This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
The snow was light, invigorating; the wind was man-sized. But the day wasn’t really cold. Let it be recorded that the day December twenty-first was a pleasant sort of day.
You kept sifting your flakes upon me like a storm of blessings. They whispered of You. They smelled of heaven — and of pine. I kept trudging on and up, thinking about the way we prepare for Christmas.
We make a fuss about it; and we want the whole hostile world to feel deeply about it. It is an effort “to keep Christ in Christmas.” Some of us seem to think we are doing you a favor in celebrating the birthday of Your Son.
We forget that you give us infinitely more each morning in the Mass than we can ever repay. We forget that, in the Mass, you do not simply hand us the Baby, as Mary did when she put him into the arms of Simeon the prophet. You fill us with him. Every day, really, is Christmas day to us!
I wish I could be something like the fir trees that edge the road, the cedars and the spruces and the pines. They are wide and full and proud in the hems of their flaring skirts.
But they taper—and they dwindle in self-importance—as their heads rise nearer and nearer to You. Lord, give me some sense in my old age. And if I am proud of all the lovely pine cones in my crown, let me keep remembering You put them there, not I.
The snow stopped. So did the wind. And so did I. And at that moment, the sun, which had been skulking somewhere in the dull dim south southeast, sent the gray clouds sprawling out of its impatient path, and showed me a world of radiance and glory!
The road up which I had heaved and hauled my hefty hulk turned into a land of powdered amethysts and sapphires and emeralds and diamonds. The hieroglyphics my feet had carved into the snow sparkled and gleamed and glittered.
The evergreens which had looked so grim and gloomy in the grayness, now were coy, and black rather than green. They stood out boldly, and their ruffles were trimmed with ermine. They looked like a scattering of black and white striped pyramids.
The pines and spruces and cedars in the full glare of the sun were not just striped. They rippled with ropes and hoops and loops of pearls and rubies and hyacinths and fire opals and tiny blazing zircons. These were the candy-sprinkled Christmas tree cookies of our kitchen, transformed and brought to life.
Sun-happy blue jays shrieked their appreciation and their thanks. I was too full of words to speak, too full of thoughts to think. I was the only silent jay. This was a Christmas present I had not expected, Lord, and it was wrapped exquisitely, even divinely! How could I adequately have thanked you?
From Restoration, December 1988
