³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

From Father Brian D’Arcy, a Catholic Passionist priest:

Last Tuesday I was on the brink of giving Christmas a miss this year. There was so much to do, and so little time to do it, that I had to give myself a good talking to.

Pressure can go either way – it can burst pipes or make diamonds and it’s up to me to choose. So I did. When you can’t change the direction of the wind, you have to adjust your sails.

In my mind I drifted back to childhood and remembered what my Parents taught me about Christmas, not so much in words but by what they did for us.

When I was a child we hadn’t any luxuries but I never went to bed hungry.

At Christmas, there were no expensive presents yet we had wonder-filled Christmas mornings pulling homemade wrapping from pullovers and socks my mother knitted for us.

The big open hearth fire in our kitchen crackled with ash logs my father cut from trees he had grown. We carried the turf sods home on a donkey and cart from a bog beside us.

The goose we ate grew fat on the fields at the back of our home; we watched with wide-eyed wonder when mother poured stout into the homemade Christmas pudding a month earlier.

We got up before 6 on Christmas morning and walked a mile along a dark country road to Mass in our church. That’s the most sacred memory I have of Christmas.

I don’t remember a single word the priest preached, but I do remember the singing, the joy, the good humour, and the peaceful atmosphere.

Christmas isn’t so much about getting gifts; it’s being grateful for what I have. It’s more about opening hearts than opening presents. It’s a feeling not a season. For me Christmas is a piece of childhood I carry in my heart forever.

God’s love is total and unconditional; that’s why He comes as a helpless, gurgling baby. And who could possibly say no to a baby?

Christmas means loving those close to us - the people who make us what we are.

Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?