Fr. Michael Williams

As we approach the great feast of Christmas on Friday, when we celebrate the coming of Christ into the world, the readings today give us an opportunity to ponder how that great event occurred.

The reading from the letter to the Hebrews reveals to us that God the Father ‘prepared a body [for Him]’. The Son of God, who was with the Father before the world began, was given a body, so that He could come into our world to save us from our sins by offering His body on the cross. The first Adam had been disobedient to God, and all hell broke loose; the Second Adam, Jesus, would obey the Father’s will and so open the gates of paradise once again to humanity. Jesus’ obedience and love of the Father’s will reverses the disobedience and selfishness of Adam’s sin, which we all share in. Jesus came down to earth from Heaven on a rescue mission; He came to do the will of the Father, which was to save us. That is why the angels sing to the shepherds on Christmas Day, ‘A Saviour has been born to you, He is Christ the Lord’.

The gospel reveals to us where the Son of God first took up His residence on earth: it was in the womb of the Virgin Mary. When God became man (when the Word became flesh) this happening took place in Mary’s womb. The all powerful One took on frail flesh in His mothers womb, just as our humanity is formed in our mother’s womb. This reveals the greatness and the humility of God. Jesus spent the first nine months of His life on earth within the safety of Mary’s womb. Today’s gospel shows us Jesus, and His prophet John, greeting one another as unborn children. This shows the great dignity of an unborn child. An unborn child is a person, and it is never lawful to destroy that person. Notice Elizabeth says to Mary, ‘Why should I be honoured with a visit from the mother of my Lord’. Jesus is Lord from the moment of His conception, just as our lives begin at the moment of our conception. So we see that Saviour first makes His present felt in this world as a babe in the womb.

The Lord comes to us as a vulnerable babe. And when the time for Him to be born arrives, He is born at ‘Bethlehem Ephrata, the least of the clans of Judah’. The Lord will be born in lowliness and poverty in a humble town. The Prince of Peace chooses to be born in a simple setting, rather than palatial pomp. ‘In the bleak mid-winter a stable place sufficed for the Lord God Almighty Jesus Christ’

Once again today at Mass, the Lord comes to us under the lowly appearance of bread and wine. Christ truly present in the Eucharist chooses the way of littleness and humility when He reaches out to His people. It seems that God prefers to come to us in meekness, rather than spectacle.

As we approach Christmas, the readings today remind us that Christ comes into our world in meekness and humility. Let us pray that this Christmas we will open our poor hearts to Christ, just like Mary and Bethlehem did; let us make a place for Him, not just at Christmas but throughout our lives.