The Mystery of Christmas
- By Anne Van Tilburg
- Published 12/27/2008
- Catechism
- Unrated
In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was in God's presence, and the Word was God. (John 1:1-18.)
God has come to redeem us, to unite us to himself and to each other, to conform our will to his. He knows our nature. He reckons with it, and has therefore given us every help necessary to reach our goal, heaven. The Divine Child has become a teacher and has told us what to do. In order to penetrate a whole human life with the divine life it is not enough to kneel once a year before the crib and let ourselves be captivated by the charm of the holy night. To achieve this, we must be in daily contact with God, listening to the words he has spoken and which have been transmitted to us, and obeying them. We must above all, pray as the Savior himself has taught us so insistently. "Ask and it shall be given you." This is the certain promise of being heard.And if we pray every day with all our heart: "Lord, thy will be done," we may well trust that we shall not fail to do God's will even when we no longer have subjective certainty.
Christ has not left us orphans. He has sent his Spirit, who teaches us all truth. He has founded his Church which is guided by his Spirit, and has ordained in it his representatives by whose mouth his Spirit speaks to us in human words. In his Church he has united the faithful into one community and wants them to support each other. Thus we are not alone, and if the confidence in our own understanding and even in our own prayer fails us, the power of obedience and intercession will assist us.
And the Word was made flesh. This became reality in the stable of Bethlehem. But it has also been fulfilled in another form. "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life." The Savior, knowing that we are and remain people who have daily to struggle with our weaknesses, aids our humanity in a manner truly divine. Just as our earthly body needs its daily bread, so the divine life in us must be constantly fed. This is the living bread that came down from heaven. If we make it truly our daily bread, the mystery of Christmas, the incarnation of the Word, will daily be re-enacted in us. And this, it seems, is the surest way to remain in constant union with God, and to grow every day more securely and more deeply into the mystical Body of Christ.
The Christian mysteries are an indivisible whole. If we become immersed in one, we are led to all the others. Thus the way from Bethlehem leads inevitably to Golgotha, from the crib to the cross. The way of the incarnate Son of God leads through the cross and passion to the glory of the resurrection. In his company the way of every one of us, indeed of all the human race, leads through suffering and death to this same glorious goal.
Source: Writings of Edith Stein.
Edith Stein (1891-1942), was born at Breslau, Germany, of Jewish parents, she studied at Gottingen and Freiburg in Breisggua under Husserl, the leading phenomenologist. She was received into the Catholic Church in 1922, and in the following year entered the Carmelite convent in Cologne where she received the name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. At the end of 1938 she moved to the convent at Echt on account of the Nazi persecution of the Jews, but during the German occupation of Holland she was arrested, transported to Poland, and killed at Auschwitz. She was beatified by Pope John Paul 11 in 1987.
"To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom. For this, we must humble ourselves and become little. Even more: to become "children of God" we must be "born from above" or "born of God." Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. Christmas is the mystery of this "marvelous exchange."
O marvelous exchange! Man's Creator has become man, born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity. Catechism #526.
God has come to redeem us, to unite us to himself and to each other, to conform our will to his. He knows our nature. He reckons with it, and has therefore given us every help necessary to reach our goal, heaven. The Divine Child has become a teacher and has told us what to do. In order to penetrate a whole human life with the divine life it is not enough to kneel once a year before the crib and let ourselves be captivated by the charm of the holy night. To achieve this, we must be in daily contact with God, listening to the words he has spoken and which have been transmitted to us, and obeying them. We must above all, pray as the Savior himself has taught us so insistently. "Ask and it shall be given you." This is the certain promise of being heard.And if we pray every day with all our heart: "Lord, thy will be done," we may well trust that we shall not fail to do God's will even when we no longer have subjective certainty.
Christ has not left us orphans. He has sent his Spirit, who teaches us all truth. He has founded his Church which is guided by his Spirit, and has ordained in it his representatives by whose mouth his Spirit speaks to us in human words. In his Church he has united the faithful into one community and wants them to support each other. Thus we are not alone, and if the confidence in our own understanding and even in our own prayer fails us, the power of obedience and intercession will assist us.
And the Word was made flesh. This became reality in the stable of Bethlehem. But it has also been fulfilled in another form. "He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life." The Savior, knowing that we are and remain people who have daily to struggle with our weaknesses, aids our humanity in a manner truly divine. Just as our earthly body needs its daily bread, so the divine life in us must be constantly fed. This is the living bread that came down from heaven. If we make it truly our daily bread, the mystery of Christmas, the incarnation of the Word, will daily be re-enacted in us. And this, it seems, is the surest way to remain in constant union with God, and to grow every day more securely and more deeply into the mystical Body of Christ.
The Christian mysteries are an indivisible whole. If we become immersed in one, we are led to all the others. Thus the way from Bethlehem leads inevitably to Golgotha, from the crib to the cross. The way of the incarnate Son of God leads through the cross and passion to the glory of the resurrection. In his company the way of every one of us, indeed of all the human race, leads through suffering and death to this same glorious goal.
Source: Writings of Edith Stein.
Edith Stein (1891-1942), was born at Breslau, Germany, of Jewish parents, she studied at Gottingen and Freiburg in Breisggua under Husserl, the leading phenomenologist. She was received into the Catholic Church in 1922, and in the following year entered the Carmelite convent in Cologne where she received the name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. At the end of 1938 she moved to the convent at Echt on account of the Nazi persecution of the Jews, but during the German occupation of Holland she was arrested, transported to Poland, and killed at Auschwitz. She was beatified by Pope John Paul 11 in 1987.
"To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom. For this, we must humble ourselves and become little. Even more: to become "children of God" we must be "born from above" or "born of God." Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. Christmas is the mystery of this "marvelous exchange."
O marvelous exchange! Man's Creator has become man, born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity. Catechism #526.