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"The
sacrifice begun at Bethlehem is consummated
on the altar at Holy Mass. Oh! How touching
is the Midnight Mass in the Christian world!
We greet it long beforehand and are always
glad to see it come around again.
What is
it that gives to our feast of Christmas its
charm and that pours joy into our carols and
rapture into our hearts, if not that on the
altar Jesus is really born again, although
in a different state? Do not our carols and
our homages go straight to His very person?
The object of our festive celebration as of
our love is present. We really go to
Bethlehem and we find there not a memory,
not a picture, but the Divine Infant
Himself.
On the
first Christmas Day, Jesus began to live in
our midst; the Eucharist perpetuates His
presence. At Bethlehem He also began
practicing the virtues of His sacramental
state. He concealed His Divinity in order to
familiarize man with God. He veiled His
Divine glory as a first step to the veiling
of His humanity. He bound His power in the
weakness of a child's body; later He would
bind it beneath the Sacred Species. He was
poor; He stripped Himself of every
possession, He, the Creator and Sovereign
Master of all things. |
