Week three: Getting to know Jesus Christ - Day 2

The Nativity. Jesus, the Infant. Jesus, the Bread

Prayer to the Holy Spirit 

O Holy Spirit, inspire me. God’s love, engulf me. Holy Mary, my Mother, guide me in the right ways, look at me, and together with Jesus, bless me. Keep me from all evil, from all delusions and all threats. Mary, The Spouse of the Holy Spirit, obtain for me the grace of getting to know Jesus Christ, encountering Him in the mystery of Nativity and discovering that Jesus came to the world as an Infant and stayed with us in the mystery of Eucharist. Amen!

The Word of God 

“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” (Lk 2:1‒7).

Meditation 

Let’s go to Bethlehem. It’s been nine months since Gabriel left Miriam’s house in Nazareth. We are in a grotto. We see Mary, Joseph and tiny Jesus, who has just been born. We read in the Scripture that “there was no place in the inn” for the Holy Family (cf. Lk 2:7). It reminds us of the sentence from the prologue of the St. John’s Gospel: The Word “came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him” (Jn 1:11). This sentence always touches and saddens me. How was it possible that God came and was not accepted? What’s more, I have no doubts that this story of not accepting God-Man also repeats today. We, too, don’t recognize and don’t accept God, who is still coming.

Let’s come closer to Mary. Ask her to introduce us to the experience of Jesus’ coming to the world. Ask Our Lord’s Mother about what she feels. Isn’t she disappointed? Did she suspect that the Infant Jesus would end up in a manger? Miriam is looking at the baby. Maybe Jesus is so small that He can fit in Mother’s hands. He is in Mary’s arms. Close to the Miriam’s heart. Kissed and caressed by the young Mother. Miriam recognizes Jesus in this tiny Infant…

One of the Christmas songs, Mary, Did You Know, described it in beautiful terms:

“Mary, did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water? Mary, did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters? Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new? (…) Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb? That sleeping child you’re holding is the great, I Am.”

Miriam is looking at Jesus. Let’s also look at the tiny GodMan. Mary experiences the time of the deepest prayer: praise and gratitude, adoration and staying in God’s (Jesus’) presence, spiritual concentration and contemplation. Let’s ask Mary once again what she feels when she sees the Newborn Jesus.

Miriam knows and believes that this is the Son of God. God dependent on a man. God who entrusts Himself to a man. God hidden in a vulnerable, helpless, weak baby. How to believe that exactly here, in Bethlehem, far, far away, God, the Lord, is born? How to see God in a tiny child? The night of Nativity shows many paradoxes hidden in the mystery of the coming of the Son of God to the world. Franciszek Karpiński, the author of one of the most well-known Polish Christmas carols, Bóg się rodzi (God is Born), put it using oxymorons: “God is born, power trembles, the Lord of heaven bared and exposed! The fire congealing, the light darkening, the Infinite has boundaries. The Despised is glorified, Mortal King over the ages!” This beautiful poem helps us feel how the Divine world that’s much above us joins with our reality. In Jesus, God becomes a Man so that man may unify with God. God becomes human so that man can become God. Human God comes so that we could discover that we are made in the image and likeness of Our Creator (cf. Gen 1:27) and therefore, reveal to the world that God doesn’t live in His worlds beyond. He is not far away from us, beyond our world. He is among us. Within our life. With us.

Mary is still looking at tiny Jesus. Probably, she’s pondering over God’s plan. Maybe she wonders what to do so that people could get to know God. There come the shepherds and the wise men. Miriam is deep in prayer. Yet this pretty and peaceful time with tiny God-Man will soon end. After some time, Joseph will awaken the Mother of God at night, and she will hear that they need to run away to Egypt without any delay. That there is someone who wants to kill the Baby. And again, there will arise questions: “How is it possible? Why is this happening?”

