Christmastime

            Christmastime is so sublime that I cannot understand it.  I understand that it is when our Savior was born, became man—the God-man.  However, what was it that caused Zechariah to rejoice over a baby, seeing that it was not only the redeemer of Israel but of himself also—when he would be dead?^[1]  What was it that caused Simeon and Anna to rejoice and gladly go to their graves because they had seen the Baby?^[2]  Mostly, in our minds, we are celebrating a historical event, when it would be more efficacious for us to see in the birth of Christ what God is doing for us now.

            “The notion of joy is altogether fundamental to Christianity, which by its very nature is and claims to be evangelium, gospel, joyful news.  Yet it is true: The world mistrusts the gospel, mistrusts Christ on this very point; and it abandons the Church because Christianity would deprive people of joy by imposing its endless demands and injunctions.  Granted, this much is correct: The joy of Christ cannot be recognized as easily as the superficial pleasure that may result from some entertainment.”^[3]  God is happiness.  Nonetheless, we don’t want to find that happiness; we desire to find happiness in that which we can sense, i.e. that which we can see, touch, taste, hear, and smell.  For this reason, God became flesh, coming into this world as a baby.

            “The Word became flesh.  Alongside this Johannine truth there has to be put also the Marian truth as rendered by Luke.  God has become flesh.  This is not only an immensely great and remote happening; it is something very close and human.  God became a child who needed a mother.  He became a child, someone born with tears on his cheeks, whose first utterance is a cry for help, whose first gesture consists in outstretched hands searching for protection.  God became a child.  Nowadays, we also hear it being said, in contrast, that this, after all, would be nothing but a sentimentality better put aside.  Yet the New Testament thinks differently.  For the Faith of the Bible and the Church, it is important that God desired to be such a creature who has to depend on a mother, on the sheltering love of humans.  He wished to be dependent in order to awaken in us love that purifies and redeems.  God became a child, and every child is dependent.   To be a child thus contains already the theme of the search for shelter, the elementary motif of Christmas.  And how many variations has this motif seen in our history!  In our days, we experience this anew and in disturbing ways: The child knocks on the doors of our world.  The child is knocking.  This search for shelter is profound.  There is indeed an atmosphere of hostility toward children, but is this not preceded by an attitude that altogether bars any child from entering this world because there would be no more room for him?  The child knocks.  If we would receive him, we are to rethink thoroughly our own attitude toward human life.  Here we are dealing with fundamentals, with our very concept of what it means to be human: to live in grandiose selfishness or in confident freedom that knows its vocation to be united in love, to be free to accept one another.”^[4] 

              The Church, because Jesus is the Head, sees the necessity of keeping Christmas not only as historical but current, efficacious.  “In one of his many Christmas Homilies, St Leo the Great exclaims: “Let us be glad in the Lord, dearly-beloved, and rejoice with spiritual joy that there has dawned for us the day of ever-new redemption, of ancient preparation, of eternal bliss. For as the year rolls round, there recurs for us the commemoration of our salvation, which promised from the beginning, accomplished in the fullness of time will endure forever” (Homily XXII).”^[5]  Our salvation is not a historical event that occurred in the past and is completed; it is ever-new, becoming more and more mature, in which the maturity is accomplished when we see Christ face-to-face.  It is for this purpose that we are pilgrims, having not arrived in our “country.”

            “Surely, we ought to keep still greater festival when we see the Son of God born and come down from heaven to visit us, urged to this by the bowels of his mercy: Through the bowels of the mercy of our God, in which the Orient from on high hath visited us (cf. Lk 1:78).  We were lost; and behold him who came to save us: He came down from heaven for our salvation.  Behold the shepherd who came to save his sheep from death by giving his life for their sake: I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives his life for his sheep (cf. Jn 10:2).  Behold the Lamb of God, who came to sacrifice himself, to obtain for us the divine favor, and to become our deliverer, our life, our light, and even our food in the most Holy Sacrament!”^[6]

               “St. Maximus says that for this reason, amongst others, Christ chose to be laid in the manger where the animals were fed, to make us understand that he has become man also to make himself our food: ‘In the manger, where the food of animals is placed, he allowed his limbs to be laid, thereby showing that his own body would be the eternal food of men.’  Besides this, he is born every day in the Sacrament by means of the priests and the words of consecration; the altar is the crib, and there we go to feed ourselves on his flesh.  Someone might desire to have the Holy Infant in his arms, as the aged Simeon had; but faith teaches us that, when we receive Communion, the same Jesus who was in the manger of Bethlehem is not only in our arms, but in our breasts.  He was born for this purpose, to give himself entirely to us: A child is born to us, a son is given to us.”^[7] 

             “All the Way,” a song made famous by Frank Sinatra, although not a Christmas son, can be so:

When somebody (God) loves you
It’s no good unless he loves you...
All the way (Incarnation, Life, Passion, and (Resurrection)
Happy to be near you (in the Church and Sacraments, especially the Eucharist)
When you need someone to cheer you
All the way

Taller than the tallest tree is
That’s how it’s got to feel
Deeper than the deep blue sea is
That’s how deep it goes if its real

When somebody needs you
It’s no good unless she (the Church and us as individuals) needs you
All the way

Through the good or lean years
And for all those in between years
Come what may (God showing us his love and sanctifying us)

Who knows where the road will lead us
Only a fool would say (we don’t know what today or tomorrow will bring, but we know it’s for our good)
But if you (us) let me  (God) love you (us)
It’s for sure I'm (God) gonna love you (us)
All the way

All the way...

So if you (us) let me (God) love you
It’s for sure I'm (God) gonna love you
All the way
All.. The ... Way...

            As stated previously, we often reject God’s love because we seek happiness in the externals, things that are pleasing to the senses.  We desire to possess them, thinking they will make us happy.  Once we possess them, we find that they don’t satisfy us, that it is that which we do not possess is what we want.  That thing which we do not possess—although we think we do—is God, completely.  When we “see” that he is happiness, we then no longer desire to possess anything else, for we have the All-in-All.  When we “possess” God wholly, it is so overflowing that we must give.  We then realize that God is so abundant that he cannot be possessed yet is possessed.  Let us see this in the Eucharist and desire it.  That Hope, if we keep it, will not be a wishful hope but a concrete Hope.  Merry Christmas!

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^[1] Catholic Biblical Association (Great Britain), The Holy Bible: Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, (New York: National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA, 1994), Lk 1:67–79.

^[2] Ibid., Lk 2:25–38.

^[3] Joseph Ratzinger, Co-Workers of the Truth: Meditations for Every Day of the Year, ed. Irene Grassl, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 400–401.

^[4] Ibid., 404.

^[5] Benedict XVI, General Audiences of Benedict XVI (English), (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2013).

^[6] Alphonsus Liguori, The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ; Or, The Mysteries of the Faith, ed. Eugene Grimm, The Complete Works of Saint Alphonsus de Liguori, (New York; Cincinnati; St. Louis; London; Dublin: Benziger Brothers; R. Washbourne; M. H. Gill & Son, 1887), 238–239.

^[7] Ibid., 239.