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Pray that oneday Britain willawake to a trueChristmas Day

It was G K Chesterton who insisted thatthe celebration of Christmas shouldnever be half-hearted. In All ThingsConsidered he wrote: ‘What life anddeath may be to a turkey is not mybusiness; but the soul of Scrooge andthe body of Cratchit are my business.’

Elsewhere he said: ‘The greatmajority of people will go on observingforms that cannot be explained; theywill keep Christmas Day with Christmasgifts and Christmas benedictions; theywill continue to do it; and some daysuddenly wake up and discover why.’

In the fervent hope that we can wakeup our countrymen to the amazingstory that lies behind the cribs, trees,presents and turkeys, a small group ofus set up the Christian Heritage Centreat Stonyhurst project.

Five years ago I took on the role ofchairman of this charity, which is basedin the beautiful grounds of StonyhurstCollege. It serves as a wake-up call toBritain to remember our Christian storyand rediscover what has been lost.

The collections of beautiful objects,books, and sacred artefacts and, evenmore so, the inspirational Christianmen and women who have gone beforeus, have so much to teach us.

This Christmas I am truly excitedthat, following the rededication of therestored museum and libraries, work isforging ahead on Theodore House –which, available to parishes, schools,groups and individuals, will be animportant gift to the whole Church inEngland. It will open in the summer.

One of the rooms in TheodoreHouse will be named for G KChesterton – which has set methinking about how much thecelebration of Christmas meant tohim. Chesterton’s insistence that wemustn’t be half hearted in ourcelebrations strongly contrasted withthe prohibitions of Oliver Cromwell.

The 17th century Puritan-dominatedParliament said Christmas was ‘apopish festival’ with no biblicaljustification and replaced it with a dayof fasting – and it took King Charles II,in 1660, to restore the festivities. PoorRobin's Almanack celebrated therestoration: ‘Now thanks to God forCharles’ return; Whose absence madeold Christmas mourn; For then wescarcely did it know; Whether itChristmas were or no.’

Lord Alton of Liverpool But the Puritans were mild comparedwith what followed. Atheistic Frenchrevolutionaries banned ChristianChristmas services and in aforeshadowing of some of ourpolitically correct 21st centuryideologies the three kings cake had tobe renamed ‘the equality cake’.

By the 20th century their atheisticSoviet heirs had outlawed Christmascelebrations – encouraging schoolchildren to spit on crucifixes – whileJoseph Perry in How the Nazis co-optedChristmas: A history of propagandawrites ‘Because Nazi ideologues saworganised religion as an enemy of thetotalitarian state, propagandists soughtto de-emphasise ... the Christianaspects of the holiday’.

In England, in our own times,Christmas-deniers have tried torebrand the festival by callingit Wintermas, or some such, andwishing visitors or customers ‘HappyHolidays’ – anything but Christmas.

The contemporary festivities thatmany of us will enjoy had theirorigins in the reign of Queen Victoria –inspired by the writings of CharlesDickens. Chesterton argued thatDickens saved Christmas for England.

He also insisted that beyond theraised glass and the fatted bird, there isa literally an earth-shattering story thatmust be told. I particularly like hisparadoxical call to give “Glory to God inHis Lowest” and his description of “thehands that had made the sun and starswere too small to reach the huge headsof the cattle.”

As a parent who knows that this storyis the only one that truly matters, I oftenthink of the children’s picture bookwhere the mythical Santa Claus isreading to the real baby Jesus the storyof the baby’s own birth. ‘And how doesit all end?’ the baby asks.

We know that it doesn’t end in thestable or with the visit of the Magi; andwe know that even within days of hisbirth, the life of Jesus is threatened byHerod and his butchers, sharpeningtheir knives even as the Son of God isbeing born. In The God In TheCave Chesterton, points to the way evilis always waiting in the wings with aparticular ‘detestation of innocence’.

He said: ‘There was present in theprimary scenes of the drama thatenemy that had rotted the legends withlust and frozen the theories intoatheism, but which answered the directchallenge with something of that more

Above, TheShepherds atBethlehem, anillumination from a 1430Book of Hoursmade in Parisand, right, theLucca Chasuble,detail of theAnnunciation,OpusAnglicanum, c 1475, silk andgold metalthreads onlinen. Thischasuble wascommissionedby the Bonvisifamily inmemory ofLudovicoBonvisi.

Reproduction bykind permission ofStonyhurst College

direct method which we have seen inthe conscious cult of the demons.’

Of Herod, he ‘seems in that hour tohave felt stirring within him the spirit ofstrange things… Everyone knows thestory; but not everyone has perhapsnoted its place in the story of thestrange religions of men… a seer mightperhaps have seen something like agreat grey ghost that looked over hisshoulder…The demons in that firstfestival of Christmas feasted also intheir own fashion.’

And those demons continue to feast,in their own fashion, today.

I cannot reflect on the slaughter ofthe Holy Innocents, brilliantlycommemorated in the carol, In RamahThere Was a Voice Heard withoutthinking of the nearly nine million ofour babies whose lives have been endedin their mothers’ wombs.

In the words of the Coventry Carol,written by Robert Croo, in 1534, for thetraditional Coventry Plays:

‘Herod, the king, in his raging,Charged he hath this dayHis men of might, in his own sight,All young children to slay.’This lament of a mother for her child

who is doomed to die might have beenwritten for a country in which one childin the womb loses its life every threeminutes of every hour of every day;which is why I have repeatedly saidthat “the death of so many unbornchildren, a good part of my generation,is the great elephant in the room of ourculture”.

This terrible loss of life is a greatevil. In Britain, like Ramah, there isnothing sentimental about theChristmas story and there must be amoment when we reflect on the brutal,violent world we have created.

‘Then woe is me, poor Child, for TheeAnd ever mourn and say;For Thy parting, nor say nor sing,By, by, lullay, lullay.’But we also know that in Bethlehem

and at Calvary that although evil has itsday, it does not triumph.

It’s why, this Christmas, we can

rejoice with Chesterton’s Wise Men‘Hark! Laughter like a lion wakesTo roar to the resounding plain,And the whole heaven shouts and

shakes,For God Himself is born again,And we are little children walkingThrough the snow and rain’.And we can join with Chesterton in

hoping and praying that our nationwill ‘someday suddenly wake up and

discover why’ we are celebratingChristmas. And why we’re not doing itin a half hearted manner.

I hope that the Christian HeritageCentre at Stonyhurst and TheodoreHouse will play their part in waking upour great but slumbering nation.Perhaps this Christmas you can give agift to help us achieve this? But pleasehelp us in any way you can.

Have a happy and holy Christmas.

The Christian Heritage Centre at Stonyhurst creates access to unique Catholiccollections. This registered charity is currently creating accommodation forscholars, retreatants and those wishing to deepen their Christian Faith. TheodoreHouse will be followed by a Visitors’ Centre which will enable parishes, schoolsand the general public to have even greater access to these amazing collections.

To find out more or to support visit www.christianheritagecentre.com orcontact info@christianheritagecentre.com

Pictured left isan icon ofMadonna andChild. It isSyrian anddates from themid-19thcentury. Thepainting is inoil with goldleaf andtempera onwood panel. Itwas presentedto StonyhurstCollege in1906 by MrsCoury, themother ofGabriel CouryVC.

Reproduction bykind permissionof StonyhurstCollege