The Incarnation
When describing the spirit of the Institute of the Infant Jesus Sisters, Nicolas emphasises that not only did Jesus become a human being, but a little child, needing all the love, support and protection that Mary and Joseph could give.
His focus reflects the spirituality of his time (17 century France) which promoted devotion to the Infant Jesus and the mystery of the Incarnation.
Pierre de Berulle (1575-1629) was a key figure in this movement and was called the Apostle of the Incarnation. Berulle’s aim was to link faith and theology with everyday life. This is very clearly incorporated into the writings of Nicolas Barré. (M. Walsh)
From the writings of Nicolas Barré:
‘Do not wander far from the crib of Jesus’ (F.M. 11)
“We must go on taking Jesus as our food in Holy Communion until we become his food; until he takes possession of us and makes his home in us i.e. becomes incarnated in us. Here lies the real aim of the Eucharist: to complete in us the mystery of the Incarnation, the purpose of which is to enable all people to share in the divinity of Christ.’ (RR 9)
‘What actually happens in the physical humanity of Jesus Christ in the Incarnation of the Word, takes place morally and mystically in the human soul. In a sense then, God’s being takes the place of the human being. (M.A.P. 69)
“It was through His angels that God spoke to Moses, Abraham, etc., and it was through the prophets that He spoke to His people but since the Incarnation, He has spoken to us through His Son. He, therefore, is the only one we should listen to and follow. ‘This is my Son… listen to Him.’ (M.A.P. 166)
Wonder
“Let your life be characterized by wonder”.
The Incarnation awakens wonder in the heart. All belief depends on wonder. Where there is no wonder, there can be no faith. Wonder is a beautiful way of seeing. Wonder never rests on the surface of a fact or situation.
It journeys inwards to discover why something is the way it is Wonder celebrates the mystery and depth of presence that is within us and around us.
It has no greed to grasp or own the heart of a thing. As Patrick Kavanagh said: “Through a crack too wide, there comes in no wonder.” It keeps experience fresh and original. In the depth of the dry season, the divine presence stirs in the crib, filling our eyes with wonder.
(John O’ Donohue)
“After a mother has smiled for a long time at her child, the child will begin to smile back;
She has awakened love in its heart, and in awakening love in its heart, she awakens recognition as well…. Now the child knows her and smiles.
In the same way, God explains Himself before us as Love. Love radiates from God and instils the light of love in our hearts”. (Hans Urs Van Balthasar).
DESCENT
Down he came from up,
and in from out,
and here from there.
A long leap,
an incandescent fall
from magnificent
to naked, frail, small,
through space,
between stars,
into our chill night air,
shrunk, in infant grace,
to our damp, cramped
earthy place
among all
the shivering sheep.
And now, after all,
there he lies,
fast asleep.’ (Luci Shaw)
‘They watch for Christ
Who are sensitive, eager, apprehensive in mind,
Who are awake, alive, quick-sighted,
Zealous in honouring him
Who look for him in all that happens, and
Who would not be surprised,
Who would not be over-agitated or overwhelmed,
If they found that he was coming at once…
This then is to watch:
to be detached from what is present, and
to live in what is unseen;
to live in the thought of Christ as he came once,
and as he will come again,
to desire his second coming, from our affectionate
and grateful remembrance of His first.
(St. John Henry Newman)
“Let’s go all the way to Bethlehem!”
Where is Bethlehem for you?
Like the shepherds the important thing is to move. ..
And if, instead of a glorious God, you come across the fragility of a child, do not doubt that you have gone the wrong way.
Because, since that night, the bands of weakness
and the manger of poverty
have become the new symbols of God’s omnipotence.”
(Tonino Bello)
Nikos Kazantzakis, the author of Zorba the Greek, once told this parable:
A man came up to Jesus and complained to him about the hiddenness of God. “Rabbi,” he said, “I am an old man. During my whole life, I have always kept the commandments. Every year of my adult life, I went to Jerusalem and offered the prescribed sacrifices.
“Every night of my life, I have not retired to my bed without first saying my prayers. But . . . I look at stars and sometimes the mountains—and wait, wait for God to come so that I might see him. I have waited for years and years, but in vain. Why, Why? Mine is a great grievance, Rabbi? Why doesn’t God show himself?
Jesus, in response, smiled gently and said: “Once upon a time there was a marble throne at the eastern gate of a great city. On this throne sat 3,000 kings. All of them called upon God to appear so that they might see him, but all of them went to their graves with their wishes unfulfilled.
“Then, when these kings had died, a pauper, barefooted and hungry, came and sat upon that throne. ‘God,’ he whispered, ‘the eyes of a human being cannot look directly at the sun, for they would be blinded. How then, Omnipotent, can they look directly at you? Have pity, Lord, temper your strength, turn down your splendour so that I, who am poor and afflicted, may see you!
