Newsletter #44 – Our Lady of Mount Carmel USA

Dear Friends and Benefactors,

“And she brought forth her first-born Son, and wrapped Him up in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger.” (Saint Luke 2:7)

DIVINE GIVING
Good would not be good unless it tended to, and actually did, communicate itself. As the author of “Perfection Is For You” (Fr. J. Higgins, S.J.) explains – good is diffusive of itself. Before time and the ages, the Infinite Good, God, makes eternal communication of Himself. To express this fact in terms of the human understanding we must use words which seem to imply change and succession in One Who is unchanging and eternal. Every communication of good of which we have experience involves change and succession. But the first of all communications of good is effected without mutation of any kind. Without increase or diminution of reality, the Father communicates the divine nature to the Son, and in a similar changeless manner, the Father and the Son communicate the divine nature to the Holy Ghost.
With the processions of the Son and the Holy Ghost, the matter might have rested eternally. God has acted in accordance with His Infinite Goodness since that Infinite Goodness has been communicated infinitely. There is no compelling reason that anything outside of God should ever be. If no creature exists, God is still infinitely good. But a God so good does not limit Himself to merely what must be. He proceeds to give of Himself ceaselessly – to finite things: to angels, to men, to unreasoning things. How prodigal is the giving of God, not merely in the quantity, but especially in the quality of what He gives! Who has ever measured the extent of His universe or numbered the offspring of His creative will? To His intelligent creatures He gives not only what the splendor of their nature as natural images of God demands, but He royally offers them something of the divinity itself. They are summoned to live the life of God, to be happy as God is happy in knowing and loving the divine substance. They are invited to see the unseen and unseeable God, to taste and see that the Lord is sweet. (Psalm 33:9).
What an outpouring of good was the original making of man! God intends not only that rational beings exist – and wondrous is the mystery of any kind of contingent existence – but that they be sons of God, endowed with divine life, resplendent with grace, integrity, and immortality. Here surely was divinity at work – devising new gifts, spending itself without being expended, lifting nothing to the level of divinity.
It is perhaps more difficult to understand how man could be so stupid as to reject that lavishment of good. With the unclouded vision of original justice, with his intellect undimmed by passion, with his will unperturbed by the remains of old sinning, how could man be so inconceivably foolish as to cast aside the genuine riches offered him, and in the place of infinite good, choose the fraudulent counterfeit of good!
The baffling fact will ever remain: man derides God and by most hideous ingratitude returns evil for good. Beneficence so flouted might well have retired within itself in angry dudgeon. When man made his fateful choice, the great Benefactor might justly have said: “Very well! If man will have none of Me, I will have none of him. Therefore, I shall stop the flow of good to him. He has chosen the husks of swine. I shall leave him with the hollow appearances of good.”
God surely loves us with an infinite tenderness, since human wrongdoing only serves to stimulate Him to even greater acts of benevolence. Since the evil man had wrought was not irremediable, as was the sin of the bad angels, the hurt which man had done himself by sin could be undone. God Himself would see to it. In place of the integrity and immortality which man had thrown away, God would substitute a gift of greater value. Out of the ashes of moral catastrophe, phoenixlike, a greater good would spring. A remedy for sin would be given fallen man, which if man had not sinned, would not have needed nor would God have given. Upon the occasion of sin’s confusion and calamity, God effects a closer union with fallen man than would have been the lot of sinless man. This union is the very wedding of humanity to divinity effected in the Person of the God-Man, the uniting of the highest to the lowest in the mystery of the Incarnation. Well does the Church sing at the Easter Vigil: “O happy fault that merited to possess such and so great a Redeemer.”
How significant of future benefactions to man is the fact that, before He laid upon Adam and his children a sentence of punishment, God first gave hope of the ultimate alleviation of the great catastrophe. “For,” says Saint Leo the Great, “the omnipotent and merciful God, Whose nature is goodness, whose will is Power, whose work is Mercy, as soon as diabolical malice by the poison of its envy slew us, gave a fore-sign of the remedy for the restoration of men which His goodness had made ready in the very beginning of the world; telling the serpent of the future seed of the woman, which by its power would crush the pride of its vicious head.”
The fallen race is left with an enigmatic promise, a crumb of mysterious comfort contained in the words to the serpent: “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” (Genesis 3:15). Did these words mean anything to Eve as she sorrowed over the body of her second born (Abel who was killed by Cain)? Or to her children’s children as little by little the unlovely consequences of sin marred their happiness? All that they had was a vague dim hope.
