"The days were fulfilled that she should be delivered": not by any sudden miracle, by any cataclysmic break with nature, but according to the steady and unhurried processes of Life. All specialisation of the Divine is here discounted: and the world’s supreme revelation, linking itself with the world’s diurnal cares and sweetest natural outbirths, "fulfils the days" and comes forth into the World of Appearance gently, naturally; conforming to the law of living things. That revelation comes, it is true, from the Transcendent; it is a spark from off the altar of the Universe, a veritable scintilla of the Life of God. Yet it buries itself in the world of things, willingly immanent in the human, in so far as that human dwells within the circle of its power.
"He is not the God of philosophers and scholars," said Pascal. No: but "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob"—of simple natural life, of flocks and herds, of seeking, dreaming, wrestling, restless man. Hoc vobis signum: the young girl, the little baby, the carpenter, the stable, and the patient beasts. The news told rather in sheepfold than in sanctuary; the Glory of the Lord, the mystic Shekinah, withdrawn from the Holy of Holies to shine upon the fields—here are the signs that God indeed is with us, these are the chosen media which declare His will to men. O magnum mysterium et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in præsepio.
| "Oh, how great a mystery, how wonderful a sacrament, that the beasts should have seen the newborn Lord, lying in a manger!" (Roman Breviary Matins of Christmas Day: Fourth Responsary.) |
Spiritual intuition has always preserved clear consciousness of all that waits upon this Birth: the sudden passionate exultation of the angelic world, all its charitable desires at last fulfilled, all the sacramental manifestation of created things, leading, pointing, to the Crib. Heaven and earth embracing one another: the very being of humanity, its manhood, crowned by this incarnation, and snatched up to a correspondence with the Real. Solemnly announced and long prepared, yet when the hour strikes, when that new life, veritably our own, is seen before us, and "Man stands in the New Birth": then all that had gone before is obliterated, all gives place to this, to "the wonder of wonders, the human made Divine."
The long, strange months of our expectation are over: that hidden certain trust of ours, that joyous consciousness of crescent spirit "our own yet not our own," is justified at last. It is justified in the actual outbirth and appearance of that most real and mystic Life; which is so profound just because it is so simple, so far above us just because it is so divinely near.
"Welcome all wonders in one sight,
Eternity shut in a span,
Summer in winter, day in night,
Heaven in earth, and God in man,
Great little one, whose all-embracing birth
Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth."
[Richard Crashaw]
Hodie Christus natus est! hodie salvator apparuit.
"To-day Christ is born, to-day the Saviour appears!"
(Roman Breviary: Second Vespers of Christmas Day: Antiphon of the Magnificat.) |
Suddenly our eyes are unsealed, and we perceive the Eternal Christ living in and for and with us; heaven waiting here and now upon our vision of it; the coming of the Kingdom that is within. We know once for all that the angels need not to come, since they are ever present—"Turn but a stone, and start a wing!" This we know, because the Son of God at last is brought to birth in us. Bethlehem is to us the gateway of the Kingdom of Heaven.
In this hour we feel and know the stirring as it were of a new Life; veritably our own, yet not of us, intimate and dear, yet august and incomprehensible. We experience all the effort and struggle of birth, its uncertainties and fears: bringing forth, as it seems from the womb of personality, that "Starry Stranger" whose advent shall give meaning to our life. Is it we who are changed by that which is worked in us? We cannot tell: but another epoch is now begun for us, another creature—childish and weak, yet like-minded to Christ—looks through our eyes upon a transfigured world. That world is now seen by us "apparelled in celestial light," saturated with Divine possibilities; hampered by matter, yet agleam with God. Of this world we know ourselves, reborn, to be the microcosm. That new life of ours, that thing we have brought forth: this, too, is full of infinite possibilities, a thing of potential freedom linked to somewhat that is not free. We know that He is indeed the Son of the Highest and playmate of the angels. Yet His nurture is confided to our care. It is of the essence of this Divine revelation, working in and through the processes of life, that it comes to us not ready-made, not finished and completed, but surrounded by the halo of a helplessness which calls for our self-giving love. All now seems left to our maternal offices. Shelter we must give, and nourishment. God has sprung up for us, out of the earth as it seems, from the very heart of humanity. Life of our lives, He takes our growing life upon Him: all He gives, and all demands. "He hath not abhorred the Virgin’s womb" nor disdained to make the very stuff of our manhood a link in the process of His Immemorial Plan. He will climb by our sides up the great ladder of Becoming. He will grow with our growth toward that supernal life which all shall have in Him. So great is the confidence of our God in those that seek Him, that He has placed within our hands the awful power of marring the image of Divinity.
"Le plus infirme des pécheurs peut découronner,
peut couronner
Une espérance de Dieu."
As the mother’s life is merged in her child, finds in that child its meaning, and through that child’s adventure gleans its most searching and exalted experiences of joy and grief: so now the focus of the soul’s history shifts from Mary to Jesus—from the natural life entinctured by overshadowing spirit, to the veritable Spirit-Life new born. The growing Christ is now to be the centre of our story; to exhibit the forward thrust of life, to bear its yoke. "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder."
When we know this, when this gift and this vocation are clear to us, we think that we are at the beginning of glory; since "Heaven itself lies here below," and nothing can dim its joy. Yet perhaps it may be that we are rather at the beginning of woes. The strange new thing in our arms, the little Child of the Infinite mysteriously born of us, has secret affinity with that inexorable Life which came to bring, not peace, but a piercing sword. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of goodwill." This, we say, is the heavenly comment on that Birth. Peace? Yes, to men of goodwill, men of selfless and surrendered desire, whose hearts are at one with the Transcendent, and accept all that is ministered to them at the hand of generous life. But the Church, when she took upon her lips that spiritual song, made thereto significant additions, that she might fit it to her daily needs. That which she begins in exaltation she continues in humility, in a declaration of our meek dependence on Immanent Grace. And suddenly she cries out to that perfect symbol of surrender, to that Lamb of God whose self-donation alone can take the taint of imperfection from the world. Now, even at this moment, when we seem to have all that we dare ask and more, our helplessness and need of Him is clear to us—"Thou that takest away the sin of the world, receive our prayer!" "For Thou only art holy, Thou only art the Lord." Already the soul’s Friend and Companion has gone before it to the altar—the only path to union with the Father that is possible to the unruly human heart.
