A Sunday Thought About the Birth of Our Lord to Start the Week Off Right
On this Sunday after Christmas, here's something originally posted December 28, 2014 to increase our humility, in imitation of Him Who humbled Himself as no other ever has or ever will, and did so out love for each and every one of us.
...let's remember that as children of the Enlightenment, many of us will have to overcome a certain attitude that may prevent us from fully appreciating the miracle of the Birth of Jesus Christ over 2,000 years ago. We need to drop the pretension that we're somehow more rational or intelligent than our forbears. We need to stop being so impressed with the so-called "progress" our world has made from it's supposedly ignorant and superstitious past such that we no longer believe those "narratives," as they're called, about the birth of Jesus Christ. Such perverted thinking reduces the Gospel accounts of His miraculous birth to mere "stories." Maybe there's some symbolic meaning in those ancient words, but surely the gospels of Matthew and Luke aren't meant to be taken literally, right? Just take the virgin birth: nonsense, of course. Not very scientific is it?
Actually, Benedict XVI in his commentary on the birth narratives in the Gospels, points out that it is by neither reasonable nor scientific to assert with any degree of certainty that a virgin birth is impossible. Read that again. It's accuracy is unassailable.
That's the first step we need to take to understand and appreciate St Bernard of Clairvaux's account of the actual birth of Our Lord. As quoted in the “Catholic Replies” feature in a recent edition of the Catholic weekly The Wanderer, St Bernard comments about how Mary gave birth to Jesus, referring to her title “Star of the Sea”:
I hope the Christmas Season, just underway with much more to come, finds you bathed in the light of Star of Bethlehem, gazing in childlike wonder at the Baby in the Manger. The awesome mystery of God who "was made flesh and dwelt amongst us" should never grow old or tired as we welcome Him into our hearts. And so on this Sunday after Christmas we share a moment of Handel's Messiah that captures this.
...let's remember that as children of the Enlightenment, many of us will have to overcome a certain attitude that may prevent us from fully appreciating the miracle of the Birth of Jesus Christ over 2,000 years ago. We need to drop the pretension that we're somehow more rational or intelligent than our forbears. We need to stop being so impressed with the so-called "progress" our world has made from it's supposedly ignorant and superstitious past such that we no longer believe those "narratives," as they're called, about the birth of Jesus Christ. Such perverted thinking reduces the Gospel accounts of His miraculous birth to mere "stories." Maybe there's some symbolic meaning in those ancient words, but surely the gospels of Matthew and Luke aren't meant to be taken literally, right? Just take the virgin birth: nonsense, of course. Not very scientific is it?
Actually, Benedict XVI in his commentary on the birth narratives in the Gospels, points out that it is by neither reasonable nor scientific to assert with any degree of certainty that a virgin birth is impossible. Read that again. It's accuracy is unassailable.
That's the first step we need to take to understand and appreciate St Bernard of Clairvaux's account of the actual birth of Our Lord. As quoted in the “Catholic Replies” feature in a recent edition of the Catholic weekly The Wanderer, St Bernard comments about how Mary gave birth to Jesus, referring to her title “Star of the Sea”:
“There is indeed a wonderful appropriateness in this comparison of her to a star because as a star sends out its ray without detriment to itself, so did the Virgin Mary bring forth her Child without injury to her integrity. And as the ray emitted does not diminish the brightness of the star, so neither did the Child born of her tarnish the beauty of Mary’s virginity."If you can free yourself of the prejudices, dare we say ignorance and superstition, of our post-Enlightenment modern age, you'll grasp the awesome wonder contained in St Bernard's description. You may even understand and appreciate the probability that these words more likely capture how Jesus was born rather than some purportedly “scientific” insistence that child-birth could not have occurred in such a fashion. After all, this Child born on Christmas Day was not just any child. As surely as He was a man, He was God, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Why would such a birth as described by St Bernard not be perfectly reasonable and appropriate in such a circumstance?
I hope the Christmas Season, just underway with much more to come, finds you bathed in the light of Star of Bethlehem, gazing in childlike wonder at the Baby in the Manger. The awesome mystery of God who "was made flesh and dwelt amongst us" should never grow old or tired as we welcome Him into our hearts. And so on this Sunday after Christmas we share a moment of Handel's Messiah that captures this.
Comments