A spiritual reflection for Christmas Eve...

Augustine of Hippo (354-430), had one day come to an intellectual impasse. The great Saint had taken on the task of attempting to explain to his readers the nature of the Holy Trinity. Frustrated and needing time to think and meditate on this problem, he decided to go for a long walk along the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. As he was ruminating, his head bowed low looking at the sand and water passing beneath his feet, he looked up to see a child collecting water with a shell and pouring the contents of the shell into a hole in the sand on the shore.

Perplexed by what he was witnessing, Augustine questioned the little boy as to what he was doing. The boy immediately replied that he was attempting to pour the entire sea into the hole that he had just dug. Being an excellent teacher Augustine did not wish to let an opportunity pass whereby he could convey some wisdom to the boy and highlight to the child the futility of his quest.

On hearing Augustine's comments the boy ceased his work, placed the shell on the shore and looking Augustine in the eye, calmly said to him: "It would be easier to put the entire sea into this little hole than for you to explain the least part of the Mystery of the Blessed Trinity".

The little boy then revealed himself as an angel of God sent to Augustine so as to humble the Saint to understand the limitations of the human intellect in comparison to the vast greatness of God.

Seeing the hand of God in the hand of a child...

Sir Alec Guinness (1914-2000), the English actor best known for the role he despised most, that of Obi-Wan Kenobi of the Star Wars films (Episodes IV-VI), was born in 1914 in London, the illegitimate son of an apparently less than caring mother. Baptized and then later confirmed as an Anglican, Guinness recollected that he grew up to carry both in his heart and mind a firm prejudice against all things Catholic. During his youth Guinness experimented with a wide range of ideologies and beliefs, tasting Communism and Marxism, as well as participating in religious beliefs as distinct as Buddhism and Quakerism. Then a miracle occurred in Guinness' life.

While filming in a French village a movie based on G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown Mysteries, Guinness playing the lead role of the Catholic parish priest cum amateur detective, decided after filming had finished for the day not to change out of his black cassock, clerical collar and wide-brimmed hat. As he was making his way home a tiny little hand fell into his large palm. Taken aback Guinness stopped and looked into the eyes of a little French boy. The boy was obviously distressed and said to him: "Father, I am lost can you please take me to my home". That chance meeting of the little lost boy and Guinness would be the catalyst for the actor's journey to Catholicism.

Both stories reveal to us the truth of the passage of Scripture, "If only you would listen to him today; do not harden your hearts" (Hebrews 3: 15, The New Jerusalem Bible).

...and the voice of God in the voice of a child

In the two anecdotes a child appears, and a message from God is spoken to them, a message that changed the course of their thinking and their lives. Both men could quite easily have hardened their hearts as so many do to children, and said to the child who confronted them: "Leave me!" or "I have no time!", but in each case they saw the hand of God in the hand of the child, and they heard the voice of God in the voice of the child.

The message of Christmas is in itself a call to humility

The message of Christmas is in itself a call to humility in as much as it asks the Christian to appreciate the gift of new life and the dignity of each person no matter how small and defenseless they may be. Historians tell you, that the child born in the manger and attached to the breast of his mother, a peasant woman, was to become the great teacher who delivered the Sermon on the Mount, was to become the man who was to be transfigured at Mt. Tabor, was to become the young Rabbi who was to walk the Sea of Galilee, and to become the Lamb of God who was eventually to conquer death through his resurrection. Yet this 'becoming into' is a misnomer, for as Leibniz tells us we are all at the end of our lives, that which existed within us at the beginning; the mighty oak no matter how tall it eventually stands was always within the sapling; and so Christ was no less teaching us at His birth than teaching us from the cross on Golgotha.

That God chose to be an infant, that he chose to be a child, that the God of Creation chose to be weak, should shake every Christian into re-examining their personal attitudes toward children; for whatever is sanctified by God, cannot be set up for ridicule or disparagement or be an object of harm. As we become older, we fool ourselves into believing that the complexities of our lives, and the intricacies of our thoughts or the machinations of our dealings, or the number of our material possessions, in someway makes us more advanced than the babe lying on their backs striving to touch their feet on the toys that dangle across their cot. In the eyes of God, all lives are equivalent, and each of us, struck from the single template of God, has the ability to speak a wisdom first instilled in us by our Creator. We are made in the image of God, and this image is as perfect in the babe as it is in the adult. A child can teach the adult man or woman so much, even the child who has not yet obtained the clarity of speech or the ability to walk. Such an infant as Christ was in the manger in Bethlehem teaches us, how to appreciate the simple things, how to seek love and how to love, as well as what is important to life and living and what is not. Yet in Christ's Incarnation, there is another powerful message, that of God loving us to the point of sharing our human condition.

The voice of Christmas therefore can be seen as the message of Divine love carried to us by the voice of the child; it is a voice that still echoes in homes around the world, whenever a child laughs, or when a baby is born; for in this voice is the great gift of new life. It is a voice that still speaks on distant foreign shores, as it did in the days of Augustine; it is a voice that still speaks from out of the mouth of some poor, lost child; and it is a voice that remains buried within the heart of every adult, but waiting for a moment such as Christmas to be recollected and to be spoken with all its inherent Truth, freely and purely once more.

Andrew

Credits: Music: "When a Child is Born", Jay/Zacar. Performed by Amanda McKenna
Virgin and Child image by Stephen J. Sullivan, Schererville, IN, United States available at stock.xchng. Alec Guinness photo from home.earthlink.net/%7Estarwarswhill/_uimages/Obi-WanKenobi.jpg

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©2006 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

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