Christmas through the Year

If we want to get t o know the Father and His love, we need to get the know His Son. A sure, beautiful path to get to know Jesus is through His Mother, Mary. She, who conceived Him through the Holy Spirit, who offered her body as the Tabernacle for Him to grow, and who bore Him can teach us how to love Him and to know Him.

Let’s visit Mary and Jesus at the manger, that humble, yet sacred crib. At Christmas, He is brought us anew each year as an infant, lowly and helpless. Christmas wasn’t that long ago, but I feel somehow that He’s still waiting in the manger to be picked up by the humanity He came to save.

What if we were to go to the place He was born? What would that even be like to see the Mother of Our Lord adoring Her Son, our Savior?

I think she would tell us who He is… “He’s come for you. He’s small, but He loves you very much.”  Then, I think, just as she is given to us at the Cross, Mary would cradle her Son in her arms and hand Him over to us to hold…to behold…because He came for us, and she wants us to fall in love with Him.  If we take Him, our hearts would soften as He’s there in our arms.

We look into His eyes and feel His weight, our little King.  As His head nestles under our chin and our hearts are aligned, would we feel Him embrace us as we hold Him? During this tender moment, we are vulnerable just as He is. And, perhaps, that’s when we understand our need for Him and this love that He’s already shown…this love that brings us to the One who sent Him…Our Father who set all this wild, incredible process into motion, so that we would know His love.

What if, even when it’s not Christmas, we went to His manger to behold and embrace Him? I think our days would be different and our hearts would be transformed if every morning we greeted Him, swooped Him up in our arms and got ready for the day. How would carrying this precious Gift with us throughout the day, change us? By carrying Him throughout the day, would we, as we talk to Him, care for Him, and let others hold Him, themselves, change the world?

Our Father sent His Son into this world as a needy, lowly, sweet baby. I think the purpose of this was so we could relate, or at least come to see our neediness and dependence but to also not leave Him there. That we need to bring Him up out of the manger and and into our messy lives and broken hearts to see that with Him, our lives make sense, have purpose.  We need that Baby, our Gift for Eternal Life and our Guide in this one, all through the year. He needs us everyday to carry Him so that He can embrace us and, in turn, others can be held by Him, too.