Michael Kelly“The challenge of Christmas is to allow ourselves to once again fall in love with the Christ child”, writes Editor Michael Kelly
When he was first made a bishop in Argentina, Pope Francis took as his motto the Venerable Bede’s account of Jesus recruiting the tax collector Matthew, miserando atque eligendo, which roughly translates “He saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him”.
Friends say that Bishop Bergoglio liked the way Latin had ‘mercy’ as a verb, miserando, and so created the Spanish misericordiando – an activity of the divine, something God does to us.
“Dejáte misericordiar,” he often told people in Confession or those who felt over-burdened by guilt and sin. “Let yourself be ‘mercy’d.’”
It’s a beautiful image in a world that too often lacks mercy, forgiveness and even, sometimes, kindness.
There’s a stunning paradox in the Christmas story. The people of Israel – God’s chosen people – had been expecting the longed-for Messiah, a king who would bring deliverance.
But, with the incarnation, God becoming man, our God of surprises turned human expectation on its head. For God came not in kingly robes or splendour, but in a little baby, laid in a manger with straw for his bed.
In the incarnation in Bethlehem God contrasts the noisy and ostentatious power of the world with the defenceless power of love in a little baby. And in so doing, radically transforms our understanding of power.
The challenge of Christmas is to allow ourselves to once again fall in love with the Christ child who must be constantly re-born anew in our hearts if our faith is to mean anything. To allow ourselves to experience that authentic encounter by which we ourselves are ‘mercy’d’ and can, therefore, be messengers and envoys of hope and mercy in a broken world.
When you look to the Christ-child in the crib this Christmas, be it in a silent country chapel or a Roman basilica or the family sitting room; contemplate it with the eyes, not of sentiment, but of faith. And see in the outstretched arms of that child an invitation to deepen our encounter with Christ whose love is much greater than those who try to contain it. The poet George Herbert captures the spirit in his poem simply entitled Love:
“Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack’d anything.
‘A guest,’ I answer’d, ‘worthy to be here:’
Love said, ‘You shall be he.’
‘I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.’
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
‘Who made the eyes but I?’
‘Truth, Lord; but I have marr’d them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.’
‘And know you not,’ says Love, ‘Who bore the blame?’
‘My dear, then I will serve.’
‘You must sit down,’ says Love, ‘and taste my meat.’
So I did sit and eat.”
Merry Christmas.