The Oblates of Mount Saviour Monastery

By Fr. Michael Perry

When you and I make a promise we seal it by saying: I give you my word.

That’s why year  after year we celebrate Christmas because year after year – in case we forget or may have forgotten- God reassures us that the Word that was given in the beginning is still Jesus, the word made flesh to dwell among us.

In times past God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets. However in these last days God has spoken, and still speaks, through his Son.

In time the word of God becomes clearer and clearer until that word becomes so clear that the word becomes flesh, our flesh, and dwells among us.

Words that could be misunderstood and abstracted becomes clear as a child on a bit of hay whose life is anything but abstract; who in his life and his living speaks the certainty of God who is love.

It’s true: God did love us and  the world so much that indeed he sent his son to prove it.

Words that were heard by the Ancients in mystical moments were more than  an answer is blowing in the wind. Instead our God chose to speak in the whimper of a baby’s cry. The baby is Jesus and his cry as a baby and his words as a man like us in all things but sin speak comfort or challenge to those who hear them.

Jesus is God‘s most beloved son whom we were told by word from the cloud to listen to and hear and to heed. To listen to the word that he is and hear the word that he embodies and become one with God from God, light from light, true God from true God. And what happens “in the beginning“then happens each time our word echoes the Word of God made flesh. 

So in silence and song, with bread and with wine, the Word becomes flesh again and still and we ineptly sum it up by saying: Merry Christmas.

And Gods says “Remember, I gave you my word”
                  

Amen