Christmas is the Feast of the Nativity
ONE
Christmas is the Feast of the Nativity – we celebrate a mother with her child.
I have been meditating on two icons, Our Lady of Vladimir, also known as Our Lady of Tenderness because Mary is pressing her cheek to that of baby Jesus in an embrace of love. The second is my daughter Sara holding her new baby boy Elliot.
Everyone knows, deep down that the highest of what humans can be is love. Everybody knows, deep down, the greatest love is that of a mother for her child. The second is a grandmother for her grandbabies. You know what I’m talking about.
We recognize in the symbol of mother and child the most beautiful thing life has to offer.
At Christmas, God chose to enter the most beautiful point of humanity. And God made that point, mother and child, Mary and baby Jesus, the place to access God. That is the place the Magi found God in the arms of his mother.
TWO
If we are going to access God, then like the Magi, we must value a mother’s love for her child.
We are attracted to God by beauty and the most beautiful and highest good humans have to offer is motherhood. But what have we done instead? We have tried to eradicate the love of a mother for her child by promoting radical lust, by the effort to make abortion a human right, by mainstreaming contraception and sterilization. And worst of all, by demeaning motherhood. We have made women ashamed to be mothers and we have taught men to see women as playthings.
If we ban God’s entrance point to the world – then what are we left with?
THREE
Joseph shows men their mission.
Joseph is a father who has his sexual drive under control. Joseph is a father whose mission is to protect and provide for motherhood so she can fulfill her most important mission.
Men – you don’t want to remain adolescent, indulgent, and weak. You want to be strong and responsible. Strength and indulgence are logical opposites.
A man was made for love and responsibility. He will never be happy until he is that.
St. Joseph looking with love at the woman and child he guards is the happiest any man can be on the natural level. He knows he has done right by the woman and child.
FOUR
Christmas, the Feast of the Nativity, of Mother and child, is the annual reminder of how wonderful it can be to be human.
It is the peak of the human condition, the human family, the center of love. Christmas is also the beginning of our supernatural calling to be what Jesus is, a son of God the Father and son of Mary his mother.
God affirms all that is good in the world by being born into it at Christmas. Then he calls us to go beyond it. To place our hope for happiness in heaven. To reach our supernatural calling we must let go of this world and the best it has to offer and seek the baby born in the manger.
People are enslaved by fear right now because they have forgotten that their hope for happiness cannot be found in this world. It is only to be found in that baby who once rested in the manger. Once again, the icon of the Mother with the Child reminds us what life is all about.
FIVE
So what resolution should we draw from this meditation?
When God comes to Earth, He enters the most beautiful point. We should thank God for the beauty of humanity for coming to share in it.
Then, to the extent we have not taken our roles as men and women, fathers, and mothers with the responsibility they deserve or as our primary means of becoming holy, let us recommit then and to being less selfish.
This is where we glimpse the benefits of being a grandparent.
Grandparenting is a great second chance to sacrifice and love your kids and make up for prior failures we might have regretted.