“Then—listen, old man—God became a piece of bread, a cup of cool water, a warm tunic, a hut and, in the front of the hut, a woman giving suck to an infant.
“Thank you, Lord,’ he whispered. ‘You humbled yourself for my sake. You became bread, water, a warm tunic and a woman and her son in order that I might see you. And I did see you. I bow down and worship your beloved many-faced face!’”
The God who is born into our world, the Christ of the incarnation, is more domestic than monastic. He was eventually crucified, as a poet once put it, for making God as accessible as the village well.
In the Incarnation,we celebrate how scandalously easy it now is, to see God. There are challenges to appreciating this mystery, not least of which is, to be able to see the many-faced face of God in a piece of bread, a cup of water, and in our own homes and families.
After the incarnation, every home is a monastery, every child is the Christ child, and all food and drink is a sacrament.
We struggle to believe this. For many reasons, each of us has the tendency to miss seeing God in the ordinary because we are forever searching for him in the extraordinary. We tend, nearly always, to miss the sacredness of the ordinary as we look for the sacred in the “holy”.
Too often we are unaware that the incarnation changed us from being theists/ believers in God, to being Christians, that is, people who believe in a God who was made flesh and lives among us .
God’s many-faced face is everywhere.
We no longer need to look for God in extraordinary visions—a sunset will do. An incarnational God normally gives precisely that kind of vision! Likewise we don’t need to look for people with the stigmata to see the wounds of Christ—the pain in the faces of those we sit down at table with, will do. God’s wounded body too, is everywhere.
May the incarnation deeply bless our lives! May God’s many-faced face be present, sacramentally, in all of our encounters—our food, our drink, our gifts, our family sharings. May each of us struggle to give birth to God’s many-faced face so as to be sacrament to those around us.
God, we bow down and worship your beloved many-faced face. R.Rolheiser Dec 2016
From ‘ADMIRABILE SIGNUM’ – apostolic letter of Pope Francis on the meaning and importance of the nativity scene given on the 1st December 2019. A few extracts chosen by MW:
‘The enchanting image of the Christmas crèche, so dear to the Christian people, never ceases to arouse amazement and wonder. The depiction of Jesus’ birth is itself a simple and joyful proclamation of the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God. The nativity scene is like a living Gospel rising up from the pages of sacred Scripture. As we contemplate the story, we are invited to set out on a spiritual journey, drawn by the humility of the God who became man in order to encounter every man and woman. We come to realize that so great is his love for us that he became one of us, so that we in turn might become one with him.
Coming into this world, the Son of God was laid in the place where animals feed. Hay became the first bed of the One who would reveal himself as “the bread come down from heaven” (Jn 6:41). Saint Augustine, with other Church Fathers, was impressed by this symbolism: “Laid in a manger, he became our food” (Sermon 189, 4). Indeed, the nativity scene evokes a number of the mysteries of Jesus’ life and brings them close to our own daily lives.
Why does the crib arouse such wonder and move us so deeply? First, because it shows God’s tender love: the Creator of the universe lowered himself to take up our littleness. The gift of life, in all its mystery, becomes all the more wondrous as we realize that the Son of Mary is the source and sustenance of all life. In Jesus, the Father has given us a brother, who comes to seek us out, whenever we are confused or lost, a loyal friend ever at our side. He gave us his Son who forgives us and frees us from our sins.
“Let us go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us” (Lk 2:15). So the shepherds tell one another after the proclamation of the angels. A beautiful lesson emerges from these simple words. Unlike so many other people, busy about many things, the shepherds become the first to see the most essential thing of all: the gift of salvation.
It is the humble and the poor who greet the event of the Incarnation.
The shepherds respond to God who comes to meet us, in the Infant Jesus, by setting out to meet him with love, gratitude and awe.
Thanks to Jesus, this encounter between God and his children gives birth to our religion and accounts for its unique beauty, so wonderfully evident in the nativity scene.
The presence of the poor and the lowly in the nativity scene remind us that God became man for the sake of those who feel most in need of his love and who ask him to draw near to them. Jesus, “gentle and humble in heart” (Mt 11:29), was born in poverty and led a simple life in order to teach us to recognize what is essential and to act accordingly. By being born in a manger, God himself launches the only true revolution that can give hope and dignity to the disinherited and the outcast: the revolution of love, the revolution of tenderness.
From the manger, Jesus proclaims, in a meek yet powerful way, the need for sharing with the poor as the path to a more human and fraternal world in which no one is excluded or marginalized.
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Read Also: No feather bore back and forth
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