He Who Existed Before Time, Has Entered Into Time

CHRISTMAS 2014

Today we celebrate in a most formal and glorious way the great mystery of the Incarnation: By the power of the Holy Spirit, God became man, while remaining God.

This Miracle of miracles happened in Mary’s womb. For nine months the enfleshed Word dwelt there – in silence, in security, in secret; no one knew the mystery, save God Himself, and the Angels in Heaven, who on this day joyfully announced His glorious Birth to the shepherds.

Today, this Child is born to us. The All-Powerful Lord, Creator of Heaven and earth, has become a creature, uniting to Himself a lowly human nature.

He who existed before time, has entered into time.

He who for all eternity was hidden from us in impenetrable mystery, has revealed Himself fully in His Son.

And now, with the Birth of the Savior, God has a human Face – and what a marvel this is: the Face of a little Babe!

Every mother, I think, while her child is in the womb, imagines what her child’s face will look like. As any mother, the Blessed Virgin must have imagined, and pondered, what the face of Jesus would look like after she gave birth to Him; and this must have brought great joy to Mary’s Heart.

And that joy must have been overflowing when she gazed upon the Holy Face of the newly-born Christ Child for the first time on the night of His Birth! As Archbishop Fulton Sheen says, Mary was the only person to look down on God.

What a wonder to contemplate: This Infant, who depends on His Mother for warmth and nourishment, at the same time upholds the order of all creation; He sustains the stars in the sky and maintains the course of the planets in their orbits.

And yet, here he lays, a helpless Babe, gazing up at His Virgin Mother. He looks lovingly into her eyes, and she into His; their Hearts are united– as one – in this blessed communication of love.

There is no need to speak, no need for words here. A beautiful silence reigns in the stable in Bethlehem on that first Christmas; for His Heart speaks to hers, and her Heart to His.

Hearkening to the message brought by the angel, the shepherds come to worship, to adore, their new-born Savior. They are silent as well, as they behold with great wonder and awe this scene of the Baby Jesus in His Mother’s arms.

Mary places the Baby Jesus in a manger – a wooden vessel filled with hay from which animals eat.

Do the shepherds know, as Mary well knows, that this Child has come as our Good Shepherd, to gather us, His lost sheep, into His flock? And that He has come as our Savior and our Redeemer, to suffer and die for us?

Yes, amid the joy of this day we must not forget that Jesus was born to us, in order to die for us – to offer up His Body on the wood of the Cross and pour out His Blood for us,to pay the price for our sins.

Let us remember too, that He came also to give us His Precious Body and Blood as the nourishment for our souls, in order that we might enter into the holiest of unions with Him this side of Heaven, and be transformed more and more into His likeness, in order that we might act like Him, and love like Him.

On this glorious day of the Birth of our Savior, let us ask the Blessed Virgin Mary for the grace to share in her joy in contemplating the beautiful Face of the newly born Christ Child.

Let us join Mary and St. Joseph and gaze with wonder on the Holy Face of this Infant who is God incarnate, the Word made flesh.

Let us join the shepherds who came to worship, and along with them acknowledge Him as the Son of Abraham and Son of David, the King of kings and Lord of lords.

And finally, let us sing with the angels in praise of Him: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men of good will.”