One of my constant struggles in this busy time of year is to really be present to the liturgical day and liturgical season. In Advent, there is so much to do, to prepare the way of the Lord, both physically and spiritually, that by the time I get to Christmas Day, it often just feels like I am just going through the motions of what we always do. We have the same family traditions every year, and it is so easy to let it all pass by without much notice, instead of really living Christmas in the present moment. This year, I want to pause and savor the moments of Christmas Day and Christmastide, focusing on God’s presence as well as the presence of each person I spend these days with, whether we are on the road visiting relatives or having family time at home. Another danger for me this time of year, once the sacred days hit and I am no longer in my daily routine, is that I lose track of my regular prayer times. And thus, while I had consistent prayer in Advent trying to be awoken spiritually to the Lord’s coming, when he comes, we are often so busy with activities that I don’t take the time to be with “God with us,” Emmanuel.  

 It is one thing to know that Christmas is so much more than one party after another and catching up with relatives. It is a completely different thing to experience it as something more — as a time to awaken to the Lord who has come to be with us. Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand wrote in Chapter 7 of his book Liturgy and Personality that within the liturgical year each Christmas is a time to awaken to the Lord “as if we were hearing the message for the first time!” Each Christmas should fill us with the same joy and wonder that the shepherds had upon hearing the angels that first Christmas. We should approach our Christmas Communion, and those during the octave, with the awe of one receiving our Incarnate God for the first time. And we need this annual reminder to be and stay awake. 

Hildebrand talks about how the liturgy is a place where we can respond to this call to awaken to the Lord with an inner openness. Ideally, we would arrive through prayer and the liturgy fully aware. “True awakenedness implies receptiveness to God’s voice” (p. 67). This is a continual being awake, a vigilance, where, like the wise virgins, we always have our lamps ready with the oil of our personal intimacy with the Lord. This requires a commitment to attending the liturgy regularly, praying with Scripture and the Liturgy of the Hours, and spending time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  

Living fully awake “prevents us from living so intensely in the visible world which surrounds us as to forget what stands behind and above that world. [...] It is the awakenedness in which we do not allow ourselves to be absorbed by what is at hand, by urgent business and the day’s work, but rather keep ourselves centered on God and his kingdom, on our vocation and the supernatural meaning of our lives. In a word, it is the awakenedness which is a dwelling in the presence of God, an abiding in His light.” (p. 67-68) 

When we have laid down a foundation of regular prayer, we are ready to receive what the Lord is calling us to, through the liturgy on Christmas Day. We just have to be awake and present to the Lord, and he will do the rest. Hildebrand points us to the “call to awaken” that “resounds in the rejoicing over the birth of Our Lord,” through “the continually repeated ‘Hodie’ (This day) of Christmas,” that we hear in the Mass and in the Liturgy of the Hours. While Hildebrand was writing on the liturgy before the changes after Vatican II, the same Introits of the 1962 Missal were retained in the Entrance Antiphons of the New Mass for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. In the current translation of the Roman Missal, Third Edition, the Latin word hodie is often translated to “today” or “this day.”  

 The first call to “today” is on Christmas Eve at the vigil Mass, the Entrance Antiphon points us to be in the present moment: “Today you will know that the Lord will come, and he will save us, and in the morning you will see his glory” (Exodus 16:6-7). Then again, at midnight, we hear the same call to the present moment: “The Lord said to me: ‘You are my Son. It is I who have begotten you this day’” (Psalm 2:7). As the sun rises at the Mass at Dawn: “Today a light will shine upon us, for the Lord is born for us ...” (Isaiah 9:1). And finally at the Mass during the day, we are in the present tense: “A child is born for us, a son is given to us” (Isaiah 9:5). This repetition of “today” is also present in the Liturgy of the Hours. 

Today, today, today — the Lord is with is today. And while these holy days, with all of their festivity, don’t have the same rhythm of our day-to-day life, we are called to be with the Lord today. He has become a man to be with us, to make us one with him, and to bring us with him into eternal life. And we are meant to be with him today, united and awake to him in every single moment, as we have our conversations with family and friends, as we commune with them over our favorite Christmas foods, and as we pray the prayers of the Church’s liturgies.  

This today-ness of the present moment is not just for the Christmas season, but rather the Christmas season is here to renew in us an awareness that God is still with us. We encounter him in each liturgy and within each tabernacle, but we also encounter him in our own hearts where he dwells. And we meet him in the hearts of others. Christmas is the call to respond each time to Christ as if we were discovering the truth of his incarnate love for the first time. And as hard as it is to do in this busy season, make some time this Christmas season for extra prayer. Stop by an adoration chapel on your way to a party. Go to a daily Mass. Pray the Liturgy of the Hours. Build time for the Lord into your day, and when you are there, really be with “God-with-us.”