Tony Flannery

Brian Thomas Swimme.

I had just finished my lecture on Einstein’s special theory of relativity. The mathematical equations for one of his basic ideas, the so-called invariance of the space-time interval, filled the blackboards. I still had twenty minutes to spare. Perhaps I had galloped through the details too fast. I tended to overprepare for this course since it was loaded with some of the best students on campus, including Oona Fitzgerald who had scored a perfect 1600 on her SATs. 

My deepest self-definition is that I am a Christian, by which I mean that in Jesus of Nazareth I believe I see the meaning of God most clearly. This experience of an in-breaking divine presence is what I believe created the Christmas traditions that you refer to in your question. Certainly during this season they are omnipresent.

It was more than two thousand years ago that the historic figure we call Jesus lived.

This time of the year, within a few weeks of Christmas, I reflect again on the dilemma facing the Church.

The Christmas story, of the child being born in a stable, the angels singing, the wise men arriving with their gifts, and then the flight into Egypt to avoid the slaughter of the innocence by Herod, has an extraordinary appeal. And of course an enormous commercial reality has been built up around it over the years.