Christmas

Year C

For Fr. McNamara's meditation on Christmas, see his Saints Alive article about The Nativity of Our Lord.

A Son is Born to Us

In the readings for the three Masses of Christmas we celebrate the two births of Jesus: as son of Mary and as Son of God from all eternity. Like's Christmas story details the events surrounding the birth
of the human Jesus as son of Mary, and therefore as son of David. All the details of the infant's life point to this child as the fulfillment of Israel's hopes and the climax of their experience of God. But John's Gospel at the third mass focuses on the divine Jesus, the perfect image of God. The Word becomes flesh; the unthinkable is thought and spoken; the untouchable transcendent One reaches out and touches us. God joins our family and shares our experience, our pains and our infirmities, our joys and our sorrows. In Jesus God teaches us how to better at being human. Even more wondrous "God becomes human so that humanity might become divine." (St. Leo the Great). Christmas celebrates this union of heaven and earth, this connectedness, this communion which is at the heart of Christian faith.

O God in a wonderful way you created and ennobled human nature and still more, wonderfully renewed it. Let us make our own the prayer said by the priest as he mixes water and wine at Mass: "Grant that by the mystery of this water and wine, we may share in the divinity of him who chose to share in our humanity, Jesus Christ, your Son."