God Enfleshed!

"Christian revelation is always pointed, concrete, and specific. Our word for that is 'incarnational' or enfleshed.  Walter Brueggemann calls it brilliantly 'the scandal of the particular.'

Christianity is not a Platonic world of ideas and theories about which you can be right or wrong, or observe from a distance. Incarnation is not something you measure or critique or analyze, but Someone you meet!  This pattern reaches its fullness in the enfleshment of the Divine in one ordinary-looking man named Jesus. 

We dare to believe that God materialised in human form, so we could fall in love with a real person, which is the only way we fall in love. It is almost impossible to give your life warmly for an idea, a force, an energy, or a concept.  

We are programmed to give our lives away to other persons."  (Richard Rohr, OFM)

St Francis and ''Babe of Bethlehem"

St Francis at Greccio

Pope Benedict gave over much of his homily at Christmas Midnight Mass to a beautiful reflection on the St Francis' "first crib" at Greccio.

"Christmas is an epiphany – the appearing of God and of his great light in a child that is born for us. Born in a stable in Bethlehem, not in the palaces of kings. In 1223, when Saint Francis of Assisi celebrated Christmas in Greccio with an ox and an ass and a manger full of hay, a new dimension of the mystery of Christmas came to light. Saint Francis of Assisi called Christmas “the feast of feasts” – above all other feasts – and he celebrated it with “unutterable devotion” (2 Celano 199). He kissed images of the Christ-child with great devotion and he stammered tender words such as children say, so Friar Thomas of Celano tells us. 

Francis discovered Jesus’ humanity in an entirely new depth. This human existence of God became most visible to him at the moment when God’s Son, born of the Virgin Mary, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. For God’s Son to take the form of a child, a truly human child, made a profound impression on the heart of the Saint of Assisi, transforming faith into love. 'The kindness and love of God our Saviour for mankind were revealed' – this phrase of Saint Paul now acquired an entirely new depth. In the child born in the stable at Bethlehem, we can as it were touch and caress God.

This has nothing to do with sentimentality. It is right here, in this new experience of the reality of Jesus’ humanity that the great mystery of faith is revealed. Francis loved the child Jesus, because for him it was in this childish estate that God’s humility shone forth. God became poor. His Son was born in the poverty of the stable. In the child Jesus, God made himself dependent, in need of human love, he put himself in the position of asking for human love – our love. Today Christmas has become a commercial celebration, whose bright lights hide the mystery of God’s humility, which in turn calls us to humility and simplicity. Let us ask the Lord to help us see through the superficial glitter of this season, and to discover behind it the child in the stable in Bethlehem, so as to find true joy and true light."

In Bethlehem's Light

As we believe so shall we hope. The measure of our faith is the measure of our hope. 

Every day we are bombarded with many different understandings of our lives, about what really matters, about the purpose of it all. I find that if I do not nourish and deepen my Christian vision it is bound to become feeble and ineffectual. Then I am easy prey; I can fall into the grip of anxiety and discouragement.

So, a this time, I need the truth of what we celebrate at Christmas to refresh my soul.

In the story of God’s love affair with humanity I discover who I am.

In the presence of Jesus my Brother I glimpse the meaning of my joys and sorrows, my victories and defeats.

In the light of Bethlehem I know I am invited to the unimaginable happiness of sharing God’s life.

And the most hope-filled truth for me is that whatever happens in my life can be transformed by divine goodness into a step towards that fullness of joy.

Christmas - Beginnings of our Transformation

Avery Dulles, the American theologian, once said: “The Incarnation does not provide us with a ladder by which to escape from the ambiguities of life and scale the heights of heaven. Rather, it enables us to burrow deep into the heart of our humanity and find it shimmering with divinity.”

So Christmas celebrates the incarnation, not just the nativity. The incarnation is an on-going process of salvation, while the nativity is the once-for-all-historical event of Bethlehem. We look back in joy and gratitude for the unspeakable gift of God's Beloved. As St Francis might put it - we rejoice that "the Lord of Glory has become our brother".

But Christmas is not simply a history lesson. Guided by the light of the Holy Spirit the community of faith grows in ever-deepening understanding of the implications of the Incarnation, of the historical fact that the Eternal Word has taken on our flesh.

In this blessed season we celebrate nothing less than the beginning of the transformation of all history and creation by the presence of the divine in our midst.

Wishing you a Christmas radiant with his light and grace.

Celebrating Christmas in hope

Incarnation is not yet resurrection. Flesh in Jesus, as in us, is human flesh, vulnerable, weak, and incomplete. Christmas celebrates Christ's birth into this reality, not his removal of it. The Lord redeems limit, evil, sin and sorrow. They are not abolished. There is a definite difference.

For this reason we can celebrate Christ's birth without in anyway denying or trivializing the darkness in our world and the very real struggle we can experience in our lives and within our Church. Christmas is a call to celebrate while still in struggle.

The incarnate God is called Emmanuel,  God-is-with-us. That fact does not mean immediate festive joy. Reality has its harshness and Christmas does not ask us to make-believe.

The incarnation does not promise us heaven on earth. It promises heaven in heaven.

Here, on earth, it promises us something else – God's presence in our lives. This presence redeems because it is the grace of God-with-us that empowers us to keep on choosing the light, to not lose heart,  and to walk on together in hope.

Advent - Making Room for Love

Diadochus of Photice was a fifth century bishop and mystic. In one of his sermons he said: "The measure of a person’s love for God depends upon how deeply aware that person is of God’s love for him or her.”

D0 you want to love the Lord more? Do you want this Advent-Christmastide period to be a time of  renewal in Christian discipleship? Then let God love you more!

In Advent we speak of making space within so that the Lord can find a welcome, an openness, and thus he "rebirths" in us. What forms that space, that welcome is the experience of a love that frees us to trust, to let go, to surrender.

Angela of Foligno, the Franciscan saint,  wife and mother, felt Christ say to her one day: "You create the capacity and I will make myself a torrent within you" - a torrent of light and love and joy. Our love for God will always be a response to a love eternally present.

The key is to let that love stretch the heart and increase our capacity for God's self-giving.

Then the gift of divine love can grow and the depth of our response can expand.

God loves all his lovers first.