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[Continuing our reading of and meditations on The Christmas Carol]:
The Ghost of Christmas Past is gone. Perhaps they have not borne fruit, but the seeds of purification of memory have been planted. Enter Ghost of Christmas Present.
The Ghost of Christmas Present makes Scrooge examine the world around him, the world he can change. The Ghost of Christmas Past told Scrooge what he saw was of “things that have been.” The Ghost of Christmas Future shows him where his current path is taking him, without answering his question whether these are “the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only.” The Ghost cannot answer that question, because a man’s life still remains to be lived.
Scrooge admits the Christmas Present is unfamiliar territory. Asked if he has ever accompanied the Ghost’s “elder brothers, born in these later years,” Scrooge answers no. He, in turn, asks the Ghost how many brothers he has. “More than eighteen hundred!” No doubt Scrooge privately wondered why his family did not contracept.
There are aspects of Christmas Present Scrooge likes, e.g., his visit to the morning market, where commerce is in full swing. There are many other aspects of which he is dimly (Cratchit’s family) or utterly (others’ lives) unaware. It is an eye-opening day.
Most of the time is spent in the Cratchit household. For Scrooge, Bob Cratchit is not a person. He is a labor cost, one he thinks too high. He knows nothing of Cratchit’s children and, in this, reflects the modern conceit that thinks society should take no countenance of – much less make special account for – families with children.
The scene opens with Cratchit and Tiny Tim arriving home from church to a full-meal preparation house. Some critics attack the Carol for its thin explicit religiosity. That may very well be a function of the religious landscape of mid-19th century Protestant England, but it also somewhat misses the mark: service of the God one cannot see is dishonest when blind to the brother one can (I Jn 4:20).
There’s a saying in Polish about not needing to state the obvious: kon jaki jest, kazdy widzi – “everybody sees what kind of horse it is.” There’s a lot unsaid in the Cratchit household. The goose is tiny for so large a family: only Scrooge comments on it, while uselessly having done nothing to enlarge it. Mrs. Cratchit worries whether she had enough flour – the most basic ingredient needed – to make the Christmas pudding, but “nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so.” The Lord rewards us for a glass of cold water – but the supply of glasses in the Cratchit household is limited. And the most obvious fact is unmentionable: Tiny Tim is dying.
Bob denies it, insisting he is growing stronger every day. But there’s a scene where he holds his boy’s hand, “as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.” It is that glance that elicits Scrooge’s question about the lad’s fate. He’s told unequivocally “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.” And within the year: “If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race … will find him here.”
When Scrooge exhibits an ounce of empathy, he’s met with his own words: “let him die and decrease the surplus population!” It is then that the Ghost of Christmas Present teaches Scrooge a lesson in humility: “ It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child.” Scrooge’s emotional modicum of mercy is nothing compared to the mercy that keeps his life in existence.
We also have a lesson in charity, when Bob manages to coax his whole family – including a recalcitrant wife – to toast Scrooge. She finally does it “… for your sake and the Day’s, … not for his.” Pardon begins only with letting go.
That is the occasion for the Scrooge and the Ghost to leave the Cratchits and continue on other Christmas visits. As we consider the Cratchit household, let us ask ourselves:
· Do we begrudge anyone life? Do we dare think any other person’s life is “not worth living?”
· Do we see the poor? Do we render them help unseen?
· Do we take the first step in letting go of grievances – even legitimate ones – for the sake of “the Day” … and whose “Day” it is?
John Grondelski (PhD Fordham) was former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University in New Jersey. He is a Catholic theologian with special interests in moral theology and the thought of St. John Paul II. All views are his own.
