December 25 - Christmas Day: God had visited us

 

First Reading Isaiah 9:1-6
To those in darkness, a child will be born who will have dominion over the earth.

 

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 96:1-2,2-3,11-12,13
Sing a new song to the Lord.

 

Second Reading Titus 2:11-14
God has appeared, bringing salvation to all.

 

Gospel Reading
Luke 2:1-14

Today we celebrate Christmas, the mystery of Incarnation, God becoming man, the astonishing entrance that God made into our broken world. Again and again the beauty of this Gospel astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we may dare to love him, and as a child trustingly lets himself be taken into our arms. It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you, and that you are trying to assert yourself in the face of my grandeur. So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me. God is born for us but the question is whether we are ready to welcome him. The most unfortunate and the saddest sentence is found in the Gospel of Luke: “There was no place for them in the Inn” (Lk 2:7). Centuries have passed but this stark reality still continues in our lives. God wants to come in but we keep our doors closed. Why should we not also be moved by curiosity to see more closely and to know what God has said to us? At this hour, let us ask him to touch our hearts with the holy curiosity and the holy joy of the shepherds, and thus let us go over joyfully to Bethlehem, to the Lord who today once more comes to meet us. Amen