FORUM: 'Gifts From God'

With Sunday’s feast of the Epiphany, the Christmas season is over.
I spent a chunk of our snowy weekend going through my Christmas cards.
Why this has not dawned on me before, I don’t know . . . but, about 90% of those cards were about babies and kids!
Pictures of families with young children; good news of babies born the past year; updates on children and grandchildren.
Christmas is all about kids.  As you’ve heard me mention before, at the center of all history, when B.C. becomes A.D., is a mother and her infant, in a stable in Bethlehem.
Anthropologists tell us that a characteristic of all primitive people is that all of life is organized naturally to protect the children.
How we treat our babies and children; how we promote marriage, which has as one of its major purposes the procreation of children; how we protect the family, where babies and children are nurtured and raised, really defines civilization.
The Church has always been in the front lines of sustaining marriage, family, babies, and children.  Early commentators on the Church, most of whom wanted it crushed, had to grudgingly admit that Christians stood out for believing that marriage was sacred, that women deserved respect, and that babies were gifts from God.
Yes, Christmas is now over.  Just a couple weeks ago, families gathered in unity around a tree and tenderly watched their kids excited over gifts.  Moms and dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles enjoyed it more than the wee ones.  All of us thought, “This is how it should always be.”
No wonder God the Father sent His Son, our Lord and Savior, as a baby.