Today! Today! The Latin word “Hodie” (today) reminds us of the joy that is beginning as of this morning’s birth. The Latin texts of the Entrance Antiphons for the Vigil, Midnight, Dawn, and Christmas Day all celebrate this word or its sense. Composers for centuries have celebrated this text and its joy, from Palestrina and Tallis in the 16th century to Vaughn Williams in the 20th century, and to the many carols that mark the celebration of our Savior’s birth. But there is—there has to be—something bigger today than a remembrance of a Birth. A manger (significantly, a feeding trough, where we too can partake of the Bread of Life, born in the “House of Bread” which is Beth-lehem) did not only embrace a birth: it embraced everything that was to flow from that Birth, including proclamation, witness, healing, mercy, suffering, dying, and rising. Without our Paschal Triduum of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, today would have no real meaning. We must embrace the totality of God’s love for us and not be caught up in sentimentality staring at a little Baby, cooing gently while we hear the soft and distant chorus of angels’ voices singing “Gloria in excelsis Deo” and wondering at the humility of Magi and shepherds. It is all bigger than this. This takes me to the final installation of C S Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia, “The Last Battle. In a scene based perhaps on the sense of Armageddon in Revelation, King Tirian, Jill, Eustace and Puzzle (the donkey) find themselves thrown into a hovel where the demonic god Tash is waiting to devour them. Instead, they find themselves in a sunlit expanse which turns out to be the “real Narnia” (it’s all in Plato!!). Tirian, Narnia’s last king, comments, “It seems, then…that the stable seen from within and the stable seen from without are two different places.” “Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.” We are all born knowing we will one day die. This Child is the one who was born to die. We can romanticize this day (probably falsely, but we do it)—but we must never forget the essential link between Christmas and Holy Week and Easter. Without the latter (and its consequent call to us to metanoia, to repentance) today is just another day, just another birth, just another photo op for a cute baby in swaddling clothes. HODIE CHRISTUS NATUS EST! Today is born our Savior, Christ the Lord! Let’s rejoice, but let’s also remember why this day matters. Fr. David