even join with the tradition of the continuing Christmas Season which begins on December 25 and ends with the Baptism of the Lord. The “12 Days of Christmas” is more than just a song.
However, the ongoing mystery which underlies all aspects of our sincere love is not primarily a graced reality that is tied to a specific date in our calendars or to an image of the newborn Jesus lying in a manger, but to the life-altering gift of faith itself, which enables us to trust in God’s love manifested in becoming one with us. We might not think about it very often, but we live with a foundational sense of God as good and as always present, having been made visible at the birth of God in Jesus the Christ as a member of the human family. For our own well-being as well as for everyone else, we can consciously attend to the mystery of God-with-us and perhaps read what other believers say about it; we can pray privately and communally about our belief, sometimes engaging with Gospel stories, and we can also share faith-experiences with others whom we trust.
Children do not understand love as a concept, but they know when they are treasured for who they are rather than their behavior. We ourselves can best appreciate the ongoing mystery of love by noting how we feel while we think and pray about God’s initiatives in creating us, holding us lovingly in being, and taking on human life with us, including all the positive and negative aspects each of us experiences. All this, plus the gift of faith itself by which we trust and love God in return by loving all of God’s beloved fellow humans. Finally, we accept with gratitude that we are called with Jesus through death into the life that does not end.
There is no expiration date for pausing to wonder joyfully and gratefully at the ongoing mystery of God with us as one of us
Last Updated 12/27/2025