This came from one of my Catholic email groups. I am posting it here as I think the thought is very nice. Hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas. Enjoyed seeing a dear friend this weekend who visited the area. They are driving back home today and I wish them a safe trip.
A BLESSED CHRISTMAS!
If I can believe Christmas, everything else in Christianity is easy for me to believe: the Holy Eucharist of Holy Thursday, the sacrificial love of Good Friday, the Resurrection of Easter Sunday, the coming of Jesus at the moment of our death, His second coming at the end of the world; yes, the very creation of the world itself at the beginning of time.
Think of it! God becomes man, Heaven comes down to earth, eternity invades time. God is one of us for all eternity. Once He assumes our human nature, He keeps it forever. This is the scandal of Christianity: our great transcendent God, Who made heaven and earth, is now Emmanuel, God with us. What a scandal to angels, pure spirits, who have no carnality about them at all!
If Christmas is true, what else in this world should ever grab our attention?
The lights are bright and colorful at Christmas because Emmanuel is the light of the world. We decorate because He created the world with the Father in the Spirit. We give presents because He Himself is the greatest present and presence in the history of the world. He is our God and our all.
And why did God make Himself so available? There is no other motivation possible in God but love. “God so loved he world that He gave His only begotten Son.” Not even God could have given us any more and He is the Gift that keeps on giving forever and everywhere, but most especially in the Holy Eucharist.
Ask Him in the crib how much He loves you, and His little arms respond with the most expansive gesture. Thirty three years later, those same arms now fully grown, pinned back to the wood of the cross, give the same answer: “Greater love than this no one has than to lay down one’s life for another.” This is what He had to experience first to make Himself so available as to make Himself edible in the Blessed Sacrament.
The same faith it takes to believe that that little bundle of seven or eight pounds, born in Bethlehem two thousand years ago was the Son of God is the exact same faith that it takes now to believe that under the appearance of bread and wine we have the risen Lord among us. It’s all a question of faith.
Bethlehem means “House of Bread”. Jesus is the Bread that came down from Heaven for the life of the world. He is the Light for all times. He is the Love for all men. When we see Him, we see the Father. For those who believe Christmas, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.
Lord, we do believe. Help our unbelief!
©Father Angelus Shaughnessy, Order of Friars Minor Capuchin
Saint Conrad Friary, 9448 Babcock Boulevard, Allison Park, PA 15101
Web site: www.fatherangelus.com e-mail: padre@fatheranglus.com
