I am
happy to share with you, my brothers in the Lord, some thoughts of my great
friend Fr. John A. Hardon, of the Society of Jesus, thoughts that can help us
make our prayer in the day we celebrate the nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
speaking of the Eucharist, I would like to invite you to view a video that
explains well the presence of the Lord among us, you can see here:
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Of the many subjects that we could talk about
on Christmas day, I thought the most appropriate would be to speak on Christmas
and the Eucharist. There are many aspects to their relationship, but I believe
that there are mainly three: (1) both Christmas and the Eucharist are facts;
(2) both reveal a mystery; and (3) both are meant to teach us a profound and
not easily learned lesson. Christmas, first of all, is a fact of history. In a
point of time and at a definable place the God of heaven and earth was born of
a woman, and came to live among us as man. It is a fact that the infinite God
became, unexplainably, a finite creature. It is a fact to which historians
attest but which we know is no mere statistic of history; it is, rather, a fact
planned by God from all eternity. This is the fact of Christmas: the Word actually became Flesh. What is the fact of the Eucharist?
It is that the same Jesus Who was born on earth not only became man but remains
man. He not only came into the world, He is in the world. In a word, He came to stay. The Eucharist is
Christmas prolonged, because faith tells us that once God became man, He
decided to remain man. But
Christmas and the Eucharist are not only facts, they are also mysteries. What
is the mystery of Christmas? The mystery is the humanly incredible reality of
why God became man. He did not have to. God did not even have to make the
world, and within the world, He did not have to make us. Except for the love of
God, we are all empty unoccupied spaces on earth. But, having decided to make
the world and to make us, God also decided that once man had sinned, He would
redeem man. God might have redeemed man by an act of His divine Will; He chose
not to do so. He chose, rather, to become man, so that as man He might not
only, by some fiat of His human
freedom redeem us, but might have a mortal flesh and a soul capable of
suffering. In a word, the mystery of
Christmas is the mystery of God's love that chose to take on our human form in
order to show His love for us by suffering. The only ultimate reason for
Bethlehem is Jerusalem; the only reason in God's mind for becoming a Child was
so that He might, as man, die on the Cross. In a word, the mystery of Christmas
is the mystery of God's unfathomable love that wants to suffer. God took on
human flesh so that He might be able to endure pain. That is the mystery of
Christmas, the mystery of God's love, in order that loving, He might endure the
Cross. What is the mystery of the Eucharist? It is the same. You would think
that God's love would have been satisfied with His becoming man and as man
living, suffering and dying for our sins. And having once died, rising from the
dead and returning as man to the Father from whom He came. But no, the mystery of God's love is that He
invented a way of showing His love for us not only by being with us and near us
but God even invented a way of being inside of us. All of this tells us a lot about what
love means. Love wants to show that it loves. It is not satisfied with
sentiments or words. Love wants to prove its love in deeds; better, it wants to
show its love in pain. Love wants to be near the one it loves, to be united
with the one it loves. All of this is hidden behind the mystery of the
Eucharist, made possible by the mystery of Christmas, because these two
mysteries are really one. The Eucharist
is merely an extension, a continuation, of what happened 2000 years ago in
Bethlehem. Because Mary gave birth to the Son of God, we now have the Flesh
of the Son of God near us, with us, and when we receive Him in Communion,
within us. Finally, what is the lesson? The lesson of Christmas and the
Eucharist must be obvious by now. God does nothing in vain. He did not choose
to become man nor does He remain man in our midst except that He wants to evoke
from us something of the same kind of love that He showed during His life on
earth and still shows us in His life in the Eucharist. Jesus Christ gives us
His Flesh and Blood to adore, worship and nourish our souls on, so that we
might live with His life. What He wants us to do therefore, and this is the lesson,
is to love Him as He has been loving us. How has He been loving us? First of
all, He loves us in simplicity. Is there anything more simple than a child, or
anything more simple than the round wafer of the Eucharist? God wants us to
love Him in simplicity. Above all, we must have no duplicity with God. He wants
our whole heart, not just part of it. We are to love Him, therefore, simply,
unqualifyingly, totally. God wants us to love Him humbly. Is there anything
more lowly than a baby? They are speechless, helpless; they must be fed and
carried from place to place. And is there anything more unpretentious than what
seems to be a piece of bread and a sip of wine? Yet as we know, real humility
is always greatness hiding itself out of love. What a hard lesson for us to
learn, to love this God of ours humbly ■
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