Luke 2:15-20
When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”
So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.
Today on Christmas, I’ll share with you Thomas Merton’s words. In Seasons of Celebration, he writes about the birth of Christ. Merton is particularly moved by Christ as light, and our human need not only to receive the light within us, but more, to allow the light to shine through us. This is what Merton says:
Christ is born. He is born to us. And, he is born today. For Christmas is not merely a day like every other day. It is a day made holy and special by a sacred mystery. It is not merely another day in the weary round of time. Today, eternity enters into time and time, sanctified, is caught up into eternity. Today, Christ, the Eternal Word of the Father, who was in the beginning with the Father, in whom all things were made, by whom all things consist, enters into the world which he created in order to reclaim souls who have lost their identity. Therefore, the Church exults as the angels come down to announce not merely an old thing that happened long ago, but a new thing that happens today. For, today, God the Father makes all things new, in his Divine Son, our Redeemer, according to his words: Ecce nova facio omnia. . . .
At Christmas, more than ever, it is fitting to remember that we have no other light but Christ, who is born to us today. Let us reflect that he came down from heaven to be our light, and our life. He came, as he himself assures us, to be our way, by which we may return to the Father. Christ gives us light today to know him, in the Father and ourselves in him, so that thus knowing and possessing Christ, we may have life everlasting with him in the Father. . . .
Having realized, once again, who it is that comes to us, and having remembered that he alone is our light, let us open our eyes to the rising Sun, let us hasten to receive him and let us come together to celebrate the great mystery of charity which is the sacrament of our salvation and of our union in Christ. Let us receive Christ that we may in all truth be “light in the Lord” and that Christ may shine not only to us, but through us, and that we may all burn together in the sweet light of his presence in the world: I mean his presence in us, for we are his Body and his Holy Church. . . .
Christ, light of light, is born today, and since he is born to us, he is born in us as light and therefore we who believe are born today to new light. That is to say, our souls are born to new life and new grace by receiving him who is the Truth. For Christ, invisible in his own nature, has become visible in our nature. What else can this mean, except that first he has become visible as a man and second he has become visible in his Church? He wills to be visible in us, to live in us, and save us through his secret action in our own hearts and the hearts of our neighbors. So, we must receive the light of the newborn Savior by faith, in order to manifest it by our witness in common praise and by the works of our charity towards one another.
[Thomas Merton, Seasons of Celebration, pp. 102-105.]
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