Suppose that on the next Fourth of July everyone began sending to friends postcards on which were engraved images of Chinese temples, Bali dancers, minarets, Italian wine feasts, and Hindu holy men; one would suspect that our nation had forgotten the great historical event behind the Fourth of July. In like manner, when at Christmas one sees an exchange of cards on which are burning logs, rabbits, reindeer, dinner scenes, snow scenes and sleighs, one wonders if we are not having the feast without the festival and merriment without a reason for being merry. In such case, we would be like one awakened from a sleep who orders a drink to toast a dream which he cannot remember. Christmas is a historical event. Its solemnity has been told in the most pregnant words ever written by the pen of man: "The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us." As I write this column I have a word or a thought in my mind -- but no one knows what it is until I declare it or write it. When I write the word Mary, who was the Mother of the Babe of Christmas, you can say that the word became ink and dwelt upon the page. Now God has a Thought or a Word. We have many thoughts because our knowledge is so imperfect. God has only one Thought or one Word, which reaches to the abyss of all things that are known or can be known. Go back, pile century on century, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God."
Archbishop Fulton Sheen (Bishop Sheen Writes)