Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Word, the Son of God, is God, equal to the Father in divinity, but distinct from the Father by being His Son.
They are two Persons of the Most Holy Trinity, together with the Holy Spirit.
At the time appointed by eternal decree, the Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. What was He like when He came to dwell among us? The shepherds who went to Bethlehem and saw Him returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen. And what did they see? They found Mary and Joseph and the Baby lying in a manger.
The angel had told them, "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." That Baby is the Lord, that Baby is God. This is what they saw and contemplated.
The angel had said that the Baby lying in a manger would be a sign for them. In Scripture, the word "sign" often is equivalent to "miracle." A miracle is something that arouses wonder, and here there is indeed a cause for wonder. The newborn Child is the eternal Word, who was in the beginning with God. He whom the heavens cannot contain is held within a manger. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, yet He must lie on fodder for lack of a proper bed. The Light of the world is wrapped in the darkness of midnight, and the eternal Word cannot speak.
Wonder invites us to reflect and contemplate. The Light of the world has come to enlighten us and teach us wisdom, and He does this even without words. Contemplating Him like the shepherds and in the light of faith, we learn how we ought to live.
St. Francis arranged the first nativity scene so that he and others could contemplate with their eyes what God did in taking flesh from the Virgin. He explains, "The Most High Father made known from heaven through His holy angel Gabriel this Word of the Father, so worthy, so holy and glorious, in the womb of the holy and glorious Virgin Mary, from whose womb He received the flesh of our humanity and frailty."
He was rich beyond measure, and yet He and His Holy Mother chose poverty. Let us begin, then, with the point that so struck St. Francis: poverty. St. Bernard says of this, "An eternal affluence of all goods was present in heaven, but poverty was not found among them. But on earth, this kind of good was abundant, even superabundant, yet human beings were ignorant of its value. So the Son of God, desiring poverty, descended to earth and chose it for Himself." Through His evaluation of poverty, He made it precious in our sight.
Men toil so much to acquire riches and envy those who have them, but when God became man, He chose to be poor. And if this is the choice made by infinite and eternal wisdom, is it not folly to strive after riches?
Money can certainly be useful, but it is not without dangers. It can also become a master, and it is a cruel master. Indeed, Christ called it a master when He said, "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money." After this life, where will those who do not serve God go? Almost as if to suggest the danger of riches, when gold, frankincense, and myrrh arrived for the divine Infant, death was at their heels in the form of Herod's thugs.
But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. She chose to follow the poverty of her Son, and Jesus was all her treasure.
It seems that the Holy Family gave the gifts of the Magi to the poor, because afterward they lived a poor and simple life. We seek comfort, but the Incarnate Word chose a cold cave and a bed of prickly straw. He who governs the universe could have ordered events so that there was room in the inn. Indeed, He could have ordered the events so that He would be born in a palace. The cold and the straw were not accidental. He chose them.
This choice prefigures the rejection He will encounter from many, and first of all from His own people. For many, there is no room in the inn of their heart, no room for God, because it is full of other loves.
Indeed, Jesus' discomfort also serves to begin the redemption of those who do accept Him, those to whom He gives power to become children of God. He teaches us the value of penance. If He did penance even though He was without sin, how much more should we who are sinners do it? He is the Almighty God, but He does not use His power to make His life more comfortable.
When the thugs came to kill Him, He could have struck them down on the spot. He could have called twelve legions of angels to His aid, but instead He preferred to flee into exile. He chose the powerlessness of an infant body, a body that could not even flee on its own. He chose to save us through the weakness of His cross, and He will never renounce that cross.
The crucifix reveals the power of weakness, where the Immortal One dies and death gives life. One time, immemorial, men killed to save their lives, but sooner or later all died the same. He, however, accepted death and lives forever. He conquered through weakness in order to teach the folly of tyranny and of greed for power. His material poverty is thus a sign of a deeper poverty, the poverty of the human condition.
The difference between a rich man and a poor man is finite, but for God to become man is an infinite abasement. The Creator to whom all things belong is born naked in a stable. Present in every place is God. He becomes a child who must be carried in someone's arms to reach a place.
The eternal Word had to learn to speak, and this last fact particularly amazed St. Augustine, who had been a rhetorician, a man who had earned his living selling words. The Word of God became an infant. Etymologically, an infant is a child still unable to speak. The eternal Word, the Word that has no beginning or end, is silent. He lets angels speak and sing His glory. He lets the shepherds speak and tell what they have seen, but He remains silent, and His silence is eloquent.
God tried to speak to us through the prophets in many and varied ways, but most people played deaf. Then He spoke to us through His Son, who chose to begin life unable to speak. He wanted to be born in the silence of the night, and He wanted to remain silent. And when Wisdom in person first opened His mouth, what came out was not a profound speech, but the cry of a baby, almost as if to indicate that we often open our mouths without saying anything sensible. He teaches us that we do not need rivers of words, but above all, a silence capable of listening to God. Then we will be able to say sensible things and not waste words.
Let us therefore spend time in silence before the nativity scene, this sign, this miracle that has been given us, this wonder for us to behold. "The one who truly possesses the Word of Jesus," says Saint Ignatius of Antioch, "is also able to hear His silence so that he may be perfect." Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. She truly possessed the Word of Jesus, and knew how to listen to the Word, even to His silence. She learned the value of silence, of weakness, of poverty, and of penance.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.