Carols and Motherhood at Christmas
Reflections on the Nativity from the U.S. and Ireland
Hello everyone!
Merry Christmas!
I hope you are putting your feet up and enjoying yourselves.
A few weeks back, I was honored to be asked to write a Christmas reflection for a Catholic podcast out of Ireland. After thinking about it for a little while, I was moved to share a particular, hidden sense of wonder that sometimes comes to me at Christmas as a parent, and particularly as a mother. I find this wells up especially when I meditate on certain seasonal carols and hymns (see three of them at the bottom of this post, and also linked in the text of my reflection).
Whether or not you share this experience, I hope you will find some joy and inspiration in my reflection! I’m also publishing a written version below, with C&SI’s kind permission.
Listen here: “Motherhood at Christmas”
(Or listen to the entire episode here: “C&SI - A Christmas Miscellany for Christmas Day 2024”)
Incidentally, I suppose we’ve been talking about music rather a lot lately at the Hollow — it is of course one of my loves. But we’ll be back to other topics quite soon, including my reads of the year!
**Edited to add: if the sense of the bittersweet at Christmas resonates with you, you might also enjoy LuElla D’Amico’s recent piece at Hearth & Field, “Longing for More: Why We Should Read Bittersweet Christmas Tales to Our Children.”
Merry Christmas!!
Warmly,
Motherhood at Christmas
by Dixie Dillon Lane
When a woman becomes a mother, Christmas takes on new meaning. You may think I mean that it becomes about creating special Christmas experiences for her children; and it is true that over the years, this will start to take up more and more of her time and energy in the month of December and into each New Year.
When I say that Christmas takes on new meaning for mothers, however, I am not actually thinking of this maternal busyness or of the festive experience of spending Christmas with your own children. I would like us instead to reflect for a moment on a more hidden meaning of Christmas for mothers.
At Christmastime, ordinary Christian mothers -- much like that holiest of mothers, the virgin Mary -- have something special to ponder in their hearts. Having now had the experience of being transformed into a sort of Tabernacle through pregnancy – by carrying the flesh of another person within her own body – a mother has now participated in the bearing forth of life in a way that no other human being (except another mother) can. She has laid down her body for the sake of one of Christ’s little ones; she has gone through the Crucifixion that is labor and delivery; and she has seen the Resurrection in the birth of her child. Even years later, this experience often remains transformative in her memory.
The Nativity of Our Lord on December 25, therefore, may begin to mean something different to her as well. Before her motherhood, she understood the Nativity and the Incarnation intellectually; but now she feels its meaning in her bones. She finds herself attuned to the Nativity story in a way that goes beyond words. While she wraps presents, prepares for the Christmas feast, attends to her children and her work, and otherwise goes about her life at this time of year, she carries a special knowledge within her that animates it all just a little differently than it ever did before.
This knowledge-beyond-words is deeply felt and thus begs for some sort of expression during the Christmas season. For me, it has always welled up best when I sing or listen to certain hymns and songs characteristic of this time of year.
I have always been moved by the words of the American Christmas carol “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” for example, whose lyrics were originally written by the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in part as an expression of grief over his son being severely wounded in the American Civil War. Tempted in the song to despair, Longfellow is then reminded by the pealing church bells on Christmas Day that “God is not dead, nor doth he sleep,” thereby regaining hope
Now that I am a parent myself, I have come to understand even better the temptation to lose faith in God when a child is hurting or in danger. Many times since becoming a mother I have felt a particular shiver at this carols words of hope in the face of despair, a reminder that a mother’s fears and suffering on her children’s behalf will not be in vain.
Even more evocative for me as a mother has been the Advent hymn “People Look East,” with lyrics by the poet Eleanor Farjeon. This is a cheerful song, unlike the melancholic “I Heard the Bells.” In exhorting listeners to prepare well for the birth of Christ, it uses metaphors that speak especially to human mothers and the way that they pour out their strength in nourishment of the young: “Birds though you long have ceased to build/Guard the nest that must be filled/Even the hour when wings are frozen/He for feldging time has chosen.” It is a resonant reminder for mothers that the hardships of parenting are part of the process, and that God sees and values the fiat that a mother gives in welcoming and caring for her child whenever the child needs it. “Give up your strength, the seed to nourish,” another verse proclaims, “That in time the flower may flourish.” Parents can trust that God values our sacrifices, that He is with us in our work and has a plan for its eventual fruition.
Finally, when I was expecting my youngest daughter a few years ago, yet another Christmas carol spoke to me in a special way. My daughter was born right at the beginning of Advent, and so I felt a special kinship with Our Lady as we were awaiting our children’s births at almost the same time that year. Deep in the night, on the night when the first powerful surges told me my daughter was on her way, I lit that year’s Advent candles for the first time and sang through the pains with the words of the carol “In the Bleak Midwinter.” The lyrics speak to the windswept winter cold and the hardness of the hour, and then ask the singer to offer up her heart. What does a mother do but offer up her heart? Our Lady knew what it was to have her heart pierced by the sword; but she also knew the Resurrection. So, too, will we human parents.
Being a mother at Christmas offers a chance to reflect on the Nativity in ways that go beyond platitudes and reach deep into the heart of Christian faith. Expressing this in song may help us combine the particular sacrifices of motherhood with the great hope that comes with the Incarnation. Parents can sometimes feel that the journey to Bethlehem will be neverending. But as a mother myself, I can assure you that the joy of the Nativity does indeed arrive; and there is no gift so great as to see one’s children begin, like flowers, to flourish.
If you’ve made it this far, perhaps you’d like to listen to the carols I mentioned right here:
Merry Christmas!
You would love the movie “I Heard the Bells,” by Sight and Sound Theatre/Productions. It’s a film about the history of that beautiful carol and the tragic events in Longfellow’s life that led to his writing it. His wounded son was not the only tragedy, sadly. You can watch it with a subscription to Great American PureFlix, and it’s also available to rent/buy through other streaming platforms. Some libraries also have it! 11/10 recommend; it’s a new favourite movie of mine, and I think you’d love it too.
Another motherhood carol is the Coventry Carol with origins in the medieval retelling of scripture and specifically Herod’s targeting of the innocents.
Have you ever heard the Wexford Carol, as performed by YoYo Ma & Alison Krause? I think you would appreciate it.
Have a wonder-full Christmastime!