Puer natus est in Bethlehem, Alleluia!

Which I will change if I mistook the grammar.

Wow. Cue the last Gospel. Go on. You know it, don't you?













(genuflects)





Right. Now that's done, a brief reflection on today.

Wow! Just wow! Think about it. Today, the Second Person of the Most Holy and Blessed Trinity was born in a stable in an obscure village in the Middle East. So that we could go and nail Him to a Cross because we're a little bit stupid. Or perhaps 'obstinate' is a better word. This obscure village happens to have the name 'Bethlehem'. We'll come back to that later.

Let's just pause for a moment to remember that we're talking about God Himself. As regards the Son: There was not a time when He was not. Eat your heart out, Arian heretics! This isn't just a man, adopted by God and chosen to fulfil a task. This isn't some demiurge, something created but greater than us. And this isn't a God who is remote. Because lying here in the manger is God Himself. Feeling the cold of winter. Feeling hunger. Feeling the coarse straw around him. Bound in linen cloths.

Pause again, and consider where He lies. Firstly, remember that even now, His mother places Him on the wood of the manger as she will on the wood of the Cross. He is placed in a manger, an animals' feeding trough, in Bethlehem, the House of Bread. Here, in this stable.

Here, in this House of Bread, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Here, One Who cannot suffer, suffering.
From His mother, He takes our weakness,
knows the price of our sin in a new way.
God made Man.
Nine months safe, hidden from the world,
yet already taking flesh in the one who was obedient
As He will be obedient.
Christus factus est pro nobis obediens.
The poor, the outcast, come to adore Him.
They come to lay their lives at the service of their true king.
Yet the rich, the powerful of strange and alien lands,
They too will come to bend the knee.
To bend the knee before this child,
Who lies before us
In this house of bread.
Christ made obedient.
God made Man.