It was the providence of God toward man, little by little, to broaden the basis of that hope through a gradual process of enlightenment. Even though the human race receded farther from God and plunged deeper into sin, God gave to those who still hoped fresh revelation. Little by little, He lifts the veil which conceals the future; prophecy by prophecy, He communicates knowledge of what He will eventually give to man.
The long years roll by and through the mouth of Noe, God speaks His second word of light and encouragement. God has blessings for men, and these will come to them through the children of Sem. “Blessed be the Lord God of Sem and … may He dwell in the tents of Sem.” (Gen. 9:26-27)
As time passed, the Messianic speaking of God becomes more frequent. Of the children of Sem, God has chosen the believing Abram (Abraham) whose seed will be the bearer of these blessings. “In thee shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed.” (Genesis 12:3) Of the children of Isaac, Jacob is selected. Against his will and his own pecuniary interests, Balaam testifies to the glory of Jacob’s progeny: “A star shall rise out of Jacob and a sceptre shall spring up from Israel…. Out of Jacob shall he come that shall rule.” (Num. 24:17,19) Of the children of Jacob, the Chosen One shall come through Juda, and He will be of the family of David: “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I shall perform the good word I have spoken to the house of Israel, and to the house of Juda. In those days, and at that time, I will make the bud of justice to spring forth unto David, and he shall do judgment and justice in the earth. In those days shall Juda be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell securely: and this is the name they shall call Him, The Lord our Just One.” (Jer. 33:14-16)
What kind of person shall this expected one be? He will be a prophet, because Moses foretold to Israel in the desert: “The Lord thy God will raise up to thee a Prophet of thy nation and of thy brethren like unto me: him thou shalt hear.” (Deut. 18:15). The expected Prophet will also be a God-chosen King, for David prophesies of Him: “Thou art beautiful above the sons of men: grace is poured abroad in thy lips; therefore hath God blessed thee forever. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O thou most mighty. With thy comeliness and thy beauty set out, proceed prosperously, and reign. Because of truth and meekness and justice: and thy right hand shall conduct thee wonderfully. Thy arrows are sharp: under thee shall people fall, into the hearts of the king’s enemies. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: the sceptre of thy kingdom is a sceptre of uprightness. Thou hast loved justice, and hated iniquity: therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.” (Psalm 44:3-8). This Prophet and King will also be a Priest after the manner of Mechisedech. (Psalm 109:4). Although Israel could scarcely understand the sublimity of the message, David is inspired to say that the Messianic King and Prophet is the Son of God. “Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.” (Psalm 2:7). He is the true and natural Son of God because to Him are addressed the words: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.” (Psalm 44:7).
The speakings of God to mankind grow in volume and rise to a crescendo of revelation. Descending to minute detail, the prophets describe the person, office, and the fate of the Messias. He will be born of a virgin miraculously. He will strike a new and everlasting covenant between God and man, for He will be God pitching His tent among men, Emmanuel. He will enter into the holy city Sion as the Good Shepherd of men’s souls, but He will be rejected. He will be the man of sorrows who takes upon Himself the iniquities of all men. He will be offered as a victim of sacrifice because He will be betrayed into the hands of enemies who will scourge and crucify Him but, in slaying Him, they will not break one of His bones. He will die, but death will have no dominion over Him, for He will conquer death and ascend to Heaven triumphantly. He will establish on earth and in Heaven a Kingdom and He will reign in it gloriously forever.
Where will He appear? Micheas says: “And thou, Bethlehem Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda: out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel: and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity.” (Micheas 5:2). When will He come? During the Persian conquest of Babylonia, Daniel prophesied that within seventy weeks of years these tremendous events would happen, namely, the appearance and slaying of the Messias, the destruction of Jerusalem and the sanctuary, the cessation of the Mosaic sacrifice. (Daniel 9:24-27). From the literary and historic records of the time from the death of Pericles to the accession of Tiberius Caesar, two notes are dominant among men whether chosen Jew or reprobate Gentile. The first is a note of gloom bordering on despair, a conviction of human wretchedness, an overpowering weight of misery. The second is a note of intense longing for deliverance. The cry of Isaias embodies the yearning of heartsick men: “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just (One): let the earth be opened, and bud forth a Saviour.” (Isaias 45:8). The signs of His coming have multiplied and become increasingly clearer. Aggeus says: “For thus saith the Lord of hosts: Yet one little while, and I will move the heaven and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land. And I will move all nations: AND THE DESIRED OF ALL NATIONS SHALL COME.” (Aggeus 2:7-8).
