Reformers might rail against sacred images, but, at Christmas, the world turns Catholic to gaze upon the Christ child.

The holiday special was the product of a Jewish producer from San Francisco and a Mexican-American Catholic whose mother brought him across the border in the 1920s.

Whatever else the virgin birth may be, it doesn’t represent the domestication of the divine.

We are afraid: afraid that our questioning will lead to spiritual cataclysm, that once the camel’s skeptical nose gets under the tent flap, the whole shabby edifice of our faith will collapse.

Amid the pain and suffering, God remains present in our hearts. No matter how much we wail and shake our fists, He will abide with us.

We need not see prayer as activity for a solo operator only.