Rediscovering the Magic…

A woman I know once told me a story that I think of at Christmas time. As a child, she loved Christmas. It was a real time of mystery for her. Her family was poor but Santa came every year, and the presents were always there under the tree. Santa’s presents were pure gift. No price tags, the presents were there for her because she was loved.

But as she grew up, the mystery side of her life faded. Christmas soon became a nostalgic time as she remembered when she could still believe in something beyond her everyday life. 

By now she had stopped going to Church. After all, if Jesus was born 2000 years ago but not really part of her life at this stage, and if God created us but then seemed to leave us to live our lives without many signs of his presence, then maybe there was no need to be religious.

One day, a friend invited her to meet with some people who were trying to live the Gospel. They talked about small and great events to which she could relate.  But, with a difference – these people seemed to have a childlike faith in the words of Jesus, believing in sentences such as “love one another as I have loved you”; “whatever you do to the least you do to me”.

These people were ordinary folks just like her, with ordinary jobs and families.  The experiences they told, however, based on living the Gospel, challenged her comfortable idea that she was in complete charge of her life. She began to think to herself that perhaps God had not abandoned her to live a life without any connection to him.

She was particularly struck when she heard someone speak of Jesus’ commandment of love of neighbour. She found herself thinking of a neighbour that she had often greeted but never really bothered to get to know. She decided she’d go and visit this neighbour. They ended up talking for a long time about life, its ups and downs. When she got home, she felt a great joy in her heart.

She wondered about what this joy was. Something had happened. On the one hand, she had established a new friendship with a neighbour, but even more she discovered a new dialogue with God inside her, a dialogue she thought was something relegated to her childhood, and not really part of her adult life. The Christmas magic of knowing she was loved and could love had lit up again in her life. She could believe in something beyond her everyday life.

That’s the beauty of Christmas with its lights and images, its beautiful scent and warm atmosphere. Somehow it helps us see the invisible again in the visible. It’s an invitation to discover that our lives are more than humdrum routine. The child born two thousand years still has a message for us today: “you are loved; you can love”; “live love of neighbour and you will know love because life is our great chance to love”.

This is the Christmas magic that can light up even our darkest days.