One by one, the weeks foretold by Daniel slip by. The last prince from the Machabees fades from the scene. Herod the stranger sits upon the throne of David. Jacob had prophesied that “The sceptre shall not be taken away from Juda, nor a ruler from his thigh, till he come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of nations.” (Genesis 49:10).
The time is ripe. The prophecies are fulfilled. Expectation which has stood tiptoe is greeted by the overwhelming consummation. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.” (John 1:4). So, “let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us see this word that is come to pass, which the Lord hath shewed to us.” (Luke 2:15). The desire of the everlasting hills has come. Wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger is the Son of Mary, God’s climatic gift to men, the supreme overflowing of good to man which even God is capable of. In exchange for the sin of man, God gives His own true Son. A Child is born to us. How infinite power and prestige accommodates itself to the lowliness of human understanding! The invisible God becomes visible to eyes of flesh. The Purest Spirit, whom the boundless heavens cannot contain, is subjected to the painful limitations of humanity. The God of lightnings and of Sinai, Who “is He that sitteth upon the globe of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: He that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.” (Isaias 40:22). This is He Who greets the shepherds with an infant’s tiny cry.
His mission is not vengeance or terror, but rather mercy and compassion. It is not the sword of justice which He reaches out, but rather a baby’s hand. He is one with us. Henceforth, He will call Himself the Son of Man. “For in the very fulness of the times,” says Saint Leo the Great, “chosen by the inscrutable depth of Divine Wisdom, the Son of God assumed human nature to reconcile it to its Maker, so that the devil, the author of death, might be conquered by the very thing which he conquered. And in the conflict which He undertook on our behalf, His struggle evidenced a great and wondrous seemliness, namely that, although He was the Almighty Lord, yet He joined battle with this cruel foe, not in His majesty, but in our lowliness, opposing to him the same form, the same nature.” In Himself, He gathers the hopes and fears of all the years. On Him will be laid the woes, the debts, the iniquities of all, and yet He smiles His way into our hearts appealing to us by the cords of Adam.

HUMAN GIVING
We are to conform to the likeness of such goodness. As He is and does, so are we to be and do. Good is diffusive of itself. Of His fullness we have all received. (John 1:16). We must share it. As we have partaken of the divine outpouring of Bethlehem, so we are to give with commensurate liberality.
Not everybody learns this lesson easily. Take, for example, a person who asks himself as Christmas approaches, “What kind of a Christmas am I going to have?” He is anticipating a seasonal increase of natural happiness or spiritual consolation. He may not reflect that his Christmas happiness of the past was due to the efforts others made to make him happy. He has heard it said, but he is yet to experience the truth, that the Christmas spirit springs not from care of self but thought for others. Then comes his first bad Christmas. He may be far from home; bleak and lonely he eats out his heart yearning for familiar faces and places. Or personal catastrophe may strike him – the death of a dear one, some calamitous reverse. Or he may be engulfed in bottomless desolation. If he merely mourns the spoiling of his Christmas, then he misses the lesson. If, however, he refuses to be sorry for himself, and puts the thought of his personal happiness into the background in order to entertain or help or comfort someone as badly off or in worse plight than himself, then some few drops of Christmas joy will seep into him and he will see that it consists in going out of self, in the Godlike act of giving to others.
Christmas, then, is the season of goodness because it is the season of giving. This, even the unreligious acknowledge. For this is the time when men laudably experience an expansion of heart and wish to be a good fellow to everybody. They have a present for the mailman, for the elevator operator, for the trash collector. Spontaneously, they give a cheery word to the harried conductor on his crowded car or the traffic policeman tangled with the Christmas crowds. They hand out dimes for cups of coffee. They go out of their way to direct a stranger or advise a bewildered traveler who has lost his ticket. In the spirit of Dickens’ “Christmas Carol”, they give genuine kindness, little jokes that comfort, unspoken looks of sympathy in order to do their share to make a cold earth a little more human and a fitter place for men to live in. This is praiseworthy indeed, but it is not necessarily a reproduction of the divine giving. It may be only humanitarianism. God gave us His Son at Christmas because divine love urged Him: He beheld the seed of divinity in our humanity. To be worthy of Christians, our giving should reflect God’s reason for giving. We should give not merely because we feel a natural glow of good feeling, nor because the needs of men appeal to our liberality, but because we love God, and we wish to do as God does. For “the end of a virtuous life is to be like unto God.” (Saint Gregory Nyssa)
Our first giving, therefore, is to God Himself. Love summons up love. Our first Christmas present should consist of an increase of our love for God. What shall I render to the Lord for all that He hath given me? What a charming gift Sint Francis of Assisi gave to the Christ Child when he built the first crib at Greccio in 1223! By reconstructing for simple people and putting into visible form their idea of what had happened at Bethlehem, he enriched the Church for all time. No one needs great learning to kneel at the crib and see that God has really pitched his tent in our midst. The Word was made flesh: here He is in the manger; the infinite God is a baby. Thanks to Saint Francis, the heart can love more because the eye can see more. The saint brought one of God’s mysteries closer to man’s imagination.
