And [Mary] brought forth her first-born son, and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger…(Lk. 2)
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
My very dear sons,
Despite the harshness of the times for believers and in spite of the fact that so many in our society have lost all sense of God and of the Christian faith, Christmas continues to inspire the world on many levels, ranging from the ridiculous to the sublime. What is the power of Christmas, what is its secret?
Is this secret to be found in the poverty of Saint Joseph and of Our Lady, who sought in vain for a place at the inn at the very moment, the dramatic moment, when the Mother was on the point of bringing forth her Child? Surely there is something about poverty that is essential to the Gospel. Something new is surely revealed in this story. A new kind of poverty is unveiled to the world on the night of Bethlehem. The main actors of the drama belong to the poorer class and show a humble spirit in the way they react to the great news brought by the Angel.
The Holy Father, Pope Francis, has recently spoken a great deal about the social doctrine of the Church and the poor. Some Catholics have been confused or troubled about this topic, but the whole doctrine could be taken right from the holy poverty of the Holy Family. Christmas and the holy, glad poverty of the Manger will always go hand in hand. Despite the importance of this message, however, poverty does not seem to hold the most substantial secret of Christmas.
Perhaps we could discover the secret of Christmas in the theme of light. Christ is the Light that comes into the world, as we read in the Prologue of Saint John. “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (Jn. 1:4-5). When the angel of the Lord stood by the shepherds, “the brightness of God shone round them,” says the Gospel account, “and they feared with a great fear” (Lk. 2). It is the lightsome star of Bethlehem that guides the Magi to the Child. The liturgy of Christmas is full of these images. Another word for this light is the Word, that is to say a kind of intelligible light having meaning, as a human word has meaning. Christ is the Eternal Word in God, the Logos that is to say the pattern, the very architectural plan of the universe. Christmas is truly a mystery of light. Still, there seems to be more: light illumines the mystery, but does not exhaust it.
Another possible key to interpreting the mystery of Christmas is obviously that of birth. This is what the word “Nativity” is about. The Latin word for Christmas is Nativitas, Nativitas Domini, the “birth of the Lord.” From all eternity the Son, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, proceeds by way of generation, of birth, from the Father, “in the splendor of the Saints.” This is His eternal Birth. Then, when the fullness of time had come, He is born as man from the Blessed Virgin Mary, becoming the Word Incarnate. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw his glory, the glory as it were of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14). This is His birth in time. At the end of Matins we sang the genealogy of Christ, the list of births of all His human ancestors. Indeed, Christmas is all about life, all about birth. But there is more yet to Christmas.
In searching for the secret of Christmas, it would be impossible to leave out this other idea, the fact that this Child, the Incarnate God, the Incarnate Word, is also the Savior. Salvation, according to Saint Thomas Aquinas and the greater theological tradition, is the very reason for the Incarnation. In other words, as Holy Scripture clearly indicates, it was in order to save mankind from sin that the Son came into this world, taking flesh from Mary. This has to do with the deep motives of God, in as much as we can fathom them. God is goodness itself. But the Good, as the philosophers say, tends to give of itself. It is because God is Goodness—Mercy itself—that He deigns to come to rescue man, whom He created likewise out of sheer Love. We are getting closer to the secret of Christmas in speaking of the saving Love of God, this transcendent and infinite Goodness. The Holy Name of Jesus holds this same secret. It means “God saves.”
But now here is another element, related to the question of salvation and not to be neglected. In using the term “Christmas” we also allude to Holy Mass: Christ-Mass. Christmas is a very special Mass in honor of Christ. Through the Holy Sacrifice of Mass we draw upon the salvation Our Lord brought to the world, beginning at His Birth, through the infinite merits acquired in His Passion. At the solemnity of the Epiphany that comes to complete the celebration of Christmas day, we remember the gifts of the Magi, and in particular of the myrrh, which is often interpreted as a prophetic pre-figuration of the death the Child was to undergo when He grew up. Myrrh was used to embalm the dead. Holy Mass is thus part of the secret of Christmas. But what is, finally, the very essence of this secret?
In the end, if we consider all of this together, the true secret of Christmas must surely be Christ Himself. It is not the Incarnation as an abstract principle, a theological affirmation, that holds the last word, but the living synthesis: Jesus Himself, lying on a bit of straw in the Manger. It is this God-Man that holds the key, for He is the key.
“O Key of David, and scepter of the house of Israel! Who openest, and no man shutteth, who shuttest, and no man openeth; come and lead the captive from prison, sitting in the darkness and in the shadow of death” (O Antiphon for December 20th).
This is what the Angels are singing about in the winter sky above. It is the Person, who keeps the secret, His secret, the Messianic secret, not forever, like the riddle of the Sphinx, but for a time, in order to reveal it to us, when the appointed hour comes. It is in His smile, or whatever newborn babies do in the way of a smile, that lies the promise of a restoration, a beatitude, a happiness, a vision that all lie hidden in the future, beyond the Cross and the Resurrection, but which are as real as any stone or piece of straw around the Infant Jesus of the Manger. As He drew the poor shepherds of Bethlehem, the Magi and all the other actors of the Nativity, may He draw us too, as He lays in His Mother’s arms, may He draw us ever deeper into the great secret, the secret of Christmas. Amen. Alleluia.