After Christmas where do we go?

After Christmas where do we go?

Besides the Church calendar and the special feasts we celebrate what does the average Catholic find to consider in their prayers and devotions?  Of course, early in March Lent begins with Ash Wednesday.  A new celebration we shall prepare for.  The length of time from the Baptism of Jesus until then there might be a lapse in the need for spiritual consideration.  Unfortunately, too many Catholics believe that the Christmas season ends with the very day of Christmas and down come the trees and the manger scene.  Then there are some who leave things intact until the Epiphany.  

Yet, Christmas isn’t over until the Baptism of Jesus.  It is from here that the void may enter into the life of the Church where that emptiness can appear in the lives of so many.  The joy of the songs, the sharing of families, and of course the renewed strength from the sacraments for all and the reentry of those whom came back and found Christ once again.

Something might be missing for a certain few when those days of ecstasies as a member of Christ’s Church found what they always needed and discovered it in the Church.  It is like finding a treasure you always knew was there and it’s presence hits you like a flash of light that opened up a new beginning in life.  Here is where the ending of this new-found experience comes to a close.

Now, a reawakening of that loss must be reestablished and somewhere in the darkness, even just dimly lighted, God is still there.  His Holy Spirit never left the internal presence of these persons.  The feast of Christmas ended, but the very essence of the Christ child who now awaits our attention and walks with us on a journey that the Incarnation means for the humanity he came to save from sin.

Since the Incarnation leads the God-man to Calvary the life we share with Jesus Christ has no time table.  From His Birth to His Resurrection we live in his quest to show his Father’s love by sharing his Son with us in order to save us.  This answers the question “After Christmas where do we go?”  

Ralph B. Hathaway, After Christmas 2022