Christmas message from Bishop John C. Wester

Friday, Dec. 19, 2014

Christmas is a time for us to reflect on the unfathomable mystery of the Incarnation. This is the great feast day of the Church when we gratefully acknowledge God’s love for us, a love so great that he sends us his only begotten Son. 

At Christmas, we celebrate not only the Father’s love for us but the love of Jesus himself, who became one of us. As Paul put it so eloquently in his Letter to the Philippians: Jesus, “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness. …”

When some of the early Church Fathers reflected on the mystery of the Incarnation, they marveled at the fact that the logos, the second person of the holy Trinity, through whom all things were made, became a defenseless child for our sake. The one whose hands fashioned the immensity of the universe, with all of its stars and planets, took on the hands of an infant that could barely grasp a piece of hay in the manger. The Word through whom and for whom and in whom all things came to be became infans – mute, speechless – in the person of the baby Jesus.

As we reflect on this great mystery and the immeasurable love that God has for us, which he showed by giving us his only son, we are encouraged this Christmas to respond by becoming the voice and the hands of the baby Jesus in our world today.

We are given the grace and the ability to do this as we gather around the Eucharistic table at Christmas Mass, or around our family tables for Christmas dinner. At each we are nourished in soul and in body so that we might respond to one another the way God has reached out to us. It is, then, through Word and Sacrament, through family love and support, that we are enabled to be the voice and the hands of Christ.

I like to look at this as though we become living mangers through Christ. At Christmas, as we pray in front of the nativity scene that holds the Christ child, we notice that the manger is made of wood. Spiritual writers are keen to observe that the wood of the manger foreshadows the wood of the cross, where Christ suffered and died for us that we might have eternal life. Because the Eucharist makes Christ’s salvific act on the cross present once again, it is this same Eucharist, this living manger of Christ’s love, that enables us to go forth to become his body. When we receive in communion the body and blood of Christ poured out for us, we are then empowered to go forth and become his body, his presence in the world.

How do we give voice to the Word of God? What are the words that we use to communicate the presence of the baby Jesus in our world? Perhaps it is a word of forgiveness to a family member, a word of encouragement to a coworker, a word of peace to a stranger, a word of healing to a fellow parishioner who is ill or depressed, or a word of life to those who are yet to be born.

As we gaze on the newborn Christ child in the manger, we behold a great Mystery this Christmas. We participate in a great miracle when we allow the Christmas liturgy to give us voice, that we might be the word of God in our broken world today – a word of peace, new life and joy.

I wish you all a blessed Christmas, a peaceful and grace-filled new year and all the graces that the Christ child bestows upon this local Church as we gather to celebrate Christmas in 2014.