As we rush around doing all the last minute tasks: buying presents, wrapping them, cooking, cleaning……and all that we could not do last week because of the snow, words from John Betjeman’s poem remind us of the real reason for the season. He writes:
And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single truth compare-
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
May your Christmas know the truth of the Christ-child ‘become a child on earth for me.’
Comentarios