The First Day of Christmas

In the Benedictine Tradition, we always begin again. Today, Christmas Day, we begin yet again that which has been begun again over two thousand times. We must begin at the beginning always and this means beginning with God.

There can be only one God. We Christians have always believed it to be true, Reason tells us that there can be only One God, and yet beginning with our One God, we find such richness pouring forth from His unity. In God there is something, and that something generates everything. Mathematically, once we have something, then we can start counting. One apple leads us into understanding two apples, et c. generating arithmetic, algebra, geometry and music as Pythagoras would have us believe. There are some folk who never get beyond two: one, two, some more. We must always begin with One but one leads us from the finite to the infinite too, into the mathematical spirituality of Cantor's infinities.

On the first day of Christmas, Our True Love gives us One thing - Himself! The true unity. He is the partridge, and the partridge can only be found in the pear tree. The tree is where Our True Love finds Himself at the end of the life He begins today. Bethlehem inexorably leads to Golgotha albeit at thirty years or so distant.

We human beings can get so obsessed by number one and attribute that number to ourselves, rather than to the One Who Is. We are the first person singular! In looking after number one, we find ourselves denying value to those around us. If we are the one who matters, then all must exist for us. We have seen this year such horror and misery caused by our attempts to own our own selves. This is the problem with such a small understanding of what one is. One is an enormous number and yet it is the smallest positive whole number. Likewise, Our God possesses humility and a desire to see all at unity in Him.

This is the property that we should seek from seeing ourselves as the first person singular - unity. For, in unity, we see our own personal oneness as a participation in the individuality of God. We can be number one and yet not alone because we should seek to be one with our fellow men.

At Christmas time, we converge on one trough containing one tiny, tiny little infant, squeaking and wriggling in His swaddling clothes amidst the straw. We converge there in order to be one as the Father is One with this little ball of reflexes who will grow up knowing the totality of the pain of humanity's tendency to diversity. We converge too, at Paschaltide, to the One cross, to the One tomb and then to witness One Resurrection.

We are One Church, proclaiming One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism. If we truly seek God, then we must seek His uniqueness in others and be united with them in Him.

I wish you all a very happy, fulfilling and glorious Christmas.