Men have given God some of their best gifts on Christmas morning. The festal surroundings constituted an external grace. The imagination was stirred, and the heart uplifted, so the Holy Ghost entered the soul, shedding divine light in the intellect and softening the will with divine unction. Grateful to tears for having received their Eucharistic Lord after a lapse of many years, sinners have resolutely turned their backs upon the occasions of their sins and become fervent members of the Church. Souls struggling for perfection have seen in clearer light the object of self-love, which was preventing their closer union with God, and with one generous sweep have made of it a Christmas offering.
The dynamic center of Christmas is not the living room where we receive human gifts: it is in front of the crib where we give the Christ Child His gift. We can reach down and bring from the depth of the heart and lay as an offering before Him simply everything. The meannesses we would be rid of, the pettiness we are ashamed of, the injuries we want to forgive, the gallant words we spoke in others’ defense, our hidden sacrifices of pride, the kindnesses we were not thanked for, our promises of self-conquest, our protestations of devotion. We lay there our whole soul, all our mind and heart and strength. For there can be no limit to our love of God. And in the act of giving, how our sordid cares for self can fade away!
At this blessed time, however, as we draw nearer to the midnight song of the angels, God seems to say to us: “Pay your debts of divine love to men. Love Me in the souls of men.” We are bound, at all times, to love all men, but at Christmas, according to our opportunity, we are to give men something extra of God. Our best Christmas gifts are the words, actions, things, and presents which occasion in another more belief in God, or more hope in Him, or more love of Him. Speaking of almsgiving, Saint Ambrose says: “That money will be more profitable to you … if you so give it to a poor man that you actually bestow it on Christ.”
The invitation to love God in men finds its first fulfillment in the home. Men rediscover the depth and strength of their natural ties when they plan, procure, and give the family Christmas gifts. Christmas giving surely makes them better men by increase of natural love, but not necessarily better Christians through growth of charity. They do not always see God in the persons they love, nor love them for the sake of God. It is by loving them with charity that they give them more of God.
Mothers are the most wonderful givers. Nature has arranged it that mothers find their happiness in giving. Having given natural life to their children, mothers never cease pouring themselves out on them. But which are the things they are most solicitous to give, the natural or the supernatural? That, of course, depends on the vividness of their faith. When Europeans ask, “Where are your American saints?” we are at a loss for an answer. We had not given the matter much thought. But the presence of living saints is most important. They indicate how widely and deeply the Gospel seed has spread. Now the problem of forming saints is first a problem of the home. Saints come from sanctified homes. Here mothers are the key persons. They are to give not only that which nature requires for the fullness of human well-being, but especially an abundance of faith, hope, and charity. God wishes them to be the mothers of saints, and in the process of making saints, to become saints themselves. The finest Christmas gift an American mother can give is the bringing back of the Christ Child to Christmas. Santa Claus has supplanted the Christ Child: human legend has obscured a divine reality: the most beautiful fact of history is smothered by a fairy tale. People have forgotten that “Santa” means “saint”. They extol the legend as a symbol of unselfish, but merely natural love. If Christmas is nothing more than this legend, then it is a secular, or at best, a family holiday. Robbed of its divine Child, the Christmas story must find a place alongside Cinderella or the Seven Dwarfs. If children are to be saints, they do not need a human legend, since the real Christmas story is an infinitely more tender proof of divine love. They are not to remain satisfied with the sight of parental love, however warming and understandable, but they are some day to look up to the mysterious height of a divine love which is incomprehensible.
