More Virgin Mary, Less Virgin Islands

A great piece by my pal by Fr. James Martin, SJ:

Look, I love family photos during the holidays. Plus, I actually read those annual holiday letters, all of which start with “What a busy year it’s been!” Seeing photos of my friends and their families and even enjoying a few sunny beach scenes when it’s cold and dark outside is a highlight of December.

But I enjoy the photos more when they’re inside the card, not the card itself. Because more and more, even devout Christians have been replacing Jesus, Mary and Joseph with themselves. Doesn’t it strike you as weird to set aside the Holy Family in favor of your family? Does a photo of Cabo San Lucas trump the story told by the original San Lucas? Is Christmas really about you?

Still unconvinced? Try a thought experiment. For your next birthday, how would you feel about getting a birthday card with my photo on it? “Happy Birthday! It’s a photo of me!”

I love it. You’ll want to read the whole thing and consider that putting ourselves to the fore in our Christmas cards is of a piece with putting ourselves to the fore in our hymns and prayers. Catholic hymns written from the 1980’s on are incredibly “us”, “we” and “I” centered. Here’s an example:

Here in this place new light is streaming, now is the darkness vanished away;
See in this space our fears and our dreamings brought here to you in the light of this day.
Gather us in, the lost and forsaken, gather us in, the blind and the lame;
Call to us now, and we shall awaken, we shall arise at the sound of our name.

We are the young, our lives are a myst’ry, we are the old who yearn for your face;
We have been sung throughout all of hist’ry, called to be light to the whole human race.
Gather us in, the rich and the haughty, gather us in, the proud and the strong;
Give us a heart, so meek and so lowly, give us the courage to enter the song.

Here we will take the wine and the water, here we will take the bread of new birth,
Here you shall call your sons and your daughters, call us anew to be salt for the earth.
Give us to drink the wine of compassion, give us to eat the bread that is you;
Nourish us well, and teach us to fashion lives that are holy and hearts that are true.

It’s the “It’s all about us, but we do mention you here and there, barely” hymn that I most dislike, but there are plenty of other examples. They’re quite different from other hymns that manage make the point that God transcends the “me”: