This December I have been struck by the ways that celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace can sow such discord among His followers. I challenge you to Google “Is it permissible for Catholics to decorate for Christmas and listen to carols during Advent?” and skim through some of the results. Or ask: “Is it okay for Christians to let their kids believe in Santa?”, “Is it okay to decorate with non-religious decorations?”, “Should I leave my decorations up until Epiphany, the commemoration of Jesus’s baptism, or Candlemas? And won’t the tree by a fire hazard by February 2?” Many of us have developed strong opinions about the traditions we use to celebrate Christ’s birth. In fact, some of us even consider our ways of celebrating to be somehow spiritually superior.
Obviously, there are theological problems with “tradition snobbery,” but what I have discovering this year is that, when we nitpick differences, we miss out on learning something important about God. Coincidentally, this realization came to me while singing in my community choir. After almost twenty years, I joined a full choir this year as a second soprano. I have found that sopranos (including me) have a nasty tendency to consider their lines of music to be superior to the lines of other vocal ranges. This is because sopranos are often the ones singing the melody, making their parts easy to hear and essential to recognizing a piece of music. This year, several of our choir pieces involved complicated layering of the different vocal ranges. Heard individually during practice, the parts were unpleasant – an affront to the senses – but, when sung together, the richness of the sound was captivating.
This brings me back to our celebrations of Christmas. God is an expert artist who delights in weaving together diversity into a glorious unity. His love for this kind of complexity is apparent throughout creation. From the tiniest sea creatures to the vast galaxies, unity emerges from distinctiveness. The best forms human art capture this complexity. Knowing this about our Father, why would we think that there is a single right or wrong way to celebrate the birth of His Son? Is it not more probable that, while we experience only our particular traditions, God sees all our varied celebrations as layers of praise that make our combined observance of Christmas richer and more captivating to Him?
Is it possible that God has a single way of celebrating that He prefers and in Heaven we will all celebrate in the same way? Yes. Neither the Bible nor Church teaching suggest this, however. Additionally, based on the diversity that God has embedded throughout His creation and the rich beauty that can only emerge from complexity, this seems unlikely. It is much more likely that our disparate festivities are just narrow ranges of commemoration that merge before the Father into a mesmerizing complementarity that leaves Him breathless and savoring our joy. That is something worth doing at any time and in any way we can.
“After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb…” – Revelation 7:9
Image: Generated with AI
Ariane Sroubek is a writer, school psychologist and mother to two children here on earth. Prior to converting to Catholicism, she completed undergraduate studies in Bible and Theology at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. She then went on to obtain her doctorate in School and Child Clinical Psychology. Ariane’s writing is inspired by her faith, daily life experiences and education. She is currently writing a women's fiction novel and a middle-grade mystery series. Her non-fiction book, Raising Sunshine: A Guide to Parenting Through the Aftermath of Infant Death is available on Amazon. More of her work can be found at https://mysustaininggrace.com.
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