As Christmas approaches, there are those who are excited about the holiday and those who can’t wait for it to pass. However, everyone, willingly or unwillingly, finds themselves wishing “Merry Christmas” or receiving it.
Is it a formal, mechanical gesture, or something sincere? Why say “Merry Christmas” again? What’s the point of receiving such a greeting? Maybe we only receive meager and bare “Happy Holidays” or “Best Wishes,” or perhaps an early “Happy New Year” that avoids the religious message. I wonder if we just copy and paste a banal image, a sparkling phrase with some Christmas emojis, or if we really think about what we are wishing, what we are celebrating.
Advent, which precedes Christmas, is the right time to prepare our greetings. There is an ancient prayer, Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant iustum:
“Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.”
It is the invocation of humanity recognizing its inner darkness and desiring, waiting, for a light capable of illuminating it. Saying “Merry Christmas” is a wish of hope: we are waiting for something to save us, to enlighten us, and to warm us, like the sun slowly returning after the winter solstice.
Once, December was truly a month of darkness because the nights were long and dark, there was less public lighting, and even a small fire illuminated the path of a passerby. But beyond the exterior darkness, there was, and still is, an interior darkness: the awareness of an evil that man alone cannot overcome. Wishing “Merry Christmas” means recalling that Christmas is the feast of the light that conquers the darkness, of a star that guides through the darkest nights, of a hope that shatters despair.
What conquers the darkness is not something, but Someone: it is the birth of a child, the promise of a Redeemer, the true center of Christmas. Saying “Merry Christmas” is remembering that this Child represents the sign that evil has not won, that death is not final.
In stores and on the streets, Christmas songs like Jingle Bells or the inevitable All I Want for Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey, now a true holiday anthem, are heard everywhere. We receive many well-wishes, but Christmas seems like a holiday lived more out of habit than conviction. Behind this “forced cheerfulness,” many sense an unspoken sadness, a sense of emptiness, as if something were missing.
However, saying “Merry Christmas” can become a sincere gesture, an attempt to bring authenticity back to a celebration that should never be just lights, songs, and gifts, but a reminder of a promise of true joy.
Christmas is the feast of giving, but not just material giving. It is the gift of the light that descends from above, of the sky bowing down to the earth to rekindle hope. Saying “Merry Christmas” is an invitation to look beyond the presents under the tree and rediscover the deeper meaning of the gift: time, closeness, love shared with others. It is a wish that says: be a light for someone, just as the sky has poured light for us.
So, what do we wish for? Not superficial happiness, nor glittering gifts. Christmas wishes should be wishes for peace, hope, and rebirth. And who, if not Jesus, can give us these gifts? So, let’s wish Jesus, let’s wish to meet Him and bring Him to those around us.
As the ancient Advent hymn, Rorate coeli desuper, teaches us: wishing “Merry Christmas” means invoking that light which the world, in its agitation, has forgotten to desire:
“Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just One.”
Wishing for a Christmas that is true light, even in our darkness, even in the consumerist world that buys everything and yet doesn’t have what gives true happiness.
Because you cannot buy WHO gives happiness.
Paolo Botti
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