The Christmas season. Whatever your view of it—whether you anticipate it with great delight, or perhaps with some sense of dread, or with a combination of these (as many people do)—you may be searching for a way to make this season's activity more truly satisfying for yourself and others. You may be yearning, as I do, to truly feel the tender, healing touch of the Christ, God's saving message, right in the midst of this commemoration of Christ Jesus' birth.
Recently, in thinking about this, I asked myself, "What can I include in my Christmas preparations that will facilitate that happy result of feeling the touch of the Christ during the Christmas season, on Christmas Day, and beyond?" The answer wasn't surprising: give yourself ample time for quiet prayer, time to think deeply about the true meaning of Christmas and about how to honor it in your own life.
Quiet time for prayer is important. The busy holiday season won't give us this time. Anxieties won't give it to us. We must give it to ourselves, or rather accept it as a gift from God, and make good use of it. We need to set aside specific time for prayer, and then pray.
When I began to pray for a better understanding of how to prepare for Christmas, my thoughts were filled with all kinds of unrelated things shouting for attention. So I had to begin by preparing my thought to receive God's message. I turned to the Bible and read the various accounts of Jesus' birth and the events surrounding it. I also read from a little book called What Christmas Means to Me, a compilation of Mary Baker Eddy's Christmas sermons, articles, and letters. Gradually, my thought became more quiet and focused, more open to an understanding of the spiritual meaning of Christmas.
As I took some time each day over the next few days for study and prayer, my thought became yet quieter, the spiritual message became still clearer, and I found myself feeling and expressing more mental clarity, poise, and satisfaction in dealing with the details of my days. And herein lay the answer I was seeking: the most helpful preparation for a satisfying Christmas, or a satisfying life, is a spiritual preparation of thought.
It was especially meaningful to me to consider the preparations that preceded the first Christmas —the actual birth of Christ Jesus. Mary listened to an angel, Gabriel. We don't know how Mary prayed, how she prepared her thought so that it was ready not only to hear but to accept Gabriel's astonishing message that she, a virgin, would give birth to the Son of God. But we do know that her thought was prepared; she did hear the message and accept it. Mary said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word." Her thought was spiritually prepared to receive the Christ; it was responsive to the truth that God is the Father of man and that, as Gabriel had said, "with God nothing shall be impossible." Luke 1:38, 37.
Quiet time for prayer is important. The busy holiday season won't give it to us. We must accept it as a gift from God, and use it.
The reception of Christ, Truth, in Mary's thought preceded the birth of Jesus. "Christ is the Truth and Life born of God—born of Spirit and not of matter," writes Mrs. Eddy. "Jesus, the Galilean Prophet, was born of the Virgin Mary's spiritual thoughts of Life and its manifestation." The First Church of Christ. Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 261. In the same way that Jesus appeared as the result of Mary's reception of the Christ, healing and regeneration appeared in the lives of many as the result of Jesus' embodiment of Truth in his own thought and life. And today, as our thought is prepared through prayer and spiritual living to receive Christ, Truth, the regenerating power of Christ-healing is felt in our lives and in our Christmas celebrations.
What better way could there be to celebrate Christmas—or to lead happier, more productive lives—than to pray regularly, letting God prepare our thought day by day for a fuller reception of the ever-present Christ? Doing so, our understanding of the true meaning of Christmas grows more and more clear, and it becomes more and more dear to us. This gives us peace and joy, and it opens our thought to those ways of celebrating Christmas that have real meaning and satisfaction for ourselves, our families, and others whom our lives touch. We have more dominion throughout the season; we find, happily, that we are servants of the restful Christ rather than slaves to the concerns and distractions so often connected with the season.
We can be grateful that the Virgin Mary's thought was spiritually prepared to receive Christ, Truth. What blessings came into the world as the result of Jesus' appearance on the human scene! Whenever Truth appears in human thought, its manifestation—man in God's image, whole and free—appears more fully in human experience. This is the law of God, universal Love—real cause for celebrating Christmas. Mrs. Eddy also wrote in the article published in The Ladies' Home Journal quoted from earlier, "I celebrate Christmas with my soul, my spiritual sense, and so commemorate the entrance into human understanding of the Christ conceived of Spirit, of God and not of a woman—as the birth of Truth, the dawn of divine Love breaking upon the gloom of matter and evil with the glory of infinite being."Ibid., p. 262.
Through quiet prayer that prepares our thought for "the entrance into [our] understanding of the Christ conceived of Spirit, . . ." we feel what we yearn to feel during the Christmas season, on Christmas Day, and beyond—the tender, healing touch of the Christ.
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