"And God said,....And it was so." (Genesis 1:6a, 7b)
Everything that is, everything that we know as some-thing and anyone we know as some-one, has its being from divine speech. God said, and it was so.
And today we learn that everything that is exists so that this same all-effective Word might be conceived by the Spirit-Love proceeding in full personality from that Word and the Unbegotten Source who speaks him, conceived as a historical human life in a little family, among a little people, in a little, out of the way place.
The Mystery to which all our human experience of love and knowledge points and tends--this Ground and Source that we clumsily call 'God'-- is revealed in a little child. His almighty-ness, his omnipotence begins to be revealed as not what we might think, a revelation Jesus Christ completes by his death on the Cross, the King of God's chosen reigning from a throne on which hands and feet cannot even be moved and from which this King could still less compel anyone to do anything by his authority and power.
But Christmas finds us revealed to ourselves as well. The fullness of the meaning of our creation in the divine image (Genesis 1:27) comes to light in the newborn Jesus Christ. We contemplate the mystery of his Nativity and we see God-with-us, born one of us, as each of us once was at the beginning of our earthly lives. But we realize that it is not the only-begotten Son of God who comes in our image but we who are created in his; in recognizing his humanity we see our own dignity as those born bearing the divine image. Each human life, from the first moment of its conception through all its joys and pains and loves and tragedies, is revealed in family resemblance to God himself, holding in itself, with all preciousness, something of the infinite divine dignity.
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| Nativity window, Sacred Heart Church, Yonkers, New York |
4 comments:
Thank you Charles for these deep thoughts of our Savior. Love to you I pray for your ministry. Elizabeth
Thank you!
Fratello,
"He didn't come in our image, we bear His".
Wow. Never thought of it that way.
Grazie!!
Well, since I do not have your address or your e-mail address,my Christmas greeting is coming via your blog. I hope that your celebration of the beautiful feast of the Birth of the Lord was as wonderful as mine. I had a guest for dinner and we had a thoroughly lovely time. It was a very special Advent for me as I grew in my awareness of the Lord's presence within and around me every day. I desire to spend every moment in that awareness of His presence. This is my goal for the next year--growing awareness of the Lord's presence within and around me. This is what our lives are meant to be--not just being in His presence which we are at all times, but being in the awareness of His presence at all times. It is very easy to forget that He is "right here" when we are busy. But I suspect that we can stimulate our awareness perhaps by signals such as the chiming of a clock, looking at a picture of Him or at the habit or crucifix that we wear, or hearing the song of the birds. We can use everything and any thing as a reminder of His presence so that we are ever with Him. What a joy! For as Augustine said, He has made us for Himself and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. We can come to a place of rest in Him while still on this earth. Let there be ever so many things in our lives that bring us into the awareness of His presence. May He Who came as a tiny baby, the Light of the World, fill you with His light, His love and His joy during this Christmas Season and into the year to come.
Blessings, Fr. Charles!
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