ARCHDIOCESE OF PHILADELPHIA

Dear Friends in our Lord Jesus Christ,

The meaning of Christmas is spelled out for us so clearly in the words of the Gospel that we have just heard. The angel announces to the shepherds and to all of us: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.”

The Christmas proclamation of the Church is precisely this: God has come to save us in the person of His own Son Jesus Christ. The Son of God appears among us as a newborn child. We have heard the words of the prophet Isaiah: “A child is born to us, a son is given us.” Jesus Christ is born in Bethlehem.

This birth, however, of Jesus Christ, which we see depicted in the manger, is not only the birth of the Savior. It is also a wonderful exchange. This birth represents a wonderful exchange between God and man. Through the Virgin Mary, God takes on our humanity and God gives us a share in His divinity.

Not only is this exchange wonderful, but everything about it is wonderful. The exchange is wonderful in the Child. Who is this Child? Who is this Child born in Bethlehem on Christmas night? This Child, whose name is Jesus, is both the Son of God and the Son of the Virgin Mary. This Child shares divinity with His Father. He is God like His Father. But this Child shares humanity with His Mother and with all of us. And this is why the exchange is so wonderful, because, in Jesus, God takes on our humanity and gives us a share in His own divine life. In accepting Jesus, we become children of God, His brothers and sisters.

This exchange is also wonderful in the love that explains it. The reason why the Child came into the world, the reason why Jesus is born at Bethlehem is that God so loved the world that He gave His only Son to be our Savior. And so, this exchange is indeed wonderful in the love that is at the source of this plan of God to send His Son into the world, so that He could take our flesh, sanctify our humanity and then give us a share in His divine life.

But there is more! This exchange between God and man is also wonderful in what it brings to Christ. What it gives to the Son of God is wonderful. God, from all eternity, is the God of love. But at Bethlehem God begins to love in human flesh. And that is something new and wonderful: for God to share our human flesh and, with our emotions and with our heart of flesh, to be able to love us with His eternal love. O yes! This exchange between God and man is indeed wonderful in the humanity that it gives to Jesus Christ.

And then, too, this exchange is wonderful in the consequences that it has for us. In Jesus Christ, the Child at Bethlehem, God’s solidarity with us, God’s solidarity with all humanity, is complete and His love is total.

But in the mystery of Christ’s birth, total also is the solidarity that Christ requires of all His brothers and sisters with the rest of humanity. Christ requires that He be loved in every human being by every other human being, because humanity now belongs to God. Humanity now belongs to Christ, and Christ will never allow Himself to be separated from those who share humanity with Him.

And this, dear friends, is where our Christmas message takes us: to the consequences of this wonderful exchange. Our Christmas message takes us to humanity in need: to every brother and sister in need of Jesus Christ and His love, His pardon, His healing, His compassion, His Gospel of eternal life.

Our Christmas message takes us to every human being suffering from hunger and disease; suffering in body, mind and soul; suffering from war and hatred; suffering from natural causes and disasters, and those suffering from their own sins and the sins of others.

The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us! The Word of God dwelt amongst us in Jesus Christ. And to all those who accept Him, He gives the power to become the children of God.

In our second reading Saint Paul alludes to all these consequences, proclaiming the grace of God that has appeared in Jesus Christ. Through His humanity Jesus Christ trains us and challenges us to live temperately and justly and devoutly, and to be eager to do what is right, what is right toward our God, what is right toward our brothers and sisters.

This, dear friends, is indeed our Christmas message. It expresses the faith of a Church that loves and cares for all human beings, because in Jesus Christ she adores an incarnate God who is the Word made Flesh and in whose humanity all human life is sacred, and every human right is inviolable.

This Christmas message—rooted in adoration of the newborn Savior, in adoration of the Child at Bethlehem—becomes a new commitment and an invitation to us to uphold and defend, in His Name, the dignity of human life from whatever wounds or weakens, dishonors or destroys it. For us, Christmas becomes a new commitment and an invitation for us to work to uplift the human condition of all those who share humanity in common with the Son of God and who, in the Son of God, in Jesus Christ, are destined for eternal life.

How important it is, dear friends, for each one of us—during the whole year—to be a part of the living, praying, worshiping, and serving Church of Jesus Christ. This is a challenge for all of us—the challenge that comes to us at the birth of Jesus—the challenge of the wonderful exchange between God and man, between God and all of us.

Therefore, each of us must realize that everyone is welcome, in our community and in our Church. Everyone is welcome to come home to stay in the Church of God. Everyone is needed. Everyone is needed throughout the year, and everyone is called by God. Everyone is invited by this great love story of God our Father to be part—to be an active part—of this wonderful exchange between the Son of God and His Church. Christ came to be close to all of us. He came to bring us into His Church, in which we are truly a living, praying, worshiping, and serving people. Christ came at Bethlehem to call us to accept Him freely, and, in accepting Him, to accept His Church, to accept one another.

There is a place of honor for all of you, dear friends, in the community of Christ’s Church, and Jesus needs you. He needs you here week after week to pray with Him, to serve with Him, to love others in His Name. A tremendous challenge! Yes, this wonderful exchange of divinity and humanity remains a challenge for us tonight and throughout the year. It is a challenge to all of us who have the immense privilege of being brothers and sisters of that Child in Bethlehem; that Child who is our Savior, our God; that Child who is the Son of the Eternal Father; that Child who is the Son of the Virgin Mary; that Child who is the Savior of the world.

The angel was right, dear friends. The message is meant for all of us. Let us listen once again: “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.” Amen.