“And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (Jn 1:14).

May we take time to meditate upon these words. We need to resist becoming complacent or indifferent to the reality that are in them, or to the idea that this is just another Christmas Day that we celebrate today. Instead may we embrace the promise to our person and our world that they embody. The Word, the Logos in the Greek, who was, who is, and who always will be, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, has become one with us. We, if we think beyond ourselves for just a minute, are the minutest of minutest speck of specks present in the whole of the cosmos. And yet, we have been graced by the presence of God who became man for each one of us, each individual person, so we can be one with him. He became human that we might be invited to become divine.

God took on flesh, he really did become a human being, while at the same time, not diminishing in any way his divinity. He did not just appear to be a man for a time and cast off his humanity like a coat. The Son was conceived in the womb of Mary, developed as you and I did, and when born let out a gasp and scream (just like a baby that just emitted a joyous cry a few seats behind me and JoAnn) that brought joy to Joseph and Mary, as they stared down at the new life before them.

The baby sitting behind us and his or her articulation that he or she is also alive and doing well echoed through the cabin as I was typing about Jesus’ birth. He or she helped me to pick up on something that had eluded me. We were en route to Los Angeles – the city of the Angels – on the airline, Virgin America, two days before Christmas. Not a bad way to be closing out the Lenten Season and beginning to think about the meaning of Christmas.

Christmas Day is a celebration of new life. Not just the birth of any baby, but through his coming into the world, a new beginning for creation and humanity. Today we celebrate the reality and the hope that we are not totally destroyed. We have not been totally undone by Original Sin. Yes, we have been wounded, we have been broken, but not undone.

Though darkness may appear to reign and their may be a temptation to buy into fear and desperation, today we celebrate that “A light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it” (Jn 1:5). This is a day to rejoice, a day to recommit to the light, to the baby who would later call himself, “the way, and the truth, and the life” (cf. Jn 14:6).

Today, may we kneel before this baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, for he shows to us the truth and realization that: “We cannot save ourselves. We can only open ourselves to the hope that comes to us from without, from others, ultimately from one Other” (Lohfink, 255). The One whose birth we celebrate today: “The Light of the human race” (Jn 1:4).

My prayers are with all of you who are reading these words. May God bless you and all you hold close this day. Merry Christmas!

Photo: St Augustine Church, Culver City, CA – Sunday Mass, Fourth Week in Advent.

Lohfink, Gehard. No Irrelevant Jesus: On Jesus and the Church Today. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014.

Link for today’s Mas readings for Monday, December 25, 2017:

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/122517-day.cfm