0f all the beautiful decorations and shopping bustle in recent days, very little gives any indication of the reason for the season.
What is Christmas anyway?
It’s a birthday party.
Not much is actually known of the day 2006 years ago. Few verses in the second chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel and even less in the second chapter of St. Matthew are all we have to base the celebration. That is sufficient.
The angel said,“For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.”
“His name was called
Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb (of
Mary),” Luke 2-21. It was Incarnation in which the second person of the Trinity
(Father, Son and Holy Spirit) assumed form in the person of Jesus Christ: the
reason for the season.
A simple story of a humble beginning in a manger automatically makes us in agriculture feel a close tie. If it deals with livestock and barns, we pay attention. Isn’t that the way to get the real story told?
It was 1223 years after the birth of Jesus that the first Nativity was created by St. Francis of Assisi, our patron saint. He actually called it a “crèche,” the French word for cradle.
St. Francis wanted to do something that would help people remember the Christ child and how He was born in Bethlehem. Real people, a real manger with hay, a real ox, a donkey and real shepherds were used for the celebration in the new Bethlehem.
Men, women and children from many miles around came carrying torches that lit up the night as they approached the nativity, not unlike the Star in the East so many centuries earlier. All were filled with joy over the mystery of the incarnation, and a great tradition began.
May we remember and celebrate again God’s love for His creation. To show His abundant love, mercy and forgiveness, He became a person like us.
This is what Christmas is supposed to be.
+++ALLELUIA+++