Every year when December rolled around I used to feel my body bracing. I hated December, and I hated Christmas for a long time - secretly of course, because I didn't feel it was proper to disclose such a terribly impious sentiment. But as Catholic trauma therapist Brya Hanan recently explained in one of her recent instagram posts, it isn't Christmas that is the issue for most of us who "hate Christmas", it is the overwhelm that surrounds this season that our nervous systems struggle with. How can we feel welcoming towards a season that sends our bodies into fight or flight or any number of other trauma responses and adaptations? Even our joy can often feel manufactured and plastered on because it is the proper, pious thing to do.
While most of us are familiar with exhortations to seek simplicity amidst the secular commercialisation of Christmas, few of us are ready to admit that what we need is simplicity and rest from all the church and faith related aspects of Advent and Christmas too! I always found it ironic that even as slowing down is often preached and written about in Advent reflections and homilies, nothing about the rhythm of parish and faith-related living slows down during this season. Just like everyone else, even those who don't celebrate Christmas for its religious meaning, there are more and more Advent / Christmas related activities that get piled on for Catholics: reflections to do, journals to buy, recollections, retreats, Christmas pageants and concerts to participate in / attend and not to mention the gathering and feasting!
Permission to Stay with Just One Thing
"You don't need to go through fifty doors to encounter Christ. You just need one. When you find the door through which you meet Christ, that's all you need. You don't have to try all the other doors." This was something that Monty Williams SJ said during a retreat I attended back in October 2019 and it has stayed in my mind ever since because it has given me great peace of heart.
The point he was making was that we - the retreatants - did not have to do every prayer exercise he was providing at this retreat. He was giving us a variety of options, "sowing seeds extravangantly and irresponsibly", as he cheekily called it, so that some of those seeds may find fertile ground in us. We were invited to be attentive to the movements of our heart as we sought Christ, and to ask for the grace to notice when a moment of encounter happens. Then, Monty said, we don't have to worry about all the other prayer exercises, readings etc because they were only doors and not Christ. Once we go through a door and meet Christ, we simply need to stay with Christ and let the Holy Spirit direct what unfurls next in that encounter.
I have found this principle applicable to every aspect of my walk with Christ, and not just during retreats. And I find it especially grounding during Advent and Christmas. If the point of it all is to encounter Christ and let him continue to heal and transform me into himself (divinisation / theosis), then all I need is to pay attention perhaps to which "door" I am called to pass through and rest. This could be a process of trial and error - but that is not a reason for stress if I remember that activities, even spiritual and religious ones, are merely "doors" through which I could encounter Christ and not Christ himself.
Sometimes, Christ walks through a door we had not planned to try! Can we be content in resting in this unexpected encounter and perhaps let go of the other untried doors?
A Post-Covid Tradition (for now)
For several years now since Covid-19 forced us to experience Christmas in relative solitude and silence (which we actually found to be a wonderful respite), my husband and I have been blocking out the last week of December from work, social engagements and being on our devices for an extended shared pause to rest in Christmas grace - i.e. to "digest" the year that has passed and prepare our hearts and bodies for the coming year in the presence of Immanuel God-with-us. This has been the "door" we commit to and plan for each year while everything else has been flexible. The spiritual practice we needed was creating 'blank space' so that there can be greater room in us to receive Christ and to listen to him together.
I have also for quite many years now stopped buying Advent reflection journals or even using free ones because 99% of the time the writing and reflections in them no longer resonate with me and I find them unhelpful for where I am in my spiritual journey. But I have found that I still have more than enough to ponder on as long as I keep my eyes and ears open to the Holy Spirit's manifestation in my daily encounters as well as through my ongoing reading and learning. God always provides, it's usually a matter of whether or not I am spiritually alert enough to notice when he does.
My Christmas Prayer for You
My dear fellow interior journey pilgrim, I pray that you will find your 'door' this Christmas. I pray that you give yourself permission to forsake other doors when you walk through one and encounter Christ, or when Christ walks through one you had not expected and surprises you. I pray that that you may have the interior safety to give yourself permission to uncommit and back out of activities so as to have that rest with Christ who comes to dwell in and with you. But in the end, regardless of what you are able or not able to do, I pray that you can give your limited, finite self the grace to be loved in whatever state you are in. May you experience what it is to rest in the love of God who comes to heal, redeem, and transform us - Blessed and Merry Christmas!
Journeying with you as always,
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