~by Susi Pittman

“For our sakes a child is born!” God is no longer content to speak by the prophets. The Word, God’s Utterance, has become man, and he brings God’s redeeming mystery within our understanding.”

(The Roman Missal)

The birth of Jesus was God in Christ reconciling all of the world to Himself. Jesus, the Word Incarnate becomes for us the mediator of the New Testament, being God and man and reconciling us to God by being God.

It takes a lot of effort to settle my mind and wrap it around this thought to even begin to contemplate this.

God would find this world so valuable that he would choose to come to earth, placing Himself in a completely helpless state, a Divine Infant, subject to the earthly protection of Mary and Joseph, obedient in all ways to the will of the Father. The Word made flesh and dwelling among us, the perfect good living in the imperfect world.

St. Thomas Aquinas says: But by suffering out of love and obedience, Christ gave more to God than was required to compensate for the offense of the whole human race. “ (Ibid., q.48a.2.)

Father Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange OP says: Good has a right to be loved above all things. But first of all, the divine good is self-diffusive in creation, in raising us to the supernatural order, and finally in God’s free decree to restore this order to us by means of the Word incarnate. (Christ the Savior,1950)

Yes, by Jesus’ arrival on the planet, the redemption of all creation was at hand. The door to Heaven soon to be opened and sin and death to be conquered forever.

The Sacred Scriptures tell us, Amen I say to you, unless you turn and become like little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

To all of us adults, that is a humbling scripture. Yet, doesn’t Christmas do just that? Can we not turn inward and upward and see ourselves as children gathered before the New Born King in our parents homes in younger years?

As a child I loved going to my grandparent’s home. It was for me like a heaven on earth. Visiting them was made possible by my parents. Without the presence and desire of my grandparents to have me join them, or the effort and love of my parents in getting me to them, my childhood earthly heaven would never have been.

As simply put as that is, that is Christmas to me. It is knowing that God the Father is present in Heaven and desires my presence one day. So, through the divine merits and love of the Infant Jesus and my faith in His Word, I will achieve that journey by grace.

I act upon that faith every time I attend Mass. I embrace the Word and all of His promises with a heart-felt Alleluia! In the fervor of love for the Christ Child I seek to work in the Father’s vineyards.

It is Christmas that reminds me each year of the greatest power in the universe….LOVE. And the greatest gift of that love which is PEACE, the tranquility of order which brings our soul into the Light of JOY.

LOVE—PEACE—JOY

Susi Pittman is founder of CatholicStewardsofCreation.com and Owner-President of Twin Oaks Publishing; she is author of Animals in Heaven? Catholics Want to Know!; an advocate for the Florida Catholic Conference; a member of the St. Joseph’s Catholic Council of Women in Jacksonville, Florida; an Associate of the Sisters of St. Joseph, St. Augustine;a member of the Florida Publishers Association, Independent Book Publishers Association, the National Association of Professional Women, the ASPCA, the Humane Society of the United States and the National Audubon society.