Merry Christmas

"It did not become Immensity to confine himself with a man-made dwelling. It was not fitting that he--supreme in opulence, commanding the extravagant outlay of each day's dawn, setting the brow of night with dazzling jewels, casting about the shoulders of a crumbling wall a brilliant mantle richer than those of kings--should be born surrounded by our tawdry treasures. He dominates them by eschewing them. He shows his greatness by choosing what we call wretchedness. He wills no other luxury than what befits the restorer as well as the founder of the earth. The flower of this world--and not a hothouse flower--he wills to blossom in the midst of creations, with no other architect or interior decorator for his birthplace than the God whose Son and equal he is.

Moreover, is it not fitting that he who is the man of all men should, from his very first hour, be accessible to all, especially to those who resemble him the most: the humble, the lowly, the despised, who he loves? Look at those shepherds skirting the edge of the Judean wilderness, a black veil covering their heads, a sheepskin thrown over one shoulder, a threadbare tunic gathered close at the waist, and a short club cut from the sycamore tree in hand to hurl after the wandering sheep. These are the men to whom Jesus owes himself. They are nothing--less than nothing; especially in the Orient, they are the servants of servants and, like Jesus, they have no other shelter than the overhanging rocks. It is to them first of all that Jesus would offer himself."

From Walking With Jesus in the Holy Land by Fr. Antonin Gilbert Sertillanges, O.P.