Bishop's Column | December 2019

Christmas: The Symphony of God’s Great Love for Us

by Bishop Gregory J. Mansour

What we truly believe about the Incarnation and what we truly believe about the Eucharist are not, in fact, easy to believe. As for the Incarnation, we believe that God, in all his grandeur, entered our world and became a little child (John 1). As for the Eucharist, we believe that Jesus, at the Last Supper, took bread and wine and said to his disciples “this is my body”, “this is my blood”. He said that these are not symbols, not signs, but his real and true Body and Blood. He said this clearly, even though it was hard for some disciples to believe (John 6).

It is no wonder that these tried and true doctrines are hard to believe. Nonetheless, by believing firmly in these truths, which have come down to us since Christ Jesus and his apostles, we may understand more fully the interior, the intention, the ways of God. 

Some people, Christian and non-Christian alike, believe that God is all-powerful, yet they don’t believe that he became a child. Why? Perhaps because we can’t imagine why an all-powerful God would want to do such a thing.

If God wanted to reach out to his creation, he could have surely sent messengers, it would have been much easier. However, why God became man is at the heart of his own way; he did not choose the easy way to communicate with us, but the hard, enduring and most endearing way: “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1). This communion with us, even to the point of sharing with us in “all things but sin” (Hebrews 9), has made all the difference.

The Incarnation helps us understand that in Christ Jesus, the beloved Son of God, we encounter the same self-giving of the Father, and even to the point of sharing with us the shame and sorrow of the Cross. Saint Paul writes: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not regard his equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found in human appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a Cross” (Phillipians 2).

If we believe that God is all-powerful, why would he do such a thing? Perhaps this was the only means available to show us his great sacrificial love. The Incarnation and the Eucharist are thus two movements in the same symphony of God’s great love. The third movement is the Cross, the fourth his resurrection, and the fifth his sending of the Holy Spirit to guide his Church.

Nonetheless, dear brothers and sisters, like written music on a page which is lifeless unless someone conducts and someone plays, so too is God’s great love for us, lifeless until we conduct, sing, and play this symphony with our own lives. 

God’s self-giving becomes our own when we live and love as he does: in marriage, vocation, friendship, and fellowship with others.

May God this Christmas time invite us once again to celebrate his great love, may we experience it ourselves, and, of course, may we share it with the world.

Merry Christmas!

+ Bishop Gregory Mansour