In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
And the Word was made flesh, and made His dwelling amongst us.
This morning I'd like to share with you a brief reflection on how exactly the Word becomes flesh.
And this happens through Our Blessed Lady, and Her hidden presence is what I'd like to underscore, manifest in this brief reflection.
Because although hidden, it is nevertheless essential.
Like a lens through which we look at the Incarnation, through which we look at the birth of our Lord, through which we look at our Lord Himself to see Him more clearly.
All of you here who wear glasses, I sometimes wear glasses, know that you don't take off your glasses to see more clearly.
You put them on.
That lens doesn't get in the way between you and what you want to see. It helps you to see it.
And such is Our Lady.
She's there, often unperceived, because She's completely transparent to God, to our Lord, and yet, essential.
So, the Word was made flesh, made His dwelling among us, and God makes His dwelling among us through a family.
He enters into this world within a marriage.
Mary and Joseph, that virginal marriage, conceived of the Holy Spirit by Our Lady, born of Her in a virginal way.
And when He is found, we read in the Gospel of Luke, that the shepherds went in haste and found Mary and Joseph and the infant lying in the manger.
The first human eyes that saw the Word made flesh, besides Mary and Joseph, were the eyes of the shepherds.
But, the Gospel says, and Luke gives us concrete details, and always for a reason, they first saw Mary and Joseph, and then the infant lying in the manger.
Mary is mentioned first. Why? Because anybody who's looking for a baby is going to look for a baby with its mother.
Babies don't just go around on their own. They need a mother.
And you know who the baby is precisely through the mother. You know who this baby is by knowing in whose arms that baby is.
And our Lord wants to enter the world in this way.
This is how He wants to be found. This is how He wants to be known. This is how He wants to be reached.
And John Paul II puts it in a very succinct manner in one of his reflections and teachings.
He says, “Ever since the Second Person of the Holy Trinity was born of a woman, becoming man and our brother, any filial relationship with Our Father in heaven and with Jesus our brother  will imply a rapport with Mary as well.”
If we stop to think about it, it's very true. And this is how we celebrate Christmas today.
If we're looking for a baby, we're looking for a mother as well. First, we see Mary. She is our access to Jesus.
We do not, by God's will, we do not have access to the God-man except through her.
And the Gospel itself. So John gives us a theological reflection on the event.
History, yes, but a theological reflection.
Luke rather gives us the concrete details of that historical event.
And that historical event and its details is nothing else but the memories of Our Lady Herself.
How do we know about the Annunciation? How do we know about the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the birth of Our Lord, all those details?
We know them from the family of Jesus, from the mother of Jesus. Her memories are what we celebrate today.
God wants to be known through her. God wants to be accessed through her.
And through her, to have a complete picture, a better picture.
If we remove Our Lady, we don't have a better picture. We don't see the whole picture. We have a partial picture, an incomplete picture.
And even Our Lord, we know Him less perfectly. Why? Because He Himself identifies Himself as the Son of Man, as the Son of Mary.
To understand, to know Our Lord completely, we need to know that He is Son of God, Son of the Father, but also Son of Man and Son of Mary, because He wishes to be such.
St. John Paul II, back to him.
“Ever since the Person, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity was born of a woman, as Galatians says, becoming man and our brother, any filial relationship with our Father in heaven and with Jesus, our brother, will imply a rapport with Mary as well.
And the more Our Lady enters into the picture, the more complete our picture is of Christmas, of the Nativity, of Our Lord Himself, of the Incarnation, of the economy of salvation, of God's plan for us.
If we're looking for a baby today, we will not find Him, nor recognize Him, nor know who He is without His mother.
And like the shepherds approaching Our Lord today, we have to first recognize Mary, we have to recognize Joseph, and thereby enter into the mystery of the infant lying in the manger, the Son of God, the Son of Man, the Son of Mary, and our Savior.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.