Oh, I've gotten terribly behind. I should be finished this step by now.
The Shepherds
And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." - Lk 2, 9-11
When Christ comes to us, our first response is often fear of the unknown, unfathomable, wondrous person before us and of what we are sure he is going to ask of us. Surely the One who leaves the throne of heaven for our sake will not tolerate our shrinking back from our mission, and we know not where it will take us, what he will require of us.
Each year as we celebrate the birth of the Savior, I always consider Calvary, the foreknown path which the eternal Son accepted along with his Incarnation. It is good for us to avoid the trap of romanticizing the glory of angels and the wonder of Magi led by a star, detaching it as we so often do from Jesus' redemptive mission. But while that mission was "finished" at Calvary, it comes into its fullness in the Resurrection, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and the mission of the Church: the birth of Christ in the heart of each beloved son and daughter of God and our formation into the Body of Christ. The Body suffers passion and death, but the Body is resurrected! This is good news of greatest joy! Now: how can we be resurrected without dying?
And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. - Lk 2, 16
Let us not "go, if we must," and worship the eternal Son of God, but go "with haste" and encounter him in his humility, his vulnerability; let us grow with him in infancy and childhood and adulthood; let us enter into his suffering and his resurrected joy! Let us bear lovingly, knowing that it is Christ himself who bears within and through us.
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