God has always been present to his creation. When the world was created at the beginning, God spoke and heaven and earth, stars, sun and moon, sea and dryland, trees and plants, animals and human beings came into existence. God gave life and life is dialogue: a conversation between God and His creation, made of silence and words, of beauty given and praise reciprocated. God saw that all He had created was good, very good and beautiful indeed. The light was in the world. The Word of God through whom all things were made was coming into the world; “yet the world knew it not”. The presence of the light of life was not enough.
So, God resumed the conversation. In many and various ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets. He spoke with Abraham in the starry night and “in the heat of day”. He spoke to Moses from the burning bush and entrusted him like a chosen friend with the secret of His name. He spoke to the heart of David and inspired him with psalms of supplication and songs of praise. He charged Isaiah to foretell that the Virgin was to conceive and that the faithful servant of the Lord would be glorified after he had suffered for all. God spoke to men and women filled with a burning desire to see His face. Many of them gave testimony to His word of love through their lives, their sufferings, and their deaths filled with hope for immortality.
God spoke in many and various ways, with words and actions, through individuals and peoples, but it was not enough. He revealed His justice and His mercy, but it was not enough. He cried out His passionate love, but it was not enough. He promised salvation and peace, He pronounced the most soothing words, He uttered the kindest consolations and the strongest encouragements, but it was not enough. He chose prophets and priests, psalmists, and all sorts of holy men and women who lived for Him, who loved Him, who were heralds of His love, but it was not enough.
When you are sick and down, when you suffer or when you doubt, you need more than lovely words in a book, more than a letter from a friend, more than a phone call or an email, more than a virtual encounter, more than just a face on a screen. You need to feel a presence. You need to touch a body. You need someone real who comes and meets you where you are, who is with you, listening, smiling and sometimes taking your hand. You need someone in the flesh.
God understood our need. In the last days, He sent Someone to be among us and with us. He sent an Immanuel – a God-with-us. God spoke to us by a Son. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. A God in the flesh for people in the flesh: this is what we needed.
God honoured the flesh He had created. He honoured it to the point of taking it for Himself. God loved the flesh; He was not afraid of it. He took on the limitations of the flesh without difficulty. He was at ease in the flesh. God in a womb of a mother? No problem. God, a little child in a manger? No difficulty. God hidden in anonymity for thirty years in Nazareth? Obvious. God walking the roads of Galilee, speaking to the crowds, healing and touching sick bodies, feeding hungering throngs? Nothing simpler. God suffering on the Cross, dying, resting in a tomb, rising from the dead in the flesh of His body? Yes, even that, absolutely. God came in the flesh and worked our salvation in the flesh through and through.
Above all, God saved us with a heart of flesh. His divine love moved the human heart of Jesus. A human heart beating at a divine pace: such is the Heart of Jesus. In the crib, on the altar, a Heart of flesh loves us, gives itself to us. Christmas gives us a God who loves us totally, soul and flesh, and who redeems both our soul and our flesh.
What shall we do? We shall gently and chastely love our flesh, and the flesh of our neighbour. We shall honour it, serve it, care for it, from its conception to its natural end. Above all, we shall give a truly human love, a love from the heart: to God and to our neighbour. The words of the carol spring to mind:
“What can I give Him, Poor as I am?
What I can, I give Him, Give my Heart”.
Let me conclude with the words Pope Francis pronounced last night as he was opening the Holy Door at the beginning of the Holy Year 2025 in commemoration of the Incarnation of the Lord:
Dear Sister, Dear Brother, on this night the Holy Door of God’s Heart lies open before you. Jesus, God-with-us, is born for you, for us, for each man and woman. With Him, joy flourishes, with Him life changes, with Him hope does not disappoint!