Christmas traditions and Christmas truths

Last year's December magazine article:

Lying next to me on my desk, waiting to be opened is my pre-Christmas reading for this year – Pope Benedict XVI's book on the Infancy Narratives of Jesus of Nazareth. In this book Pope Benedict goes back to the stories of Jesus' infancy in Matthew and Luke's gospels to re-examine what they say and what they mean for us today. So far, so uncontroversial. Or so you'd think. Some in the media took a different view. A Reuters report pointed out that several attention-grabbing media headlines tried to make it seem as if Pope Benedict was attacking Christmas; headlines such as"Killjoy pope crushes Christmas nativity traditions," "Pope sets out to debunk Christmas myths," "The pope's war on Christmas," and even "Pope bans Christmas."

All of these headlines owe more to journalistic sensationalism than anything that was actually in the book. Pope Benedict, in returning to the gospel accounts themselves, pointed out how some of our ideas about the Christmas story are not supported by the gospels. For example, he says that the gospels do not say that there were any animals present when Jesus was born, and that the angels said “Glory to God in the highest” rather than sang it. Filtered through hyperbole these became the Pope banning nativity cribs and carols, even though in the book Pope Benedict states "No representation of the crib is complete without the ox and the ass" and "Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is actually song" so it is only natural that we “join in their carolling on the Holy Night".

But something else, apart from journalists getting carried away, lies behind these headlines, and that is the challenging of traditions. Christmas is a time full of traditions both old and new, most of which are dearly held, and sometimes these traditions compete. Arguments over whether your have Christmas pudding before or after the Queen's speech, or whether you see all of the family on Christmas Day or none of them, although trivial can take on epic proportions precisely because they are to do with some of our most cherished habits.

In his book Pope Benedict seeks to look beyond the various Christian traditions to the 'gospel truth' of the Christmas story, not to get rid of them but to enhance them by reminding us of the greater truth that lies at the heart of the story. This Christmas, why not pick up a Bible and read the first part of Matthew and Luke's gospels and hear the original story again (or come along to church to hear it!). To use Pope Benedict's words, I pray that the many Christmas traditions, but especially the gospel accounts themselves, will “help you on your path toward and alongside Jesus”. God bless you this Christmas.