O Marvelous Exchange!

O Marvelous Exchange!
(the JOY of Christmas)

Christmas has always been celebrated with merrymaking, family reunions, gift giving, and parties, which are all good, in fact even laudable and perhaps necessary, considering our nature as social beings. But what if by some misfortune we do not have the material goods, or even friends and families to be with? Or we may have just lost a loved one. Can we still experience the joy of Christmas? Yes we can, and in fact we must. St. Paul exhorts us to “Rejoice in the Lord always…” (Phil 4:4-5). This admonition of the Apostle is not just for a simply human joy, but a deep and abiding spiritual joy in the Lord that is not dependent on the trimmings of Christmas. In fact the trimmings should be an expression of this inner joy. This joy is a fruit of our intimate union with Jesus, the Word made flesh.

At Christmas we celebrate the coming of our God in human flesh, a deep and wondrous mystery of God's love for man. Jesus came not just to save us from sin but to 'divinize' us.
Before His passover He promised to send us His Holy Spirit, and on Pentecost He poured out His Spirit abundantly on the Church He founded, now to be with us forever to transform us from within until we are fully divinized at our own resurrection on the Last Day.

But even now we already have the first fruits/installment–God's life in us. We are already in Christ. For "God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us". (Rom 5:5) This is the source of our deep joy amidst all the adversities life can offer, because we know that we will face these trials and sufferings not alone, but with Jesus who shared our lot even unto the Cross.

Christmas is the mystery of this "marvelous exchange": "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that He, made man, might make men gods” (St. Thomas Aquinas). And so, are you experiencing sickness, financial difficulty, loneliness, loss of a loved one? Humanly we can be sad, but with Jesus in our hearts we can still be joyful, in fact we must, for we know that Jesus underwent all these for us. We need only to be united with Him. "Christ enables us to live in Him all that He himself lived, and he lives it in us. By his Incarnation, He, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man. We are called only to be one with Him, for He enables us as the members of His Body to share in what He lived for us in His flesh as our model." (CCC #521)

But this is not possible if we do not make room for Jesus in our hearts by an act of genuine repentance. Then a worthy Confession climaxed by Holy Communion gives us the moral
certitude that we are indeed in Christ, and thus celebrate Christmas most meaningfully. This is the inner source of the joy we express externally through family gatherings, gift giving, parties and merrymakings. Without this joy– [resting in the Good–Who is Jesus], our celebrations will leave a sour hangover after Christmas; while this profound and holy joy in the Lord will leave a sweet aftertaste that will even increase throughout the coming New Year.

May we therefore desire to receive Jesus more and more in our hearts. Our longing for happiness, for the infinite, is itself a desire for God, whether or not we are conscious of it. We just have to nurture this desire. For the greater the desire the greater will be the JOY.
A Blessed Christmas to one and all!