COMMENTARY ON THE CHRISTMAS LITURGY
Collect
Almighty God, who hast given us thy only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin; Grant that we being regenerate, and made thy children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by thy Holy Spirit; through the same our Lord Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the same Spirit ever, one God, world without end. Amen.
Readings
Heb 1: 1-12; Jn 1: 1-14
«No, God does not seek adoration, the bowed head, the spirit that invokes him, that questions him, not even the cry of revolt. He only tries to see - as a child sees - a stone, a tree, a fruit, the pergola under the roof, the bird that has perched on a ripe bunch ». What more appropriate words than these of the poet Yves Bonnefoy could describe the mystery of the Incarnation? The mystery of a God who saves us by loving and sharing our human condition in all its aspects, the most delicate ones, such as the contemplation of the beauties of creation, but also the darkest ones: the cold of the stable, the fatigue of daily work, a life of hardship and wanderings «Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head» (Lk 9:58).
With his Incarnation, with his entire life and with his Passion, Christ stripped himself of his divine nature so that God could be present even in the least, in the most despised and in the most suffering of men. There is no human condition that is not touched by God.
And if God has stripped himself of his own glory, how much more should we strip ourselves of our trappings, of the masks we wear to exorcise our nothingness and hide our mortal destiny from ourselves?
The eternal Word, abandoning all perfection and sharing our human nature, without losing the distinction between it and its own divine nature, has demonstrated the absolute dignity of all life.
Christ is not only one of the great prophets that God has used over the centuries to make man's plans known; he is the high Prophet, the ultimate and definitive Revealer of divine truth and he is so by virtue of his very nature and the sublime position he occupies. He, who even lowered himself making himself a scandal in his Passion, now sits at the right hand of God invested with royal authority over all creatures.
There is no stumbling stone greater than this for our reason and even for any other religion: an almighty God who becomes absolute weakness, who chooses to be born as a child, fragile and in need of our care. He, who takes care of us, having given us everything we have, starting with our very existence. Let us also take care of God, so that he can grow and we decrease.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
