John the Evangelist describes Jesus Christ as God's creative, life-giving and light-giving Word that has come to earth in human form. "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). Jesus is the wisdom and power of God who created the world and sustains it. Jesus became truly man while remaining truly God. "What he was, he remained, and what he was not he assumed" (from an early church antiphon for moning prayer). Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God who, without ceasing to be God and Lord, became a man and our brother. From the time of the Apostles the Christian faith has insisted on the incarnation of God's Son "Who has come in the flesh'. Christians never cease proclaiming anew the wonder of the Incarnation. The Son of God assumed a human nature in order to accomplish our salvation in it. The Son of God ...worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things

except sin (Gaudium et Spes).

if we are going to behold the glory of God we will do it through Jesus Christ. Jesus became the partaker of our humanity so we could be partakers of his divinity (2 Peter 1:4). God's purpose for us, even from the beginning of his creation, is that we would be fully united with Him. By our being united in Jesus. God becomes our Father and we become his sons and daughters. As a Parish, let us thank God the Father today for sending his only begotten

Son to redeem us and to share with us his glory.

Fr John

Christmas Quote: St Gregory of Nyssa, one of the great early church fathers (330-395 AD) vrote: Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again. We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light, captives, we awaited a Saviour, prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?

© 2022 Servants of the Word, source: dalyscripture.net, author Don Schwager.