'The world is charged with the grandeur of God'

The 'Thinking Anew' column in The Irish Times today.

Michael Commane

In the Christian tradition Christmas runs from Christmas Day until at least January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, Little Christmas or Nollaig na mBan as it is called in some parts of Ireland.

Indeed, the Gospel reading in tomorrow’s liturgy is the same as that read on Christmas Day. The beginning of St John’s Gospel is considered to be one of the finest pieces of literature ever written. “In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.” (John 1: 1 - 2)

God the Son, Jesus Christ is called the Word, the Word made flesh.

In these dying days of Christmas it’s apposite to recall the first two lines of Gerard Manley Hopkin’s poem God’s Grandeur: “The world is charged with the grandeur of God./ It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;/It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil/ Crushed …”

The poet and the evangelist both use words to convey transcendence. 

 

Words are fascinating, our use of them, indeed our misuse of them,  can express thoughts and ideas that might well have extraordinary consequences. I often recall back on my schooldays and attempts at essay writing and how I really never appreciated or understood in any sort of meaningful way the power of words. It is something I greatly regret. But missed opportunities are just that. What is important is to make use of the present and build on it. 

I am forever asking myself and others what’s life all about. On one occasion when I asked that to a friend, who has a sharp wit and a good sense of humour, he replied: ‘Our lives lurch from one distraction to the next.’ I thought it was a brilliant reply and made perfect sense, especially coming from him  as his wife had died some months earlier. There are moments in my despondency when I find myself repeating it, nodding my head, and saying to myself how right he was. 

And just before Christmas we were back chatting and again the theme turned to the purpose of life and what it all means. He had just become a grandfather again, on this occasion for the seventh time. Jokingly he suggested that his job was done now and then added: “And now we are lurching to the end.” We are both in our late 60s, early 70s. So he was putting perspective on things.

There’s a grim reality to both those words, ‘lurching’ and ‘end’. But it’s a reality that is staring us in the face. And then I stopped for a moment and decided there was more to it than that. No, it’s not the end. There’s resurrection. The feast of Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, who is eventually condemned to death and rises from the dead.

God becomes man and in the most mysterious ways, in ways beyond our understanding, the Word is  made flesh. Jesus  experiences suffering and death and then rises from the dead and makes it possible for us too to rise from the dead. It is an extraordinary thing to say but it is at the centre of our faith.

I was forced to think of the enormity of such a belief and how impossible it is to speak about it when reading an obituary of the spy George Blake, who died outside Moscow last week. He stated in stark terms that he did not believe in an after-life. In an interview with a Russian newspaper on his 90th birthday Blake admitted that as a child he was thinking of becoming a priest, “But that passed. As soon as our brain stops receiving blood we go, and after there will be nothing.”

Our Christian faith does not leave us with nothing. It leads us towards resurrection and God. Christmas can be a great reminder for us of everything to do with God. “He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things came to be, not one thing had its being but through him.”

The Christmas season, now in its final days,  is above all else, a time to relax in the knowledge and faith, just as the poet Hopkins did, to realise: “that the world is charged with the grandeur of God.”