Chaplaincy Living the spirit of Christmas throughout the year.

Christmas Spirit

CHAPLAINCY

Much as it might grate on those of us who know that the season of Christmas in the Christian Calendar doesn’t start until the eve of Christmas

Day, Christmas decorations and

Christmas music are usually in our shopping malls from October. Our society seems to need the positivity and feeling of goodwill that comes with the Christmas trees and the carols playing for a considerable time before the actual celebration of Christmas

Day. This is most likely to tap into our consumerist attitudes and get us buying more. Retailers maybe think that it gives us the nostalgic feeling that comes with the Christmas lights, music and decorations. For many people, the idea of Christmas is a lot better than the actuality of Christmas.

Surrounding the ‘idea of Christmas’ are feelings of happiness, gratitude, generosity and kindness. Whether or not that is the real experience of

Christmas Day for most people is highly debatable, however! Christmas

Day is one day of the year with a very high incidence of family violence, and many families end up in significant debt from the purchase of gifts, food and treats that they really can’t afford.

In the Church, Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ. Christians meet together in churches all over the world to remember the story of God coming into the world in human form in the person of Jesus, born to Mary and Joseph in a humble stable in Bethlehem. The gift-giving that we engage in with those we love is reminiscent of the gift of Jesus, given to the world, and also the gifts the three wise men brought to baby Jesus, celebrated at the end of the Christmas season on the day of Epiphany. Christmas itself is quite a short season – 12 days in total, 11 of which are after Christmas Day.

Advent, the four weeks prior to Christmas in the Christian calendar, is not a season of visiting Santa in the department stores and spending lots of money on presents. Advent is a time of preparation – prayer, fasting

“Christmas is not something that happens on one particular day of the year. Christmas is a way of being, a way of living that we can enter into every day of the year.”

and penitence as we remember our need for Jesus to come anew into our lives. There is a sense of expectancy, of waiting for the coming of Christ: in glory, when Christ comes again; in our hearts, as we seek to live as the hands and feet of Christ; in the manger at Bethlehem, as a tiny vulnerable baby. It is very fitting that this is the first season of the Christian calendar as we begin in a pensive, waiting time, praying for God to give us strength for the journey ahead. And then we celebrate Jesus’ birth – God breaking into our time and space to show us Godself and how we can be partners in bringing about the Kingdom of God.

Although we celebrate the birth of Christ on 25 December, Christmas is not something that happens on one particular day of the year. Christmas is a way of being, a way of living that we can enter into every day of the year. I really love this verse from the song I am the Light of the World:

When the song of the angels is stilled, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and the shepherds have found their way home, the work of Christmas is begun. According to this song, the work of Christmas is to find the lonely and the lost, to heal the broken, to feed the hungry, to free the prisoners, to make the powerful care, to be at one with people everywhere, to celebrate the beautiful world in which we live and to bring hope to every task we do. They are powerful words indeed. This is the hope that entered the world on that very first Christmas Day when God entered our reality – the hope that the world can be a better, richer and more beautiful place for everyone. Jesus made it abundantly clear in his teachings that we are to serve one another, to work for justice for everyone, and to love our neighbour. This is the Christmas that continues right through the year. It is not about just one day of gorging ourselves and giving meaningless gifts that we have paid for with credit cards; it is about following the example of Christ and being light for this world now, entering into the mystery of the Kingdom of God and fulfilling our own calling as disciples every day of our lives.

Over the past year, our students have been deeply involved in the work of Christmas. We have had Year 6 students spending time with residents at Elizabeth Knox Home and Hospital; Year 7 students learning about working together as a community to ensure everyone has enough food; Year 8 students planting trees on Motuihe Island; Year 9 students hosting teenage refugees from the Mangere Refugee Resettlement Centre; Year 10 students learning about cancer and how it affects people’s lives and then raising over $52,000 for the Cancer Society in the Relay for Life; Year 11 students working at the City Mission Distribution Centre putting together emergency food parcels for families in need; Year 12 students completing 20 hours of community service; Year 13 students overseeing the Community Service Council that has implemented all of this; and the whole School making Christmas hampers for families in need, and raising over $12,000 for the City Mission HomeGround Building Project. So many Dio students have given of their own time and resources over and above these projects. This is Christmas being lived every day.

Always the season for giving From top: Year 6 at Elizabeth Knox Home and Hospital. Year 8 at Motuihe Island. Year 10s conga dancing at Relay for Life. Year 11 preparing emergency food parcels at the City Mission.