Reflections on the Rosary: The Birth of Christ

This is my least-favorite mystery, perhaps because I have never married and find Christmas Day excruciatingly lonely. As an adolescent, I lost track of a boyfriend was moved out of state at about the same time my mother remarried and we moved and I watched her happy with her loved one while I had lost mine.

In particular, I remember the Christmas Eve my future sister-in-law sat at the dinner table, scooted over onto my brother's lap and engaged in open-mouthed kissing with him.  I have never felt so lonely in my life because the man I was newly in love with was out of state. My mother, by the way, that my sister-in-law's actions were a deliberate attempt to wound me as that is her character. She finds a sore point and needles people about it.

The next Christmas, I asked my significant other to spend Christmas with me.  He told me he had electronic tickets waiting for me at the airport. I had dreams of hug and kisses, a nice present, and maybe, just maybe a ring. On Christmas Eve day, he called me and told me his sister had died.  She had been ill with an adult form of leukemia for a decade.  I spent the day crying my eyes out and avoiding the woman who was now my brother's wife.

I grew suspicious of my boyfriend's story and checked into it.  The sister was not dead--I spoke to her on the phone myself.  I have never wanted to know in too much detail what was going on with the guy but I assume he was married and, since he had several residences, he brought me to one residence and kept his wife in another.  (It took me a couple of years to admit this truth--both because I didn't want to and because he was  convincing liar.  The next Christmas we were supposed to by in Cyprus but he coudn't go because terrorists were chasing him--he was a professor of Middle Eastern studies and he allegedy served as a consultant about terrorism which had allegedly angered the terrorists who were now after him, etc. etc. etc.

Ever since then, Christmas Day has been marred by sadness and I dread the day. 

I try to find some joy in the birth of Christ but I cannot. I honestly find Jesus to be a remote, far-away figure.  Mary and the other saints are easier figures for me to relate to.  I do wish Jesus was not so remote.