When I was little my heart get excited when the "ber" months start appearing in our calendar.....October-November-December. Lights will soon begin to appear like fireflys scattering everywhere, in houses, in trees, in streets. Like in fairyland my world would metamorphose into a world of light. Yes it's beauty is unsayable. Then my soul will be illuminated by some strange presence...of a spirit...Joseph never spoke a word when he first experience it...all is silent in this act of creation ..It is the sound of silence, the Voice of God, the Speech of God, the Breath of God stirring over the waters, it is the Word made flesh, a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power...it is compassion wrapped in a human flesh.It is a new life offered in a crib.
Yup I think this is what Christmas is all about. It is a life illumined by the light of divine grace. It is a sign of His continual presence within us. Christmas then is not a time, nor a season. It is a person.
Let us take this to heart. God is a Word. The Word. This Word was made flesh. He dwelt among us. This Word was incarnated...born...a man. Like you. Like me. This Word became a concrete visibility, a Person. The Person of God no less. And His name? Jesus, not Yaweh, not El Shaddai, or any other name but Jesus. Just Jesus. Simply Jesus. He was one of us.
And Why?
To remind us of what we have forgotten, or never really knew;
WHAT we are: A Word too, of the Father, in the flesh.
WHO we are: Persons too, Sons of God.
HOW we are: The image, the likeness of God. And this likeness? A LIKENESS in LOVE!
Of such is the dignity, the majesty, the splendor of the Person, the human Person. The dignity , the splendor of God are His in the Son, the Second Person of God, and our own Brother in grace no less! Jesus in us.
How then to celebrate Christmas? How to celebrate Jesus? If we can only turn all the tinsels in our Christmas trees into persons and people...If we can fill those Christmas stockings, et al, for those little persons without stockings.If we can turn our Christmas banquets into feasts of the truly hungry persons and people...true Eucharist no less. If we can transform our shopping sprees into frensied shopping for the lost. If we can turn our exchange gifts into --exchanges of self instead...If.....
In brief,
To birth this Word, this Person..JESUS.. in us, and in others this Christmas and everyday hereafter until the consumation of our life must be truly CHRISTMAS.
Blessed be the Lord who did not leave Us!
