It is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her

22 DECEMBER (Mt 1,18-24)

Today, the Christmas season is so profaned, secularized, tattled and desecrated as to be ignored even the great mystery that takes place in it and for it. Santa has replaced Jesus the Lord and the Epiphany has stolen every space the truth that is in the manifestation of Jesus to the world. Sometimes I seem to be in Ephesus in Paul’s time. Many people were in revolt, but many did not even know the reason for their presence. They were dragged by the current of those who shouted all the louder, there.

When this was concluded, Paul made up his mind to travel through Macedonia and Achaia, and then to go on to Jerusalem, saying, “After I have been there, I must visit Rome also.” Then he sent to Macedonia two of his assistants, Timothy and Erastus, while he himself stayed for a while in the province of Asia. About that time a serious disturbance broke out concerning the Way. There was a silversmith named Demetrius who made miniature silver shrines of Artemis and provided no little work for the craftsmen. He called a meeting of these and other workers in related crafts and said, “Men, you know well that our prosperity derives from this work. As you can now see and hear, not only in Ephesus but throughout most of the province of Asia this Paul has persuaded and misled a great number of people by saying that gods made by hands are not gods at all. The danger grows, not only that our business will be discredited, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be of no account, and that she whom the whole province of Asia and all the world worship will be stripped of her magnificence.” When they heard this, they were filled with fury and began to shout, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!” The city was filled with confusion, and the people rushed with one accord into the theater, seizing Gaius and Aristarchus, the Macedonians, Paul’s traveling companions. Paul wanted to go before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him, and even some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent word to him advising him not to venture into the theater. Meanwhile, some were shouting one thing, others something else; the assembly was in chaos, and most of the people had no idea why they had come together.

Who has to give its truth to the holy Christmas is a Christian. He gives it, if he lives the truth of the birth of Jesus Christ; if he lets himself be completely transformed by this divine gift, whose reality is not the humility of the Nativity Grotto, but in the invisibility and sinking of the Eucharist. Jesus is born to be made our life in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the perfect fulfillment of Christmas. The tabernacle is the true Christian nativity scene, before which he stops in worship, contemplating the infinite charity that is made the body and blood in a tiny wafer, so that man nourishes and aliments on his God and Lord, alimenting and feeding on Him of divinity, eternity, immortality, spirituality and freedom from all evil, physical and spiritual bondage, body and soul.

Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the holy Spirit. Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.

The mystery of the Holy Christmas is true salvation, true liberation, true exodus from sin, evil, which is selfishness, pride, foolishness, stupidity and vanity. It is true exodus from idolatry to the true adoration by participation in the divine nature. Today, man needs the Holy Christmas, having become a worshiper of nothing. Nothing is vanity, nothingness, the emptiness of his thoughts, imaginations, fantasies and reasoning. A heart worshiper of nothing is the highest inhumanity. Jesus is born to make us be born to everything, to the truth, to God, to eternity, to the true spirituality. God is born so that we are elevated from us to God, from the earth to heaven and from our human hell to his eternal Paradise. If we Christians will give to Christmas its truth, the whole world will change its appearance.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption, Angels and Saints give us the truth of Christmas.