As the coming of Christ was manifest first to the children of the promise, His own brethren in the flesh, so a Christian’s first giving, belongs to his own. For the vast majority of Christians, their own is their flesh and blood. The first recipient of Christmas giving is the members of the family. But there are those who for love of God have renounced the family tie. Their own are their colleagues who pursue with them the same apostolic tasks. Like Saint Peter, they have neither gold nor silver to give, but they can exchange things incomparably more valuable. They are not content with mere human comradeship, nor an affection which is built upon fancy that changes and sentiment that evaporates. The Sun of Justice and of Truth has shone in their minds enabling them to see their fellows for what they really are – partakers of divinity and co-laborers with Christ. They see one another as spiritual descendants of the same progenitor in Christ, children who glory in the same traditions and family honor. They can be brothers or sisters to one another as none other can. They live by faith. They see what is nobler than the tie of blood – the bond that makes them one in the Body of Christ. They have to exchange mutual tolerance, which noiselessly absorbs the little frictions of daily living; delicacy of understanding, which appreciates one another’s quest of God in spite of human frailty; inspiration, to imitate hidden sacrifice and quiet generosity; mutual reverence, which bows before the Christ-like beauty of the human soul; mutual help, for the building of Christ within the hearts of all; mutual example and encouragement, that all may persevere unto the great day of Christ Jesus. From this exchange a person grows in the love of God which sees the needs of a member of Christ and to it ministers time, attention, energy, cheerfulness, and sacrifice of self. From this exchange is born the peace of Christ which surpasses understanding.
We are to give not only to our own, but to all men who seek us. The usual reason why a man seeks another is to get something. If a giver is to get in return, he gives quite willingly. But if the giver can expect nothing but thanks, and sometimes not even that, he may come to resent repeated calls upon his generosity. Generosity, inspired by the Christ Child, is gratuitous giving.
This kind of giving ought not to be limited to Christmas time: the opportunities for it are constantly being offered everyone. Whether one’s circle of action is large or small, the chance to give, and get no human thanks for giving, always exists. People smile at the thought of gratuitous contributions to the public good. Yet civic virtue stands at a high-level when public-spirited men give precious time to public affairs without hope of office or personal gain: it declines when able men shut themselves up in their own concerns. Catholic Action is simply an invitation to gratuitous giving.
So important is the need of this kind of giving that Divine Providence supplies us with the inspiration of noteworthy exemplars: in the home, dutiful Christian parents; in the church, the selfless priest; in the school, the devoted religious teacher.
Concerning religious teachers, few persons are asked to be more generous and constant than they. For they surrender all the prime objects of human striving – home, money, human love, hope of fame and place – for the inherently thankless task of improving other people’s children. The Church has put into their hands her priceless treasures of faith with the confident expectation that these will not remain hid in a napkin. She charges them to form her young in the image of Christ. Her teachers must give not only that which any good teacher would impart, sound learning and habits of upright conduct, but also and especially habits of prayer, devotion, self-sacrifice, and frequent reception of the Sacraments. They are preparing their pupils not merely to pass examinations, and so to enter high school, college, or university, but eventually to deserve the kingdom of God. They must open their eyes to the pearl of great price and inspire them to find it. The pearl of great price is not only salvation; it is also perfection. Although pupils themselves may be too inexperienced to recognize so exalted an appetite, they have a soul hunger for the stronger meat which nourishes the higher life. The inspiring teacher awakens that appetite, fosters vocations to the higher life, and sows the seeds of sanctity.
That their humble self-dedication helps greatly to build up the Body of Christ is clear from this incident. When American troops came to visit Rome at the end of World War II, high ecclesiastics were struck by their genuine piety. When comment of this kind reached the soldiers, they were surprised. They saw nothing unusual in their conduct. “This” they said, “is only what the Sisters taught us.”
