Diocesan News22 Dec 09

Christmas Message from the Bishop of Down & Dromore

A Christmas Message from The Rt Revd Harold Miller, Bishop of Down and Dromore

Find the holy in the holiday

There are not many holy seasons left in the year, but Christmas certainly remains as one of them - perhaps the only one left for many people. Its holiness may well come as a surprise. It's not just that the world stops at teatime on Christmas Eve, and almost everything is closed on Christmas Day. It is also that vast numbers of people find themselves in a place of worship during these days leading up to the 25th December. It may be a Nativity Play or a Christingle Service, or the traditional candlelit Carol Service, or Midnight Communion. And for most of us, there will be a moment, even a nano-second, when holiness will touch base in our lives during this time. A sense that God is there; a sudden but deep awareness that what we are thinking about is more real than anything we can touch or feel; or the words of a familiar carol finding an emotional home in our hearts.

For most of us, we let those moments pass, assigning them to the 'feelings of Christmas' box. My suggestion to each of us this year is that we dare to enter into that moment with God, recognizing it for what is it is – a moment of holiness being present, in a world which has removed most vestiges of holy seasons. A moment, when in the simplest of ways, we are encountering the living God. A moment when the most important reality in life: the reality of God in Christ, is being made known to personally to us. Hold on to it, recognize it, reflect on it and let it speak into the rest of our lives.

Don't waste this holy season: for many, it will be another year before we get another!