Christmas comes with all its joys and sorrows, and its unwavering promise of hope

Christmas afternoon at last; finally a lull in proceedings in which to share a quiet moment with our readers. The Holy Father has delivered Urbi et Orbi from the balcony of St Peter’s Basilica; the King has broadcast a heartfelt Christmas Message not from Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, but from the homely little Fitzrovia Chapel (formerly the spiritual heart of the Middlesex Hospital) in London. Deep in rural Kent, where I am this year, we have kept the feast in fine fettle and raised a glass to His Majesty’s health. Take that, Oliver Cromwell.

What were those Puritans thinking? The idea that the coming of Christmas somehow belonged to Parliament to control; the attempt to ban its observance in 1647; roasting geese snatched out of ovens by zealous military enforcers. It was all part of an anti-Catholic agenda, of course. It was said that one ardent Protestant MP, Thomas Massey-Massey, went as far as to suggest that its name should be changed to “Christ-tide”, but was laughed back into his seat when an opponent asked how he would like to be called “Thotide Tidey-Tidey”.

It is a story that deserves to be true, even if its provenance is wobbly; Stephen Bullivant unpicked its finer details in these pages nearly a decade ago. Others will have their own favourite seasonal tales, such as the ongoing argument about whether opposing sides actually played any football during the unofficial Christmas truces up and down the Western Front at Christmas 1914, which sit in the seasonal consciousness like a snoozing uncle in an armchair by the fire. None of them, of course, can outdo the Greatest Story of All.

Over the last few weeks that story has been told in carol services all over the world. Mid-December is carol-service season, and it can be a job to fit them all in. My college service in London was packed to the gunnels, with standing room only. Old carols and old friends; passable wine and lukewarm mince pies; the annual scratch choir and the usual readings. I’m not a strict traditionalist when it comes to biblical translation, but there’s something about the cadences of the older versions that doesn’t quite transfer to the modern texts.

“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” seems to me to land better on the ear than “The Word became a human being and lived here”, as one rendering has it. It’s true, of course, but hardly as evocative. The most impressive reading this year, however, came at the Aid to the Church in Need Carol Service at Farm Street on 17 December, sung in Aramaic – the language of Jesus – by Archbishop Athanasius Toma, who leads the Syrian Orthodox community in the UK. It was like being in a different country, in a different millennium.   

The invitations to the service were enigmatically vague, and simultaneously promising. We were bidden to arrive an hour early and to bring photographic ID. To seasoned event-attenders (and journalists on the job) it presaged royalty; given the noble cause in question, probably His Majesty. We were not disappointed; the King sat all of ten feet away from me, although in the end my view was blocked by a good-natured security officer who slipped in at the last minute. He was looking forward to spending Christmas Day at home with his family, having spent the last seventeen years on duty at Sandringham.

Many people reading this will also be on duty in one way or another: doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals caring for the sick and dying; members of the armed forces on active service; the clergy, on parade all day and every day, ready to respond to need as it arises. I am willing to bet that more than one priest reading this has spent at least some time today at a bedside, purple stole around his neck and the oils in their little box, hearing a final confession and administering viaticum. It is not all Midnight Mass and mulled wine.

Perhaps more readers will be spending the day in grief, which often hits particularly hard at this time of year, as one of our chaplains observed earlier this month. Deadly conflict continues in the Middle East and in Eastern Europe; Germany continues to mourn the victims of last week’s Magdeburg attack. High on my own heart is a young man who took his own life in January (about whom I have written in the Daily Telegraph) and his family, who are spending their first Christmas without him. Do pray for them.

Remember, too, those who have spent today on the streets, and for those who have ministered to them, of all denominations and none; among those whom the King met at Farm Street were rough sleepers whom the Jesuits care for at their night shelter, which they run with the help of the local Methodists. Keep in mind those in prison, separated from their families, and others who have spent the day alone. With St Stephen’s Day almost upon us, make a special intention for those who have kept the feast under the threat of death or violence.

Spare a thought, too, for the church musicians who still have Second Vespers of Christmas to get through before their day is done; my only remaining duty is to vamp the usual classics on the piano. I do not think we will manage “Kings of the Earth”, which a Chaldean choir sang at Farm Street – particularly striking in the presence of the sovereign. “Kings of the earth and all nations; kings, sons of kings, take off the crowns from your heads and worship the firstborn Holy Son who shone from Blessed Mary and came to save the world.”

Nor will we attempt the antiphon to tonight’s Magnificat, which, as often is the case on great feasts, sums up the whole day in its own little potted narrative: Hodie Christus natus est: hodie Salvator apparuit; hodie in terra canunt Angeli, laetantur Archangeli; hodie exsultant justi, dicentes: Gloria in excelsis Deo, alleluia! We might instead get through Adeste Fideles, Ding Dong Merrily on High and a few others besides. But first a little glass of something sweet beckons, and a slice of cake. A very happy Christmas to you all.

Serenhedd James is Editor-in-Chief of the Catholic Herald

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