We are in Bethlehem. The name of the town where King David was born a thousand years before Christ literally means the “House of Bread.” The mystery of the coming of God-Man to the world connects with the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, and the mystery of Nativity is a sign (proof) of the infinite Love of God Day 2 173 towards man. Miraculously, God materialises, i.e., reveals His presence in the visible world. For 33 years, Jesus will travel the length and breadth of the Holy Land. On Good Friday, He will die, but on Good Saturday night, He will rise from death, and after forty days, He will ascend to heaven. That’s when the apostles will see the truth of Jesus’ words: “I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). The Lord promises that He won’t leave His people. On Holy Thursday, He will establish the greatest of the sacraments. The apostles will hear: “Take, eat; this is my body” (Matt 26:26), and they will receive the Bread of God— the Eucharist. Jesus will also add: “Do this in remembrance of me” (1 Cor 11:24). Since then, God’s presence in humans will be extended—the Lord will be present in the world also in the pieces of Bread and drops of Wine. He is visibly with us for all the days…

Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread, to announce that there will be new houses of Bread—the churches where people will celebrate the Most Holy Sacrifice. So, every temple is like Bethlehem.

Mary remains silent. She is deep in silence. The evangelists don’t mention any word Mary would utter at the Nativity. Because facing the mystery of God’s coming to the world, the best attitude is contemplation. Staring intensively at the humble God, who at the beginning of His visible presence in the world reveals in the tiny Infant and now hides in a delicate Bread—this is the beginning of experiencing God, the encounter with the Lord. That gives rise to prayer, which at its deepest level is standing before Jesus and meeting Him face to face. That’s how the intimate encounter with God-Bread, who through the Holy Communion lives and dwells in us and shares our matters, is born. Let’s enter into Mary’s silence. Ask the Mother of Beautiful Love to teach us to contemplate Jesus silently.

Bethlehem is the best to teach us about God, and Mary is an excellent teacher here. She teaches us to believe that God 174 WEEK THREE: GETTING TO KNOW JESUS CHRIST chooses what is tiny, ordinary, and simple as this tiny Baby. She inspires hope that God is the King and that He reigns through the Infant Jesus. And finally, she shows that the gaze of love reaches the very depth of our existence and permeates what’s visible. Love recognizes God in the tiny Baby and is delighted by this tiny-great God-Man…

We are close to Mary, who, in Bethlehem, in the House of Bread, meets Jesus. The Mother of our Lord wants to tell us that this encounter with Jesus being the Infant, Jesus being the Bread, gives rise to the desire to share love with people, our sisters and brothers. The Lord reminds us: “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt 25:40). Jesus is a Child in every person! Every person we encounter “brings” us Jesus. Therefore, whenever we receive Holy Communion, we not only receive Jesus, but we also open the doors of our hearts to all the people with whom our paths cross. The word Amen, which is uttered by everyone who receives Holy Communion, is not only the act of faith in Jesus hidden in a piece of Bread (the Body of Christ) but also the declaration of our belonging in the community of the Church (the mystic Body of Christ). Staying in Bethlehem, ask the Mother of our Redeemer to teach us how to recognize the Son of God in every person.

Jesus calls: “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me” (Matt 25:34‒36).

Jesus says to us: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the Day 2 175 living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me” (Jn 6:54‒57).

Spiritual reading 

“God the Holy Ghost being barren in God—that is to say, not producing another Divine Person—is become fruitful by Mary, whom He has espoused. It is with her, in her, and of her, that He has produced His Masterpiece, which is a God made Man, and whom He goes on producing in the persons of His members daily to the end of the world. The predestinate are the members of that Adorable Head. This is the reason why He, the Holy Ghost, the more He finds Mary, His dear and indissoluble Spouse, in any soul, becomes the more active and mighty in producing Jesus Christ in that soul, and that soul in Jesus Christ.

It is not that we may say that our Blessed Lady gives the Holy Ghost His fruitfulness, as if He had it not Himself. For inasmuch as He is God, He has the same fruitfulness or capacity of producing as the Father and the Son, only that He does not bring it into action, as He does not produce another Divine Person. But what we want to say is, that the Holy Ghost chose to make use of our Blessed Lady, though He had no absolute need of her, to bring His fruitfulness into action, by producing in her and by her Jesus Christ in His members; a mystery of grace unknown to even the wisest and most spiritual among Christians.

The conduct which the Three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity have deigned to pursue in the Incarnation and first coming of Jesus Christ, They still pursue daily in an invisible manner throughout the whole Church, and They will still pursue it even to the consummation of ages in the last coming of Jesus Christ.” 

St. Louis de Montfort, A Treatise on the True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin, 20‒22

Homework 

In the near future, I will go for an extra adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to worship the Body of Christ living in the Eucharist. 

Prayer of consecration 

I am all Yours, and all that I have is Yours, O most loving Christ, through Mary, Your most holy Mother. Amen!