A Celebration of the Humility of God
I love Christmas. I love the preparations for it. I love the colors, the food, the decorations, the cards, the Christmas trees, the lights, the Christmas movies, the Christmas carols, the smell of cookies baking, etc. etc. My wife and I get swooped up in the exquisite joy of experiencing our children’s anticipation of the dawning of that magic Day, the one the Church calls The Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord.
Even the frustrations usually end up providing a good belly laugh for my wife and me, after the requisite grumbling! For sake of example: Any reasonably intelligent husband-and-wife team should be able to fit a conventional Christmas tree trunk securely into a gizmo and then get the gizmo to sustain the tree in a position roughly perpendicular to floor and ceiling in — let’s say — five minutes. After all, our house is not Rockefeller Center! Somehow or other, it takes more like 45 minutes. And that’s if we’re lucky. This yearly project is the annual test of the stability of our marriage. So far, so good, I’m happy to say. Our marriage is more stable than most of our trees.
So why do we enjoy this time of year so much? Is it pure, unadulterated materialism? It certainly doesn’t have to be….not if we keep things in proper order. That is so much “the secret of success” in life, is it not? I mean “keeping things in their proper order”. Easy to say. Not always so easy to do, if we are honest with ourselves.
In the Christmas season, one way to keep things in their proper order is through proper preparation. The Church helps us with this in her liturgical year. Advent, the beginning of the Church’s year, is a time of quiet preparation. It’s a time of preparing for the second coming of the Lord in unimaginable splendor, and a time of preparing for the celebration of his first coming into the world in utter humility. The Advent wreaths in our churches, schools, religious education classrooms, and in many of our homes, serve to remind us that the Light once came into the world, that the Light will be returning to the world, and that the Light, most especially in the gift of the Most Holy Eucharist, is already in the world. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (Jn. 1:5) And the light is Christ Jesus.
Christmas is the celebration of the manifestation of the God-Man, Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of the Father. He is God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, …consubstantial with the Father; ….For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. Incarnate simply means, “in flesh.” The Lord incarnate has given us the Catholic Church, which is the continuation of the Incarnation. The infant Body of the little Lord Jesus Which we contemplate at this time of year is now the Mystical Body, of which He is the Head and we re the members.
Whether or not we realize it, one of the main reasons people just intuitively love Christmas is that it’s so incarnational! As important as the intellect is — and it is very important — we humans are also people of physical senses. In fact, nothing comes into our intellect without first coming through the senses. This is one of the reasons that we tend to love Christmas. It accords with how God made us – not as pure spirits, like angels, but as a body-soul unity. One of the great gifts of the body is our senses. Christmas, like the Catholic Church, provides a smorgasbord for the senses.
This is the mystery of the condescension of God, the utter humility of God in emptying Himself of the glory proper to His nature and being born among animals, in a stable, into the most humble of circumstances. The immensity of this is more than we can grasp. But to attempt to grasp it as best we can — this is what we are called to do.
In this mystery of the Incarnation, the omnipotent Second Divine Person became a human baby, became like unto us in all ways but sin. Blessed Theresa of Calcutta was fond of saying that the most powerful force in the world is the humility of God. Who cannot appreciate true humility when he sees it? It is such a foundational virtue that there is no growth in the spiritual life without it. So important is this virtue, that the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) states that it is “the foundation of prayer” (CCC 2559). To emphasize our utter dependence on God, St. Augustine wrote, “Man is a beggar before God” (CCC 2559). And yet this God, in His humility, becomes dependent upon other human beings, especially His mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and His foster-father, St. Joseph. In His humility, the eternal Word of the Father had to, in His human nature, be taught how to speak. In His humility, He, through whom comes every good thing, including our daily bread, had to be taught how to eat. He Who is swifter than light and Who indeed is the Light, had to be taught how to walk. This is why the Christmas crèche, first given to us by St. Francis of Assisi, is so important. It helps us to visualize the sublime love God has for us by coming in “such mean estate.”
He Who is Love Incarnate, was not only born, but later died and rose again, so that we might begin to share in this love now, and eventually in the Love that never ends in the splendor of Heaven, the splendor which He will show us in its utter magnificence when He comes again. And this glory He wants to share with us — forever! This, I think, is one reason among many why many suffer a letdown at the end of Christmas Day. Because we are meant for a joy that never ends! The celebration of Christmas hints at the endless joy that God intends for His beloved children. So, by all means, I say enjoy those lights and decorations and cookies, and carols, and good food and the companionship of family and good friends, but let us remember that Christ is at the center.
Whenever we are in the midst of some particularly joyful event, we do well to remember that the event is necessarily temporary. We say to ourselves, “My emotions are high right now. I am having one heck of a good time, but I will not get carried away with it. I shall savor the moment, but I shall remember that it is but a moment and, tomorrow or the next day, I shall have to return to “normal life.” “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens…a time to mourn and a time to dance.” (cf Ecclesiastes 3)
When it is time for “the dance called Christmas,” we keep in mind that there will be a time when we must mourn. Strangely enough, this helps us to enjoy the dance even more!
We must remember not to be like little children who try unwisely to “dance all night” and forget to go to bed. If we do that, we wind up with “the holiday blues” and “post-Christmas depression.”
The yearly celebration we call “Christmas” is but a brief reminder to us that the time is coming when the Lord will return in splendor, at which time we will laugh and dance and sing and feast and never grow weary because God will have wiped every tear from our eyes. And there will be no more death, no more sadness, depression or sorrow, because God will be all in all. It will be Christmas for all eternity, because Christmas and Easter will have come together for eternity.
Merry Christmas! God bless us, every one!
by James Gontis
Diocesan Director of Religious Education
