Critics' choices for Christmas : Richard Griffin.

Thomas Lynch does not come immediately to mind as a writer whose books make readers think of Christmas. And yet, in his unique character as poet, essayist, and professional undertaker, Lynch takes an incarnational approach that reminds one that Christmas implies the divinization of the human body.

In his most recent book, Bodies in Motion and at Rest (Norton, $23, 192 pp.), Lynch writes about people dead and living, in ways that respect the human body, with its vulnerability and resilience. And he exposes the self-deceptions characteristic of American culture. Lynch, as befits his profession, is always elemental and unflinching in looking at death, and life too. His often ironic, sometimes sardonic style will not please every reader but his world-view also has profound religious roots.

Autobiographical revelation looms large in this small volume. A reformed alcoholic, Lynch describes the struggles to come back to himself. "What I've learned from my sobriety, from the men and women who keep me sober, is how to pray. Blind drunks who get sober get a kind of blind faith--not so much a vision of who God is, but who God isn't, namely me."

Like many another writer, Tom Lynch ultimately wants "to make sense out of what we're doing here." That aim drives him to look at his own life and that of others, so as to notice what escapes most of the rest of us. If you look at his book-jacket photo--round black hat, black suit and bow tie--you will see someone who combines the antic, the absurd, and the visionary.

In his chapter "Y2Kat," Lynch promises that by the time we read this essay, the cat will have died. If only for hilariously interrupting Tom's lovemaking with his ardently desired ladylove one night, this animal deserved whatever reprisals Tom could carry out. Whether his promise to readers about the cat meeting its demise has been fulfilled, I cannot say.

Little Saint (Random House, $25, 352 pp.) breathes a spirituality unique to Conques, a village in southwestern France. There Hannah Green, an American Protestant, lived part-time for more than twenty years with her husband Jack, relishing the atmosphere of a place seemingly immune from changes wrought by the modern world. The center of her attention was always Sainte Foy, who was martyred in the fourth century at the age of twelve and became the glory of this village after her remains were transferred and enthroned there five centuries after her death.

Published posthumously, this book transcends any one genre, encompassing as it does history, memoir, devotional, and travel literature. Little Saint enhances the author's reputation that previously rested on one recently reissued novel, The Dead of the House (Turtle Point, $12, 240 pp.). Green herself described what she was doing: "I was listening to the voices of the ages, absorbing a spirit, a feeling, a whole realm of faith--its structure, its symbols, its life. I was looking for everything that might relate either directly or indirectly to Sainte Foy and to Conques, its people, their language, its architecture, its art, its history."

Among the richly drawn characters presented by Green, Father Andre, the keeper of the shrine, emerges most memorably. In his white habit, armed with a flashlight, he shows tourists the treasures, and provides learned commentary. This priest of the Premonstratensian order remains "utterly devoted to Sainte Foy," signing himself as "caretaker of this radiance." But he subtly chafes under the authority that chains him to his job and endures bouts of depression interrupting his periods of peace.

Green intends to confine her narrative to one twenty-four-hour period, though parts slip over to other times. It's a work of serious culture that shows a sensitivity distinctive among spiritual writers. The dominance of one saint, forever a young girl, gives to this craggy part of the world an altogether exotic atmosphere, though this cult is lived out by people engaged each day in earning their living.

Frederick Buechner has long been recognized as one of this country's premier writers. Novelist and spiritual guide, Buechner is a man of insight and profound religious feeling. In this most recent book, The Eyes of the Heart (HarperSanFrancisco, $18, 183 pp.), he also writes with a gerontological edge that enhances its value for readers fascinated with the mystery of age.

This work, filled with recollections of people close to him who have passed on to another life, features a dialogue with his grandmother. Naya, as he calls her, died in 1961 but comes into his study imaginatively for a dialogue about eternal life. When Fred asks her if she sees people she used to know, her answer proves provocative: "Words like see don't do very well on this side of things. But yes, they are here. They are part of what, ever so slowly, we move deeper and deeper toward, or into, or through--whatever the preposition is. They are part of what we begin little by little to understand at last."

Much else follows that will pique the inner life of readers willing to move beyond surfaces. Buechner finds in other deceased family members and friends, continuing presences that stir his imagination and induce him to revalue human experience transformed by a loving God.

Richard Griffin, onetime Catholic chaplain at Harvard University, now focuses on aging and spirituality and, as a journalist, writes weekly columns on these two subjects for Boston-area newspapers.