Five Actual Reasons for “Christmas Joy”: The Incarnation’s Increasingly Ignored Gifts to Transform Our Mortal Lives – Introduction

Before the secular world fully assaults us with its Xmas distractions like some Futurama Robot Santa, let’s recollect the Truth of the Sacramentals, the Gifts, that the Incarnation of God confers to us. That is, let’s go beyond the Hallmark cliches and remember that this is when the Holy Trinity incites and illuminates awe-inspiring and astounding benefits to our salvation.

And you don’t need to fit the Norman Rockwell image to enjoy Christmas. Christmas means the Incarnation, which begins the transformation of anyone: with or without family and small children and Santa, with or without presents, with or without cookies, cocoa, and feasts.

 These Gifts transform us, in our mortal lives, as Scripture directs:

o   “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind: And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth.” --Ephesians 4:23-24 ¹

We all have our own evolving transformation story, with ups and downs, temptations ,failures and successes, sufferings, and joy and humble repentance. We see these stories in ourselves, our friends and families, saints and sinners, and even fiction (in fact, here’s a link to my own novel, for those of you wanting a Catholic novel to read over the holidays, this one about the conversion journeys of a mid-twenties man and woman in the 1990s).

The evidence of our experience plainly shows that when we call upon these Sacramentals, which God provides from His infinite love, our transformations are immensely simpler and more swift.

 For the next five Wednesdays, just before and during Advent, we’ll discuss each Incarnation Gift:

1) The Divine Law Fulfilled

2) The Church

3) The Intercessions of the Saints

4) The Indwelling of the Holy Trinity

5) The Eucharist

Each Sacramental transforms us, not as a one-time-thing, but as a necessity for our lifetime attention, every day, never-ending.

Each is diverse in means and meaning, but all inter-related in countless ways. All five bring the Holy Trinity to us, and all five lead us to salvation.

Each of these Sacramentals has the following ten characteristics. The first group of characteristics point to what sets these Gifts apart and why they’re important now.

1)  The Incarnation of God incites and illuminates each Sacramental. Only the human birth, life, and death of the second person of the Trinity originates these Gifts for us today.

2)  The Holy Trinity designed each Sacramental to guide, and be invoked in, our brief mortal lives. But they all lead us to the Beatific Vision afterward.

3)  Each Sacramental is universal to all Christians. For example, the Eucharist can be adored by all. But the Catholic Church uniquely accentuates each Sacramental. And some devotions, namely Confession and receiving the Eucharist, require us to be in communion with the Catholic Church.

4)  The Christian world is ignoring each Sacramental, more and more, every generation.

The next group of three characteristics point to how we know these Gifts: by revelation and faith.

5)  We can understand the basis of each Sacramental from Scripture and Tradition.

6)  We can recall each Sacramental, anytime, anywhere, by using Scripture we already know by heart:

·  a specific petition from the Paternoster

·  a specific Beatitude

7)  We can invoke and build upon each Sacramental daily, by using one or two particular devotions.

The final group of three characteristics point to the fears that the Gifts help us overcome, and the consequences of failing to accept these Gifts and caving in to fear. In short, to paraphrase Master Yoda, fear leads to temptation, temptation leads to sin, sin leads to heresy and hell.

8)  Each Sacramental helps overcome widespread, but distracting and pointless, human fears.

9)  These fears and distractions often heavily associate with particular modern temptations, which we often use to sinfully defeat those fears.

10)  These sinful alternatives illustrate battles between a unique theology of Catholic Christianity versus a heresy held by other “religions.”

Of course, the Incarnation enabled other Sacramentals. Here are the two most prodigious examples, and their links to the Paternoster and Beatitudes:

· Mercy, at the Four Last Things

· Paternoster: “Forgive us our sins”

· Beatitude: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy”

· Redemption, through the Passion and Resurrection

· Paternoster: “Deliver us from evil”

Mercy and Redemption have the ten characteristics, except perhaps for their relative supreme importance after our mortal lives. They certainly depend upon the Incarnation in order to be granted to us. They certainly are available to all Christians who fully accept the Holy Trinity. Mercy and Redemption certainly are more-and-more ignored these days, or at least taken for granted. They certainly have clear roots in Scripture and Tradition.

They certainly counter common fears, such as the baseless fear that our own actions and inherent worth must enable our salvation – this fear is unnecessary, because of the limitless work done by Christ our Redeemer, not by us, for our salvation.

In addition, we often overlook Mercy and Redemption because we are more-and-more trained to reject the one fear that helps focus us like a laser on salvation: the fear of eternal separation from God. As I wrote earlier this fall, even our Church leaders sometimes confuse us with the concept of an easy universal salvation.

Mercy and Redemption are the reason for the five “mortal” Sacramentals. Mercy and Redemption are the infinitely greatest of all Gifts, “for us men and our salvation” - provided to us, yet with so little we need to do, other than humble and vigilant acceptance. God revealed all these Gifts, and mysteriously enabled them in us, because God became fully man, at Christmas. 

The five Sacramentals discussed in the next few weeks help us remember, honor, and express gratitude for the Incarnation. All five Sacramentals are graces, which are opportunities for us to love and praise the Holy Trinity.

Reference

1. The Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims Version, 2009, Saint Benedict Press [Original published 1582-1609]