Editorial: A Saviour is born

There is a magic about a Christmas morning that never ceases to amaze.

Whatever struggles and disappointments and sadness we may have experienced throughout the year, there is something about waking up on that glorious day that is special. It awakens in us a childhood wonder at the miracle that was born so many centuries ago. A Saviour has come to be among us, to heal our wounds and instil in us the gifts that can make our world a better place for all.

On Christmas morning, all things are possible. If only it can be like this every day, we wish.

It can, of course, if only we let it. The spirit of this day does not have to end when Christmas presents have been opened, the dishes are cleared, the relatives go home and turkey leftovers go in the fridge. Tomorrow we don’t have to go “back to normal” until next year when we can do it all over again.

The child born in that manger is with us all year round. That is the message of our faith, a message of good news that we can spread in all we do. It may be through a kind word, or an act of charity, or doing a favour for someone in need. Whatever it may be, it is done in the spirit that sprang from that first Christmas morn.

It’s a fact that these last few Christmas seasons have been difficult. We have seen how the pandemic has made our lives more stressful. More people are lonely, more are suffering, more have been pushed into the ranks of the marginalized. We yearn and pray for brighter days ahead.

Christmas day will not change the world, but it reminds us that there is a child who has been born to help us do just that.

Over the many years of Christmas editorials in the archives of The Catholic Register, that message of hope has appeared again and again. This one from 100 years ago is worth repeating:

“Christmas memories pulsate with life,” the editorial from 1921 read. “We do not look back to Christmas as a thing which took place in the long ago and which we view through the hazy corridors of centuries. The brightness of God which shone round about the shepherds of Bethlehem 19 centuries ago glows round us this and every other Christmas Day. The angelic song which filled them with rapture comes to us sweet and fresh as when it entranced the Judean hills. The rapture which filled their souls when they took into their arms the Infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger is felt even in the more keenly spiritual form in hundreds of millions of hearts today.

“‘This day is born to you a Saviour’ is no message from the far-away past. It is an announcement of a splendid thrilling fact which is taking place in our midst at this very moment. Every day and every hour there is truly born to us a Saviour who is Christ the Lord, as on the first Christmas morn. ‘God is with us’ in our flesh as really as He was in the midst of the adoring groups of shepherds and Magi.”

May all your days be filled with the true spirit of Christmas.