The Christmas season, or as the media now entitles this time leading up to December 25th, the “holiday season” is a schizophrenic period that proclaims peace and joy. Yet it is wrought with tension, frayed nerves and inner anxiety.

The advertisements are filled with happy faces that try to convince us that we will be supremely joyful if we will just purchase the right product—be it a Lexus or a bottle of lotion. We can’t escape the songs and sounds of a hectic world that is in overdrive as it attempts to produce a holiday mood of near euphoria.

However, observe, if you will, the faces of the people on the streets and in the stores during this pre-holiday time. They are mostly serious and intent, pressured by the need to participate in what can be a very artificial atmosphere. Sometimes many of us feel that we are trapped in an obligatory ritual, a social mandate that relentlessly drives us to conform to the customs of our age.

We want to shout, “Stop the world, I want to get off!” And then to beg, “Please, please no more WalMart, no more Macy’s, no more malls!”

This season, while it is unmistakably religious in origin, at the same time creates pressures on people, and as a result strange behaviors can occur. It is no accident that during the Christmas season the police are constantly busy with disputes, domestic and otherwise. The emergency rooms of hospitals are most active at Christmastime. Chaplains dread the nights around Christmas because they are called out so often to tragedies.

But none of this tension is new. Before the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) we priests heard literally hundreds of confessions on the Saturday before Christmas. The lines went around the church. There were no “vigil” Masses so we heard confessions from 3 until 6 and from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m.

At 9 o’clock the sexton locked the doors. Invariably there was trouble. People came late. The sexton would unlock the door to let the newly shriven penitents out, and at that moment others would arrive to “go to confession.” When the sexton refused to let them in, the fun would start. Tempers flared.

One night, I heard a huge commotion. When I left the confessional there was the sexton at the front door of the church locked in a bear hug with a gentleman demanding entrance. They looked like two guys from today’s World Wrestling Federation. I broke it up and told the janitor to let the penitents out the side door of the church from then on. Then I heard the man’s confession.

I thought to myself, “What’s wrong with this scene? Two men are fighting in a sacred space over a sacrament. Does it make sense?”

Another year I was saying the midnight Christmas Mass in the basement of the church. The upstairs church and the basement were both packed. I turned around and said, Dominus vobiscum. At that moment in the back I heard the sound of voices mumbling—then arguing. Then there came the sound of pushing, punches and chairs being overturned.

A few of the brothers had imbibed a little too much Christmas cheer. They had decided to come to Mass. The ushers decided to eject them.

By that time I was at the Gospel, mercifully facing east, my back to the congregation. Sequentia sanctii evangelii secundum Lukan, I read as I piously began the Gospel. Bang, grunt, crash! I heard from the rear of the hall. Blissfully I read on as if nothing was happening. Finally it became quiet. The boys had left.

I learned later, however, that the fight continued outside. One fellow was pushed through a plate glass window in a storefront. The choir in the church could be heard all the way out on the street singing Silent Night, while the police cars arrived with sirens blaring to break up a riot.

Christmas can be a schizophrenic feast. It can be joy and sorrow, peace and tension, religious and almost pagan—all at the same time.

But this is not God’s doing. The Holy Family chose a quiet cave as a birthplace for the newborn baby. They avoided the noise and din of the “khan”—the caravan place—the inn mentioned in the Gospel of Saint Luke.

It is up to each of us to try to find that quiet cave in our own heart where the Christ Child can make His presence felt. That’s the only way to escape the “holiday” season and return to the “holy” season of Our Lord’s birth.

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