“Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.” More beautiful words have never been spoken! I thank the Lord that hundreds of times I have been blessed to proclaim them to people. Each time I do, emotion wells up from the depths and often my eyes fill with tears: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.”
This text from Saint Luke’s Gospel is dense with references to the Jewish Scriptures, like packed with code – yet not to conceal but rather to proclaim something for all to see and understand. The message is the key to EVERYTHING! It illuminates a fundamental dynamic truth in which we are all called to participate. “You will conceive and bear a Son”… “I am the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me.”
Christmas is the time to understand it! Whether secularists like it or not, Christmas is intrinsically about Christ. They can simply try to call it the “Holidays”, supposedly for the sake of “inclusivity”. However what we celebrate is not simply some festival of lights. Our central Christmas practices, like giving gifts, gathering with loved ones in families and communities, donating to help charities, and calling for peace on earth, are indelibly branded with the seal of Christ. Take Him out of the equation and it all recedes into senseless superficiality and selfishness, devoid of meaning.
This year people have longed for this Christmas: for the coming together, for the joy of family and fellowship. What we have lived during Covid, particularly the anxiety and isolation, should wake us up to see how, long before Covid, individualistic materialism has been leading us to create an increasingly lonely world. If you want to “believe in the science”, have the courage to look at the statistics: the levels of loneliness, depression, drug addiction, and suicide our supposedly enlightened and free societies have been generating!
We are made for something else. We are called to see a deeper reality, that which is always going on: the truth of God’s love that the real Christmas reveals.
Even we Christians need to challenge ourselves not to domesticate Christmas into a sentimental greeting card. Rather, let us pray that at Christmas the Holy Spirit ignite in our souls the creative, purifying, and transformational fire that is to lead us to transfiguration in Christ, a very divinization.
It is embodied in Mary of Nazareth, the young daughter of Zion who then becomes the Mother of God, the faithful one at the side of the Cross, the Mother of the Church, and the Queen of Heaven.
“In the sixth month, the Angel Gabriel was sent by God”… Her journey into the heart of God was beginning. Chosen to be the New Eve, she becomes the mother who is to show the way to all her Children - to show us and to give us the key to life.
The Lord calls her to be open, to receive Him, and the Immaculate One responds, offering herself without reserve. Together with Joseph her spouse, they listen. They are guided. They follow. They grow. Their marriage and their Holy Family become an icon of the love of the Trinity.
The pattern is an utterly simple movement: saying yes to God, trusting deeply, letting Him lead and transform (especially by the Cross) – over and over.
It is the key: to deep happiness and peace in life even in times of trial, to strong families and communities, unto holiness and heaven.
Glory to God in the Highest! Peace on earth, goodwill among people. (Luke 2:14)
AMEN. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
