Christmas past.

They have set up the big tree in Rockefeller Plaza; the skinny street-corner Santa Clauses are out again and above the low mournful sounds of New York traffic their little silver bells are as insistent as Sanctus warnings; the big stores on Fifth Avenue are gaily festooned and buzzing with shoppers - Christmas is here again. At Mass the choir sings Rorate coeli desuper - liturgically, another year has passed and Christ is about to be born again. It seems not the time to write of events but of the Event.

It is said that the celebration of Christmas is becoming ever more secularized, and this is sadly true. But how can one who has ever considered the Event go through the season dumbly? For a Catholic the memories of a lifetime rise to the surface. One cannot be a Catholic and not know faith, in himself and others, and it is the faith that the Child was born and the world was redeemed which gives Christmas its meaning. Even to those who say Christmas is a myth, just the possibility of it, the fact that millions upon millions have believed it, gives the feast its ultimate meaning. Voltaire is supposed to have said that if God did not exist he would have had to be invented. But who could have invented Christmas?

Halfway through life (a matter of statistics), you look back upon all the Christmases you have known. Each one is a little different from the others. The Event remains changeless. You change though, and you either learn more of what Christmas means - which is growth - or the meaning of it begins to escape you which, I take it, is retrogression. The child understands Christmas as a child; the Trappist monk understands it as a man. It is better to be a man, unless you have lost the clarity of childhood - and then it may be better if you had never heard of Christmas because you have moved away from, not toward, the Event.

As a youngster you learn that Christ was born of the Virgin Mary, that there were wise men and shepherds and angels in the stable with the Child, his Mother, and Saint Joseph and that a wonderful thing happened. You may not understand why the Child was born, because you know nothing of sin (that comes with the dark wisdom of maturity), but you know that what happened was a thing of wonder of beauty, and of love - and that is enough for faith. That is enough for a child's Christmas.

I remember third grade and a certain Sister Sara. We were all boys in that class, and yet the Sister wanted a Christmas play. some of us were angels and a few were shepherds. There were three kings and a Saint Joseph, and one kid named Emil was dressed in blue and white, to be the Blessed Virgin. I remember that he wore a first Communion veil over his head and a long blue robe. He must have been a holy sight. But so solemn was the occasion, so lively our faith, that no one openly jeered at him. To make fun of poor Emil would have been impious.

This was the cast. The rest of us were "extras." First we were the townsfolk of Bethlehem. Mary and Joseph went from desk to desk, pleading for room, and our role was to turn them away until finally they reached one Peter's desk. He was the kindly inn keeper who offered room in his stable. You can imagine the zest with which we played the hard-hearted townsfolk of Bethlehem. In the third grade villains are far more meaningful than heroes. I still remember the piping voices: "Go way, go way from here!"

Then, when the weary trudge from desk to desk was finished, the Mother and Saint Joseph disappeared from sight - this was the way Sister Sara planned it - and the angry townsfolk became an angelic choir. "Winds through the olive trees softly did blow, round little Bethlehem, long, long ago," the class sang with devotion while the Sister - childlike herself - pumped the little hand organ, playing awheezy accompaniment. Then, the makeshift curtain was raised for the classic tableau. We all sang another angelic chorus: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will!"

This was crude - perhaps rude - but it was Sister Sara's way, and I have never forgotten it. The Sister surely did not know much about advanced methods of education, but there is the record: it happened many years ago, and whenever it is Christmas I think of the "Play," as we called it, the year Emil with the blue robe over his corduroy trousers and high-laced shoes was the Mother and yet nobody laughed.

That was the Christmas when the real story first made a deep impression Before that it had been Santa Claus (or pretending to believe in Santa Claus so the folks would not be disappointed) and the presents under the tree, and a hazy idea of what was being celebrated. But the year Emil was the Blessed Mother, the Event itself came into clear focus, and ever since, though I should lose my faith a thousand times over, when Christmas is celebrated, I would still have to lose it again. You can't escape Christmas; you can only escape yourself.

John Cogley was executive editor of The Commonweal. Reprinted from the 1952 Christmas issue.