GREAT EXPECTATIONS FOR THE CELEBRATION AND COMMEMORATION  OF THE BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST ON CHRISTMAS DAY…SPIRITUAL THOUGHTS..3

In the fullness of time an Angel of Light came down from the great Throne of  Light to a Virgin kneeling in prayer, to ask her if she was willing to give God a human nature. Her answer was that she “knew not man”, and therefore, could not be the mother of the “Expected of the Nations.”

The maiden was right, there could never be a birth without love, new life requires the fires of love. But besides the human passion, which begets life, there is the “passionless passion and wild tranquility” of the Holy Spirit, and it was this that ‘overshadowed’ the maiden and begot in her ‘Emmanuel’ or ‘God is with us’.*

At the moment that Mary said “Fiat” or “Be it done” , something greater happened than the  “Fiat Lux”, or “Let there be light” of creation, for the light that was now made was not the sun, but the Son of God in flesh,

By pronouncing “Fiat”, Mary achieved the full role of womanhood, namely, to be the bearer of God’s gifts to man. There was a collaboration between the woman and the Spirit of Divine Love. The consent was voluntary under the “Fiat”.  Other mothers become conscious of motherhood through physical changes within them, Mary became conscious through a spiritual change wrought by the Holy Spirit.

As the fall of man was a free act, so too, the Redemption had to be free. What is called the Annunciation   was actually God asking the free consent of a creature to help Him to be incorporated into humanity.

Suppose a musician in an orchestra freely strikes a sour note. The conductor is competent. That discordant note immediately passes out into space. Is there any way to restore harmony to the world?  It can be done only by someone coming in from eternity and stopping the note from its wild flight.  But will it still be a false note ?

The harmony can be restored on one condition only; by making that note the first note in a new melody, then it will become harmonious, it will now not remain a false note any more. This is exactly what happened when Christ was born. There had been a false note of moral discord introduced by the first man which infected all humanity.

So God asked a maiden, representing humanity, to freely give Him a human nature with which He would start a new humanity. As there was an old humanity in Adam so there would be a new humanity in Christ.

Adapted from ‘The Life of Christ’ by Fulton Sheen