A Divine Business

‘As in November we are reminded that we are souls, that spiritual values matter most, that All Souls were meant to be All Saints, so in December it is brought home to us that we have hearts, and that we can do much more by kindness than by force. It was in December with its chill and gloom that the Christ Child came.
 
After all, if the Wise Men who went across the wilderness had only found a purely human child, they would have found a mystery that it would have been worth going another journey to find the interpretation of. If they had only found a flower, or a little bird with a beating heart, they would have found what would have left their wisdom wondering. As it was, they found the Mystery which gives the key to all other mysteries, they found the glory of God revealed in the face of the Christ Child.
 
Now we know that our common human life is a divine business, that a carpenter’s shop, sheep and shepherds, boats and rigging, cities and silences, may have just as much to do with God as even church bells and church services. So let us turn aside and see this great sight, a little Babe snuggled up against the blue gown of a little Mother, who croons to Him and plays peep-bo with Him, and then hushes Him to sleep in the warm cradling of her motherhood. Let us give Him by all means our complicated gifts, and then let us go away rich in the blessing of His simplicity’.
 
Father Andrew SDC, 1869-1946