Handling the Christmas Rush

It gets so busy this time of year. Hectic might be a better word! And this busyness comes at a time when we would like to step back and relish the season. We might even entertain some “romantic” notions that  . . . if only we were in a monastery away from all this craziness, then we would have a really spiritual Advent and Christmas. Of course, even in the monastery we cannot run away from ourselves. Here are some thoughts from Andrew Greeley, SJ.

It might be easy to run away to a monastery, away from the commercialization, the hectic hustle, the demanding family responsibilities of Christmas-time. Then we would have a holy Christmas. But we would forget the lesson of the Incarnation, of the enfleshing of God—the lesson that we who are followers of Jesus do not run from the secular; rather we try to transform it. It is our mission to make holy the secular aspects of Christmas just as the early Christians baptized the Christmas tree. And we do this by being holy people—kind, patient, generous, loving, laughing people—no matter how maddening is the Christmas rush…