What Christmas is about

For stores across the land, Christmas ended on Boxing Day. For us, it's different. For us, the season's blessings and challenges don't get packed away with the Christmas lights.

We know, better than most, that Christmas is about family. About babies. About mothers becoming pregnant in circumstances that cause others to raise their eyebrows. About those who are open to new life and to helping others - and about those who aren't. We have been so highly favoured that we recognize and accept the truth about the beginning and the ending of life, about the unborn, about marriage, about family. Realities that are in season all year long.

Listening to the Christmas story, it's easy to imagine the anxiety that was felt by Anne and Joachim when their new son-in-law set out with their pregnant daughter Mary on the long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Joseph was sure they would find accommodations there, for it was the practice of the time to welcome strangers. But then, as now, the needy were not welcomed.

Joseph had an even stronger reason for optimism. Having grown up in Bethlehem, he fully expected his close relatives to take them in. But they too shut their hearts and their doors. Sadly, today's families also often reject relatives in need, as many unmarried mothers-to-be can attest.

We don't know if the innkeeper who directed Joseph to the stable was a relative or a stranger. We do know he had a pro-life heart, for he did what he could. That small action ensured that the Word of God, Love personified sent to witness to eternal Truth, had at least a smidgen of shelter and protection.

Who would have expected anyone born in such circumstances to cause a royal panic? Yet almost immediately, the helpless Child of Bethlehem was slated for destruction, and hunted down by Herod's officers.

It was fear that motivated the king's search-and-destroy directive. It's fear that leads any ruler to authorize the destruction of innocent life. And ultimately, it's fear that leads men and women today, doctors and nurses and counsellors and relatives, to target unborn children for destruction. As if violence can ever lead to a life free from fear. As if attacking truth can destroy it, change reality, or bring peace to those who cling to distortions and falsehood.

Like so many before and after them, the little Bethlehem family became refugees forced to flee injustice and violence and persecution. In a sense, we too are refugees. Don't we often feel as though we are living in a foreign environment? Aren't we persecuted in many ways for witnessing to the truth? Don't we all suffer - in many ways and many degrees - for our pro-life and pro-family convictions and activities?

The Holy Family lived for several years as refugees in Egypt. When they returned to their own country, they settled in Nazareth. Virtually nothing is recorded of their life in either place, but we can be certain that their presence and example blessed each community.

It is equally certain that the communities where pro-life and pro-family supporters live and work today are also blessed. Near Halifax, Herman Wills, dedicated president of Campaign Life Coalition Nova Scotia, has tried several times to retire from pro-life involvements.

It would be impossible to measure the graces and blessings brought to Atlantic Canada because of Herm and his computer and co-workers. And who can doubt that many blessings will follow Peter Ryan's remarkable interview with Henry Morgentaler in Fredericton? (See the December Interim.)

Across this country, there are innumerable pro-life and pro-family heroes. Some like Herm and Peter and Jim Hughes in Toronto are familiar because of their leadership roles; some work as quietly in the background as the Holy Family in Egypt.

Each of us is living at exactly the right time in history, in exactly the right place, with exactly the right skills and talents for the work that must be done. And each of us has exactly the right amount of time to do what is required of us.

We have been given wonderful opportunities to be salt and light in today's world. The truth we bring will enlighten some. Others will always prefer the dark, and fear, misunderstand, misrepresent and reject us and our message. Despite that, the blessings that flow from even our smallest efforts, will help to "renew the face of the earth."