Spiritual readings – 19 December 2015

Yesterday the first snow of the winter fell and last night before the Midnight Mass someone made me a furtive sign that it was snowing again. And so this morning is very beautiful, not because there is much snow, for it is as thin as sugar on the porridge of the monks under 21 who can’t fast, and the grey grass comes through it everywhere. Nor is it beautiful because the sky is bright, for the sky is dark. But it is beautiful because of Christmas.
THOMAS MERTON
IN WHEN THE TREES SAY NOTHING,
ED. KATHLEEN DEIGNAN (SORIN BOOKS, 2003)

From the Christian point of view there is no special problem about Christmas in a prison cell. For many people in this building it will probably be a more sincere and genuine occasion than in places where nothing but the name is kept. That misery, suffering, poverty, loneliness, helplessness and guilt mean something quite different in the eyes of God from what they mean in the judgement of man, that God will approach where men turn away, that Christ was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn – these are things that a prisoner can understand better than other people; for him they really are glad tidings …
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER
“LETTERS AND PAPERS FROM PRISON” IN
THE SECRET CHRISTMAS, ED. TERENCE
HANDLEY MacMATH (Darton, Longman & Todd, 2013)