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The Liturgical Year | CHRISTMAS: The Word Became Flesh for You
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January 6, 2025The Liturgical Year | CHRISTMAS: The Word Became Flesh for You The Father loves you. “He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved” (Ephesians 1:4-6).
You may have never been picked first for kickball as a kid, may not have been elected to something by the student body, and you may not even have ever had your name drawn for a raffle and won a prize. But you are chosen as the Father’s son or daughter. You are loved.
He chose you before the foundation of the world. That means he could have picked anybody, and he wants you on his team, and his team is a family. He picked you first. He loved you and he knew you before you ever took a breath.
This is the message of Christmas, it is the message of Gospel, and it is why the Father sent his Son. You are loved. You are wanted. You are treasured.
To teach us this truth, the Lord, in his infinite mercy sent his Son our Lord Jesus Christ, as a baby, in a manger. In that feeding trough lay not just a baby, but the Bread of Life, the one who takes away the sin of the world. He came to feed us and to abide with us. He did this so that you might know not just once, not just twice, but forever, that you are loved by him.
I imagine there was a moment when St. Joseph stood and held up his adopted Son to show others, perhaps the presentation in the Temple, as if to say “Look what God has done, he has sent us love incarnate. And you are loved by him.”
I don’t need to stretch my imagination too far to picture this because I get to see it often, and so do you. At every Mass your spiritual father holds up the Eucharist, and in a joyful exhortation instructs us all, “Behold!”
In that “Behold,” just like in that baby, we should see the Father’s love for us incarnate. That moment right there is the Father’s love abiding with us in Christ to remind us over and over again, as often as we do it, that we are loved by him. What most fundamentally characterizes your identity is that you are the one who is loved by the Father. You are not the sum of your weaknesses, failures, or fears, you are the sum of the Father’s love for you. He delights in you.
This changes everything regarding both Christmas and Communion. Christmas is not about a fat guy breaking into your home at night and eating your cookies - it is so much more. Communion is not about “what I can get out of Mass” or fulfilling an obligation - it is so much more. Christmas and Communion are about the Word becoming flesh to dwell in you, to abide with you, to love you so that you can dwell in him, abide with him, be loved by him and love him.
The point of Christmas and Communion is to abide in the divine presence. We can do this because God heals us from the wound we incurred as a result of the Fall. That wound is believing God is not who he says he is, the wound of thinking maybe he doesn’t love us, he doesn’t want us, he cannot be trusted. This is what Adam and Eve fell into.
The Father sent the Son to heal that wound. He does this through the Incarnation and the Paschal Mystery - through Christmas and the Cross. These two events are really bound up in a single act of love.
To heal our wounds, he the Word becomes flesh and takes on our wounds. The wounded Word on the Cross is pierced, and from his wounded side blood and water flow out. With Adam, the Father took from his side a living being, Eve, the mother of the living. So too with Jesus, the new Adam, the Father takes from his side a new creation, the bride of Christ, the Church is born in blood and water. The blood from his body is that which we receive in the Eucharist, and the water is that which baptizes us into eternal life. The wound in his side is a womb, a womb of a new creation, the womb from which we are born. Born of the Spirit, through the Son, through suffering, we now have the capacity and the access to share in the divine life in fullness.
In the days leading up to Christmas we sing, “O come, O come Emmanuel…” Christmas reminds us that the Son is Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus said before his Ascension, “I will be with you always” (I am Emmanuel). He also commands us in John 15:4, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” The Lord never makes a promise he does not fulfill, nor gives a command that is not possible. How, then, do we abide with him and he with us?
Jesus is Emmanuel because the Word was made flesh. Jesus is with us always because the Word made Flesh is present on every altar in every Catholic church throughout the world. We can abide in him by receiving his Body and Blood. When we are given the Eucharistic host it is Christ abiding in us.
Every year when we celebrate Christmas, and every time we celebrate the Eucharist, it is an opportunity to remember that the same Christ born of Mary is really and substantially present in you as a gift of the Father’s love for you.
