God Making Himself Small for Us
Dear Parish Family,
In over 18 years of priesthood, I’ve celebrated the baptisms of many infants. Babies draw everyone’s attention and affection. There is little that disarms us and endears us more than a small baby. The biggest wonder of Christmas is the gift of the infant Jesus.
Our God is not distant. The God who created the universe is also one who desires to draw us close to him, and there was no better way to do that than becoming one of us, in complete solidarity with the humanity he desires to rescue and redeem. And so, the eternal God the Son did just that, entering into his very own creation through the womb of Mary and first appearing for us to behold on Christmas day. That is what we celebrate today, and through that, hope entered a troubled world and into troubled hearts.
God made himself small for us, that we might not fear to draw near to him. God did this not only at that first Christmas when he dwelt among us as the Christ child. God makes himself small for us at every Mass we celebrate through the Eucharist, the Sacrament of his very Body and Blood. He became small not just for Mary and Joseph, the shepherds, and the magi; in and through the Eucharist, he does so for you and me and for every generation since that first Christmas. Jesus is as bodily present to us at this Christmas Mass as he was in that cave-turned-stable.
That true and bodily presence of Jesus in our midst, this central truth of our Catholic faith, is what I want to highlight this Christmas, as we are in the last of the three-year national Eucharistic Revival. God continues to humble himself and make himself small for our sake, making himself vulnerable to us in the Eucharist in order to make bodily and spiritual union with us possible.
My Christmas wish for you is that you discover more deeply how this truth of Christ’s bodily presence in the Eucharist can be transformative for you personally. That is why my Christmas gift to you this year is the little book that Bishop Barron wrote specifically for this time of Eucharistic Revival, titled This Is My Body. Please pick one up at the end of Mass.
The relationship Jesus desires for you and me to have with him is real and personal. The preeminent way he reveals himself to us today is in the regular sharing of himself to you in the Eucharist. May you experience the exhilarating epiphany that the wise men had before the Christ child, that the God who made the planets and stars also miraculously makes himself small to be with us.
Yours in the Christ Child,
Fr. Chas
P.S.–
Idea for a New Year’s Resolution
So many of our parishioners have joined countless people around the world in singing the praises of both of Fr. Mike Schmitz’s wildly popular podcast serieses, The Bible in a Year and The Catechism in a Year. Both have topped the podcast charts across all genres.
I encourage you to make a New Year’s Resolution to choose one of them and incorporate them in your daily life. Here are the ways people have been able to do so:
- Listen to the daily podcast on your commute.
- Listen to it while you get your steps in or walk your dog.
- Listen to it while walking on the treadmill.
- Use the podcast to kickoff your daily prayer time.