(LifeSiteNews) — The enduring reality of Christmas lies in the Incarnation: the eternal Word of God becoming man. Jesus of Nazareth, the Word Incarnate and eternally begotten Son of God, now sits at the right hand of His Father.
The Martyrology on Christmas Eve announces that Our Lord came to earth “willing to consecrate the world with His most gracious coming.” This consecration is made manifest in the unending union between the second person of the Blessed Trinity and the human nature hypostatically united to Him.
This same God-man who suffered, died, rose, and ascended is King by right over all societies and will come again to judge the living and the dead. Amidst all this power, glory and majesty, Jesus Christ loves us with a human heart, filled with eternal, burning, and divine love.
However, Christ’s consecration of the world and His redemptive act do not restore it to the state of Eden. Instead, they inaugurate a campaign—a battle against evil.
In St Ignatius of Loyola’s classic meditation from the Spiritual Exercises, he casts Christ as a King, who wills “to conquer the whole world and all [his] enemies, and thus to enter into the glory of [his] Father.”[1] This spirit fills the liturgical texts with notes of militancy and divine triumph.
The tension within Christmas’ liturgical texts
The Midnight Mass of Christmas begins with a triumphant tone, declaring the majesty and authority of Christ:
The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.
V. Why have the Gentiles raged, and the people devised vain things?
This passage, drawn from Psalm 2, continues:
The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord, and against His Christ.
Let us break their bonds asunder: and let us cast away their yoke from us.
He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them.
Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage.
Ask of me, and I will give thee the Gentiles for thy inheritance, and the utmost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron, and shalt break them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
Similarly, the Gradual proclaims:
With Thee is the principality in the day of Thy strength: in the brightness of the saints: from the womb before the day star I begot Thee.
V. The Lord said to my Lord: Sit Thou at my right hand: Until I make Thy enemies Thy footstool.
This continues throughout Christmas Day. Consider the Introit of the “Dawn Mass” of Christmas Day:
A light shall shine upon this day: for the Lord is born to us: and He shall be called Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace: of Whose reign there shall be no end.
V. The Lord is King, in splendour robed; robed is the Lord and girt about with strength.
These texts, far from dwelling solely on the coming of the Shepherds, point to the divine authority and conquest of the Christ-child.
At the “Day Mass,” the Gospel proclaims the eternal generation of the Son of God, expanding our vision beyond the temporal events of Bethlehem to the eternal majesty of the divine Word.
The Introit of the Sunday within the Christmas octave refers back to the Divine Word:
While all things were in quiet silence, and the night was in the midst of her course, Thy Almighty Word, O Lord, came down from Thy royal throne.
If we refer to the Book of Wisdom, from which this passage is taken, we find the following confirmation of this militant spirit:
… as a fierce conqueror into the midst of the land of destruction, with a sharp sword carrying Thy unfeigned commandment, and He stood and filled all things with death, and standing on the earth, reached even to heaven. (Wisdom 18.15-16)
If we open the Missal or Breviary at random in the Christmas season, and we will not go far before finding such texts; and they frequently insist that this victory is not for the future, but has already arrived today.
The dual nature of Christmas
Throughout Advent, we prayed for Christ’s coming to deliver us from darkness and judge the living and the dead. Even on Christmas Eve, the Church reminded us of Christ’s dual role as Redeemer and Judge:
O God, You Who gladden us year after year with the expectation of our redemption, grant that we, who now welcome with joy Your only-begotten Son as our Redeemer, may also gaze upon Him without fear when He comes as our Judge, our Lord Jesus Christ.
Christmas thus celebrates not only the tenderness of a newborn child but also the triumph of God over darkness.
During the Christmas season, we rightly meditate on the Christ-child in the manger, singing carols and contemplating the humility of His birth.
But as we can see from the texts above, the Christmas liturgy teaches us to see both fierce glory in this infant Jesus, and tender love in the redeemer, conqueror, king and judge.
Conclusion
This understanding of Christmas should give us great hope. The world remains full of wickedness; evil men seek to destroy us; and there are those who wish to pervert the Catholic religion by turning it into something which it is not and cannot be.
Yet, Christ has already won the victory. Even if we personally are destroyed, we know that Christ has already won, and that his army and mystical body continue and will continue until none of his enemies are left.
But rather than give way to hatred, we should pray that Christ “destroys” his enemies in the most perfect and glorious way possible: by converting them to himself, and by uniting us all in faith and charity. As we rejoice in Christ’s birth at Christmas, we also look forward to His definitive triumph, when He will come as Judge and King.
On that last day, may we be found among His friends, and not among those enemies whom the Midnight Mass declares will be put under his feet as a footstool, and will be broken into pieces “like the potter’s vessel.”
References
| ↑1 | St Ignatius, Spiritual Exercises, trans. Louis J. Puhl SJ, The Newman Press, Worthington, Ohio, 1951, n. 093 |
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