The Meaning of Christmas 2020

This 6-Minute Video Below Buoyed Our Faith

We will be celebrating Christmas with our families in the coming days, most of us in isolated and virtual settings. I will make a “compassionate visit” to my wife who has lived through a year of decline with Alzheimer’s Disease, hospitalization from the coronavirus, and admission to Hospice.

I know that she would join me in being grateful that so many of our friends and family have made it through this difficult time with courage.

This season reminds us of what matters most: love, peace, joy, the promise of a better tomorrow. For us, it also brings to mind the question, what of our faith?

Any journey of suffering and looming mortality gives pause to re-visit one’s faith — from the seemingly preposterous idea that there is an Ineffable Spirit that touches our lives to the pilgrimage we make “to deepen our sense of mystery in order to be worthy of attaining faith” realizing that “God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance.” (Heschel)

In the television series, The Crown, Prince Phillip is asked by his mother, a nun who has returned to Buckingham Palace from a nunnery in Greece, “And what about your faith?” He replies, “My faith is dormant.” She ponders and turns to him as they walk arm-in-arm into the gardens and replies, “That is not good. Find yourself a faith.”

Again, for us, Christmas is not so much about a birth as a life in pursuit of a faith…