Happy holidays!, while seeming to be a dodge from mentioning Christmas, has a persistence to it, and perhaps even genuine value beyond that negative. In addition to being a good wish, it is also a statement of fact. The holidays mentioned, Christmas and the days of preparation for it, give much evidence being, well, happy days. Look around you: people are in a good mood: optimistic, excited, and disposed to be generous. That is enough to make people happy. Why is that?
The “holidays,” as many people call them, are truly holy days, though they may not know or acknowledge that. What makes them holy? They are a time of preparation for the coming of God as Man, which not only is commemorated but also in fact occurs at Christmas. Advent is holy because it is ordered to what happens at Christmas, and people can be happy, and often are happy, because they are ordering their days toward that great event.
Most of the conventional activities associated with this period, such as gift buying, food preparing, home decorating, family gathering, party throwing, and almsgiving, are all motivated by the desire to be ready. There are many folks around us who may not have Jesus in mind as the encounter for which they prepare, but that missed perception does not eliminate the reality of their preparation. When people participate in the preparation, they find themselves happy.
The reason for this is found in human nature and dignity. Rational creatures are invested with dignity on account of their end, which is to know and love God, the ultimate end of the universe, summarized an author in a philosophical article I was reading recently. It follows that when we are moving toward and preparing for an encounter with that God, our human dignity is heightened and strengthened. When much of society sets about this noble activity, as in Advent, human nature is burnished and bright: people are happy.
The Prayer after Communion for the day that falls seven days before Christmas (December 18; Saturday of the third week of Advent this year) reveals that preparing to celebrate is a sanctifying and elevating activity: May we receive your mercy, in the midst of your temple, O Lord, and show fitting honor to the coming solemnities of our redemption, through Christ our Lord.
It is true that many of the people charging about and reveling are not fully intent upon the redemption that comes at Christmas. However, it is also true that in allowing themselves to be drawn into the solemnities, and in fact contributing to them, they are ordering themselves and their days in some way, however incomplete, to the encounter with God which is their goal and end. Every activity suitable to this celebration elevates and enhances their human dignity. This is another way of saying that it brings joy to them and those around them.
These holy days are happy indeed because they remind everyone what they are truly for. We look around us at all these semi-witting participants in the great undertaking of Christian life not with scorn for what they do not know, do not recognize, or do not accept; but we look at them with love and fellow-feeling. We look at them with grace and gratitude. We look at them with hope, that this taste of the joy that comes from preparing for the coming of the Divine Child will lead them to seek, to find, and to embrace a faith-filled lifetime of happy, holy days.
Monsignor Smith
