“Love came down at Christmas – love all lovely, love divine.” Perhaps, when it comes down to it, it’s Christmas carols that speak more forcefully than any sermon about what Christmas can mean to us. The Protestant churches seemed dyed in the wool, the Catholics obsessed with the Virgin Mary and the Sacred Heart. The temptation was to give in to my husband’s preference for staying in bed on Sunday mornings with the newspapers. You could say it had begun to incarnate God’s love. Yes, this for me was a revelation of what churchgoing needed to be – a sharing of God’s love and an invitation to be part of that love in our daily lives and relationships.

Source: The Irish Times December 21, 2025 09:39 UTC