Merry Christmas to all our faithful readers

At last it is Christmas Day and therefore a holiday of obligation for us Catholics. So we’re not going to write anything about our current events. And in the spirit of Christmas, we will give honor to the birth of the expected Messiah in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, as the story of his birth is the scripture reading today. You can read it in your Bibles in Luke 2:1-14.

“1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. 2 This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was Governor of Syria. 3 So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph too went up to Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the City of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, 5 to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

6 While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, 7 and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. 8 Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock. 9 The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were struck with great fear.

10 The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11 For today in the City of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. 12 And this will be a sign for you; you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in manger.

13 And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly hosts with the angel, praising God and saying; 14 Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.

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Few Christians submit to the reality that story of Christmas is also a love story. Hmmm, a love story on Christmas Day? Most people would probably say that Valentine’s Day is the right time to celebrate Love day. But if you read your Bible, specifically on John chapter 3, you will see our Lord Jesus Christ having a very interesting conversation with Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee and part of the Sanhedrin.

Nicodemus was undoubtedly taken by the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ and even appears three times in the New Testament, first when he makes a visit to Jesus, then during discussion of the arrest our Jesus and finally when he helps Joseph of Arimathea to prepare the body of our Lord Jesus for burial. He was possibly a secret Christian but he didn’t know it yet.

But it was to Nicodemus that our Lord Jesus Christ revealed one of Christendom’s most important teachings. It was when our Lord said to Nicodemus in John 3:16  “For God so Love the World that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” This passage is perhaps one of the most quoted scripture passages in all Christendom, for all Christians, from Catholics to Protestants, even the Born Again Christians believe in this truth.

So let’s discuss once more why the Christmas story is a love story by God. Allow me to quote from the Blessed John Duns Scotus from the book “A Primer on the Absolute Primacy of Christ” said, “The Incarnation is one completely gratuitous gift of God to a creature apart from any merit or demerit. All other gifts of God are merited by Christ Himself or by others united to Him, so that even the Immaculate Conception of Mary, although not merited by her, was given to her by virtue of the foreseen merits of Christ. But the grace and glory given to the sacred humanity of Jesus by virtue of the hypostatic union are a free, gratuitous gift of God who is Himself Love.”

The love of God can be found in scripture when St. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13: 1-6 “If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains, I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believe all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Do we need more proof that God is Love?

We submit that more often than not, we cannot love others the way God loves all of us…after all; we are only human and in our human frailty we are all susceptible to sin. But with the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have the blessing of sanctifying grace and that’s the only blessing we need for the Christmas so we can attain life eternal. Merry Christmas to all.

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