When I was young, it was incredibly exciting to be a Catholic Christian on Christmas Day: presents, food, family, friends, no school, twinkling lights everywhere, not being able to sleep because of the sheer happiness, the sugar high, and the desire to keep playing with all my new toys. In some ways, it’s still incredibly fun to cook and eat great food, spend time with family, get surprised by presents, and more than anything watch my family delight in a Christmas I helped provide. Christmas has to be grand and special: it’s one of our highest feast days–when we celebrate the birth of the child we believe is the Son of God. The image of Mary, Joseph, and little baby Jesus in the stable to which they were relegated because the inn was full is the source of, as we sing in the song “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” both comfort and joy.

For those of you who may not know the song, the first stanza goes: “God rest ye merry gentlemen/let nothing you dismay/remember Christ our Savior/was born on Christmas Day/to save us all from Satan’s power when we had gone astray/O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy/O Tidings of comfort and joy.” Christmas is a day when we are supposed to, as the song says, rest in the news of Christ’s birth which should bring us both comfort and joy.

As an adult with two grown children, however, reflection shows me that it can’t have been comfortable in that stable. It was most likely cold. It was really more of a cave than a stable, and it was full of animals which, at the best of times, are not pleasantly fragrant. The idea of giving birth in a barn horrifies me, actually, believing as I do in cleanliness and sterile health-care environments. Childbirth, also, is the opposite of comfort–contractions feel like the lower half of the body is being ripped in two. And sometimes childbirth does actually rip some very delicate parts. I was fortunate not to have felt any contractions, thanks to two great epidurals during both of my deliveries, but Mary most certainly felt the pain of childbirth. Though she was conceived free from sin, she still suffered part of Eve’s curse–to bring forth children in pain. But she persevered, and delivered the little baby who would, thirty-three years later, die to save us from our sins.

Not a very joyful thought, is it? Who looks at a baby and thinks, “That child will die one day.” Well, you know, Catholic Christians. I’ve written before about the season of Advent, which is the new year for the Catholic Church, but is also when we dwell on the end of the world. Catholics do things slightly askew, most people might think. We ruminate about the end of the world at the start of our year. We celebrate the birth of a baby who we know will not only die, but die an excruciating and unjust death at the hands of horrible persecutors at a very young age, even for His time. Not only that, but even though He never sinned, was conceived without sin, and led His life completely obedient to God His Father, He will be condemned and die a convict’s death because it was God’s plan that He do so in order to save everyone who believes in Him to this day from “Satan’s power/when we have gone astray.”

The moment after his birth, when Mary “wraps Him in swaddling clothes and la[ys] him in a manger,” foreshadows His destiny. A manger is, of course, a trough from which the animals eat. Jesus, who becomes “the final sacrifice,” and who Catholics believe is the bread which brings us eternal life, is placed in a vessel for food. Even the gifts Jesus is given by the wise men at His birth–gold, frankincense, and myrrh–are not exactly joyful. Gold is the gift one gives to a king. Frankincense was burned before deities. And myrrh? It was an oil used both to consecrate Jewish Levitical priests and to anoint the dead. The Nativity story, while it brings solace from fear and a sense of sublime happiness to those who hear it and know the ending, is not in and of itself full of comfort or joy.

I’m thinking about this because I know, this year, a lot of people are in at least psychological, if not physical and/or economic distress. Many are depressed and fearful about the future of the world, our nation, and their families. And I think it’s fitting that I write this on Christmas Day because it is my faith, honestly, that allows me to feel calm in times of global and national upset. As Paul wrote to the Phillipians, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”

My belief in God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit got me through a pandemic, raising teenagers; the deaths of dear friends and dearest family. Undoubtedly it will get me through many more trials and fears. This is because my faith is one that acknowledges the end at the beginning. At the birth, it contemplates the death. It gives me a Savior who does not come bounding out of clouds with a sword but comes into the world as a baby, born to the poorest of the poor, the most vulnerable of all, in a cave. It reminds me that, in my Baptism, I became a daughter of God–but that’s not necessarily good news for my life on earth because God does not spare even His own Son from suffering.

Like Jesus, I will experience physical and emotional pain. I will face betrayal. I will feel afraid, and alone. I will grieve. God will ask something of me that I wish I would not have to fulfill. And I will die. But while that thought is neither comforting nor joyous, I know that, through it all, I will be accompanied by the Son of God who went through all of those things before me. He did not shrink from death–even death on a cross. And in the face of such bravery, strength, and sacrifice, with such a Savior by my side, how can the petty fears of the world even touch me?

So today I will rest. I will be merry. I will let nothing cause me fear. Because I am brought comfort from distress, and unspeakable joy, by the knowledge that Jesus was born and willingly sacrificed Himself to fulfill God’s plan to give me access to heaven. And if, in the midst of this life, I find myself sad, angry, afraid, disappointed, or hurt; if I find that nothing in this world makes sense with my ideas of justice, fairness, or kindness, then I will turn to the words of C .S. Lewis who wrote, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” And I will know that, thanks to a loving God the Father and His selfless Son, this is not my final home.

I wish you all a Christmas time full of real comfort and true joy, as well as a happy and healthy start to the New Year.