O Come Let Us Adore Him .....

I have to record this memory before it slips away.

On Christmas Eve after dinner, after opening some gifts with my side of the family, we as a group went to midnight mass over at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church. This is something I do every year, even though I am no longer a practicing Catholic. I guess I need to get my occasional fix of smells and bells and the saying of things like the Lord's Prayer and the Nicene Creed out loud at church(again more fodder for an additional post.) Anyway as we were waiting for mass to begin the choir was singing carols, and occasionally there was a horn section doing very regal sounding flourishes, very dramatic. It felt very much to me like the horns of a medieval court announcing the arrival of the King, which of course would be highly appropriate.

Then with much fanfare the processional started with the hymn: O Come All Ye Faithful. I remember singing the words of the refrain "O come let us adore him" while looking up at the crucifix hanging behind the altar. For those of you who may not be familiar Catholicism, The Catholic cross, or Crucifix, always portrays Christ nailed to it. Anyway as I looked upon the Saviour hanging on that cross I felt the strange contradiction of singing, "O come let us adore him" about a man who's broken body was hanging on a cross. It was as if for the first time I actually made that connection that the man hanging on the cross was the same as the baby being gently placed in the manger scene just below him. I mean that is something I have always known with my head, but I think I really felt it with my heart more profoundly than ever in the moment. So even though I was tired and a little worn out by all the holiday business, and even though I had already gone the Central Vineyard Christmas Eve service I was profoundly grateful to have experienced that small moment of revelation. I think it truly framed the meaning of this holiday for me.