If the world wanted what is called a non-controversial aspect of
Christianity, it would probably select Christmas. Yet it is obviously bound up
with what is supposed to be a controversial aspect (I could never at any stage
of my opinions imagine why); the respect paid to the Blessed Virgin. When I was
a boy a more Puritan generation objected to a statue upon my parish church
representing the Virgin and Child. After much controversy, they compromised by
taking away the Child. One would think that this was even more corrupted with
Mariolatry, unless the mother was counted less dangerous when deprived of a
sort of weapon. But the practical difficulty is also a parable. You cannot chip
away the statue of a mother from all round that of a newborn child. You cannot
suspend the new-born child in mid-air; indeed you cannot really have a statue
of a newborn child at all. Similarly, you cannot suspend the idea of a newborn
child in the void or think of him without thinking of his mother. You cannot
visit the child without visiting the mother, you cannot in common human life
approach the child except through the mother. If we are to think of Christ in
this aspect at all, the other idea follows it as it is followed in history. We
must either leave Christ out of Christmas, or Christmas out of Christ, or we
must admit, if only as we admit it in an old picture, that those holy heads are
too near together for the haloes not to mingle and cross.
The Everlasting Man
