John Shea mines the rich and allusive meanings of a pivotal day of the Christian year. In seven soul-stirring chapters, he presents "freewheeling explanations of the spiritual life through the images, stories and ideas associated with Christmas."
This holiday is a time of convergence when light and darkness, the divine and the human intersect in vivid ways. Shea helps us appreciate the feast of Christmas as a moment when "the spiritual suffuses the physical and turns it into a medium of revelation." Ordinary objects such as trees, stars, mangers, gifts, and communal meals become occasions which nourish our souls.
With stout-hearted respect for the wonder and the magnificence of human personality, Shea offers evocative interpretations of the shepherds who follow the directions of angels, the openness of Mary who is a model of a woman of faith, and the wayward journey of the Magi.
In a wonderful tale titled "How St. Francis Taught the People of Gubbio To Feed Their Wolf," Shea reveals how strange Christmas stories can wake us up to a spiritual perspective. These tales challenge us to find intimations of grace in our everyday lives. This exceptional book proves that the Christmas miracle can be sustained all year long by those who are able to discern spiritual dimensions of their own experience and in the stories of all time.