Different kinds of giving are asked of different people: the surrender of one’s opinion for the sake of peaceful relations, the assuming of an extra task, the return of good for evil, making wide and generous allowance for one’s subordinates. The details of the giving matter not. But it matters much to have or to have had the influence of a selfless parent or priest or teacher. Their memory or their living example spells out to us the clear lesson – “Go, and do thou in like manner.” (Luke 10:37)
It is not difficult to give good things to the persons we love. Nor is it too hard to do spiritual good to those who seek help. The supreme charity is giving Christ to those who do not desire Him. In this way, we fully imitate His giving, we touch the heroic. The Christ Child came to give to all men without exception, the good and the bad, the willing and the unwilling. He had something for Herod no less than for the Magi, for Pilate no less than for Peter, for the Scribes and Pharisees no less than for the faithful disciples. It was to give Christ even to the wicked and obstinate that the Apostles went into the whole world. For the same reason, the Church maintains her missionary activity. That all men should enjoy the gifts which come with the Child’s crib, such is the grand purpose of truly Christian charity. “No one,” says Pope Saint Leo the Great, “is excluded from participation in this joyousness; all have the same reason for rejoicing: for as Our Lord, the Conqueror of sin and death, found no one free of guilt, so He came to liberate all. Let the saint exult because he draws closer to his reward. Let the sinner rejoice because he is invited to pardon. Let the heathen be encouraged because he is called to life.”
If, then, a person has caught the lesson of Bethlehem, he wills that they who believe not should now believe, even though they hate the faith; the sinners repent and receive grace, even though they love the chains of their sins; that they who have grace should have much more of it, even though they are content with a mediocre spirituality. Every saint had such love for men. It moved Saint Francis of Assisi to preach to the Saracens; Saint Isaac Jogues to return and die among the Mohawks; Frederick Ozanam to found the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Although opportunities of actual giving may be limited, there should be no bounds to our pious desires. Our prayers can embrace the needs of the world. There are obscure people, whom poverty and old age constrict to the narrowest circle of action, and yet they pray long earnest prayers for the whole Church, for Russia, for atheists, for heretics, for schismatics, for the wayward and outcast, and for the abatement of sin. God alone knows the evil these prayers have prevented and the good they have accomplished. They seem to men to have nothing to give, yet they are givers after the Heart of the Christ Child.
Let us say in conclusion that Christmas has a fascination for the mind and a grip upon the heart which perhaps no other Catholic festival has. It presents to the intellect the inexhaustible mystery of the Incarnation. With what frame of mind we should ever regard this second mystery of our faith Saint Leo teaches us: “The greatness of God’s work, dearly beloved, surpasses and rises far above human powers of expression; and hence a problem of speaking arises where there is a duty not to be silent: because to Jesus Christ the Son of God, not merely in regard to His divine essence, but also in regard to His human nature, there is applied the word of the prophet: ‘Who shall tell of His Birth?’ That two natures unite in one Person, words do not explain if faith does not believe it; and therefore, grounds for praise are never lacking where the overflowing eloquence of the speaker is never adequate. Let us, then, rejoice that we are unequal to the task of praising so great a mystery of mercy, and while we are unable to explore the hidden depths of our salvation, let us appreciate that it is good for us to be overwhelmed. For no one draws closer to a knowledge of the truth than he who has advanced far in the knowledge of divine things, and yet knows that something always remains for him to seek. For he who presumes that he has attained the object of his seeking, finds not what he seeks, but fails in his quest. But lest we be cast down by our limitations, we are helped by the words of the prophets and the Gospel which so inspire and teach us that we seem to regard the Nativity of the Lord whereby ‘the Word was made flesh’, not so much a past event which we recall as a present happening which we contemplate.”
But Christmas touches rather the heart. Is it not a huge simple dart of divine love lodging directly in the human breast? Is not this perhaps the reason why old and young enjoy it in anticipation, that all have sacred memories of past Christmases? True, it appeals to our rude intelligences, teaching us that religion is not all burden and obligations; it manifests God, not in power, but in lowliness, not so much in His incomprehensible divinity as in His appealing humanity. But, in a way, Christmas by-passes the understanding, for it sets in motion a joy difficult to explain, it stirs depths in the soul to which reason may not as yet have penetrated. Perhaps the best way of explaining this divine touch is by saying that in the Birth of His Son, God imparts something peculiarly divine which men can share and savor without labor of reasoning. God first calls human attention to the lovableness of God, for, is not the center of Christmas the Mother and her Child, Mary and Jesus? Then God lifts us up to divinity and gives us an ineffable taste thereof. How? The Son Who is given us makes us see and feel that we are never so happy as when we are making others happy. Thus, the sons of God are induced to act like God, to give and be happy in the giving. Here then is the genuine note of Christmas – men imitating the divine liberality and experiencing therein the sweetness of giving. Giving is loving, and loving is giving.

AVE MARIA!
(Father Joseph Poisson)

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Consecration of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel to Immaculate Heart of Mary
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Given By His Excellency Bishop Pfeiffer

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