The beauty in Christmas

Beautiful

Walk the path of beauty, the via pulchritudinis! In my teenage years, my father taught me the Chinese art of calligraphy. Here is one example of his work which I liked. It is the word for 'Beautiful.' During this Christmas season, we will walk this annual journey. Some may find it gaudy but many of us choose to see the beautiful. In the beauty of Christmas, our hearts can still be opened "giving us

wings, carrying us aloft" and drawing us out of ourselves from being "content with the humdrum." I like these words from Benedict XVI which reminded me to think of 2 kind persons, Mike and Theresa, 2 years ago. They came armed with 20 huge bags of Christmas gifts for 20 needy families in an area down the Louisiana bayous where I lived and worked. I remember the stunned faces of

struggling mothers unable to purchase gifts for their kids. Their gratitude was overwhelming. I recall talking to a stay-at-home Dad whose 2 sons had 'blood diseases' thanking us over and over again for thinking of him. I thought of the stunned grandmother helping her granddaughter raise 4 adorable kids while she herself had to forego her medication so that her kids could have enough food to eat. That year I was agonizing over one of my brothers in hospital and in my brokenness thought of this via pulchritudinis. Its essential function as the Pope said that year, is that "it gives us a healthy shock." May this path of beauty surprise our tired spirits as well.