Given the Mystery before which we kneel, perhaps words should cede to silence--clamor give way to contemplation.
God who IS, and who has already been incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin for nine months, enters into the transient world of human history. Being itself experiences becoming. The divine Artist enter into the canvas of his own creation. The Author and Director of Life becomes the protagonist in his own divine drama.
The birth of Jesus speaks of something utterly unique and unrepeatable--inconceivable, really. Except for this fact: God so loved the world that he did indeed conceive such a marvelous plan: "Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God" (Lk 1:35).
A precious commentary by Oswald Chambers puts it thus: "Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not evolve out of history; he came into history from the outside. Jesus Christ is not the best human being, he is a Being who cannot be accounted for by the human race at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate, God coming into human flesh, coming into it from outside. His life is the Highest and the Holiest entering in at the Lowliest door."
Chambers then shows how the mystery of the Incarnation needs to become the pressing question of our lives here and now: "Just as our Lord came into human history from outside, so he must come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a 'Bethlehem' for the Son of God?" (From My Utmost for His Highest, 1935.)
May our hearts become a Bethlehem for Christ this Christmas season. May the model of our Mother Mary show us how to create a sacred space within for the One who comes from without. May Christ be born anew in my heart and in yours, so that the One who IS may continue to transform this changing world into what it is meant to become.
Our brief time here on earth will be determined by whether we allow Almighty God to be born into the history of our lives. Let's let our stories part of His-story, and let's pray that Christ will return soon in glory: Maranatha, "Come, Lord"!
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"Hail and blessed be the hour and moment
in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary,
in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary,
at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold.
"In that hour vouchsafe, O my God,
to hear my prayer and grant my desires,
through the merits of our Savior Jesus Christ,
And of his blessed Mother. Amen"
Christmas Novena Prayer
