The Dayspring is With the Children

Madonna and Child by Raphael 1505

"Every mother knows out of her own heart's fulness what the Birth at Bethlehem means."
 - Charlotte Mason

So our Sunday, this Sunday before Christmas, was full of children.  Since my baby is now nine years old, it sure is special to have friends' little ones around - especially at Christmas time.  We started with our Family Sunday School caroling at an assisted living facility   I got to carry 3-year-old Hope around, whose lispy "Merry Christmas" made the residents melt.  During the service, dh held 6-week old Jonathan.  Try singing "Silent Night" without tearing up with a newborn in your arms...

Here are some words from Mason which are strangely fitting for our time.  There really is something to think about here.  Merry Christmas.

Children Necessary to Christmas Joy

In these levelling days we like to think that everybody has quite equal opportunities in some direction; but Christmas joy, for example, is not for every one in like measure. It is not only that those who are in need, sorrow, or any other adversity do not sit down to the Christmas feast of joy and thanksgiving; for, indeed, a Benjamin's portion is often served to the sorrowful. But it takes the presence of children to help us to realise the idea of the Eternal Child. The Dayspring is with the children, and we think their thoughts and are glad in their joy; and every mother knows out of her own heart's fulness what the Birth at Bethlehem means. 

Those of us who have not children catch echoes. We hear the wondrous story read in church, the waits chant the tale, the church-bells echo it, the years that are no more come back to us, and our hearts are meek and mild, glad and gay, loving and tender, as those of little children; but, alas, only for the little while occupied by the passing thought. Too soon the dreariness of daily living settles down upon us again, and we become a little impatient, do we not, of the Christmas demand of joyousness.

But it is not so where there are children. The old, old story has all its first freshness as we tell it to the eager listeners; as we listen to it ourselves with their vivid interest it becomes as real and fresh to us as it is to them. Hard thoughts drop away like scales from our eyes; we are young once more with the children's young life, which, we are mysteriously made aware, is the life eternal. What a mystery it is! Does not every mother, made wise unto salvation, who holds a babe in her arms, feel with tremulous awe that, that deep saying is true for her also, 'The same is my mother'? (Mason, 2.281)