The simple truth of Christmas

+ Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney
26 Dec 2004

I have always enjoyed Christmas. In this I have been blessed or lucky; or perhaps both.

Christmas has been good to me because I was born into a loving family and imbibed the faith from family, schools and parishes. As a priest in every parish where I have worked, the faith and joy of the people celebrating the birth of Christ have been a tonic.

Christmas calls us back to simple truths. Nearly everyone rejoices at the birth of a child and Christians rejoice that this child is the Son of God.

Here in the southern hemisphere we are not in mid-winter. Light and sun abound. But the sun is only a creation, and rather small by cosmic standards. God is its creator and so we name God's Son, the helpless Christ child, the light of the world.

In Christ's life was the light of men; and this light shines in the darkness and the darkness could not over power it. (John 1:5).

Not everyone who saw Christ in the flesh was able to believe or accept his message. Some did not bother to try. Others found it jarred with their habits of mind. A few saw the light for a while and then lost it. And so it is today.

We are now concluding a period when some Catholics believed that personal meaning could be found in "Catholic lite", a milder, more sophisticated brand without the radical substance, the sacrifice of mind and will, which gives Catholicism its enduring strength.

When Christianity is tamed like this, it can continue to intrigue distant admirers, but it does not provoke people to join up, repent and believe, struggle to put their lives on a new basis.

When Christianity is re-branded to suit the market, when we Christian teachers fall silent on the stern moral demands Christ makes on our personal lives and demythologize the birth, redeeming death and resurrection of that man who was the Christ child, boredom, spiritual sadness and moral chaos follow. Those instructed in these counterfeit doctrines drift away from regular worship into agnosticism or lapse into the emptiness of reworked but ancient superstitions.

Nearly fifty years ago the English writer Dorothy Sayers spelt out the challenge of Christmas.

"It is the dogma that is the drama?not beautiful phrases, nor comforting sentiments, nor vague aspirations to loving kindness and uplift, nor the promise of something nice after death - but the terrifying assertion that the same God who made the world lived in the world and passed through the grave and gate of death. Show that to the heathen and they may not believe it; but at least they may realise that here is something that a man might be glad to believe".