Discalced Carmelite Friars

Monastery of the Espousal

166 Foster Street

Brighton, Massachusetts 02135-3902

Telephone (617) 787-5056

Christmas, 1994

Dear Friends,

As we set about preparing once again for the glorious Feast of Christmas, we do well to remember that what we celebrate is one very persuasive piece of evidence, so dear and consoling to our hearts, of God’s immense love for His human children, namely, the birth of Jesus, the Son of God as one of us.

There is other evidence, of course, such as the Passion and death of Jesus, but that evidence, though likewise consoling, is better calculated to inspire in us sentiments of sorrow and compunction. These overshadow and tend to diminish the feelings of tender gratitude that rise up in our hearts whenever we contemplate the tangible proofs of His unlimited love for us all.

Both, however, speak of the infinite longing and yearning of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity to become One New Entity with each and every human being born into this world. The One New Entity is analogous to the One Flesh that arises out of the union of a man and a woman in Holy Matrimony. God has made us for Himself, St. Augustine reminds us, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him. What we don’t advert to very often, if at all, is that Our Divine Creator and Father is ALSO “restless” until we rest in Him.

Though completely and infinitely happy in and through the Personal relationship within Itself, the Most Holy Trinity decided to share its Goodness and its other attributes with NOTHINGNESS. This They did by creating the Angels, the physical world, and the Human Race. All of these exist BECAUSE God has conferred upon them all a created share in the divine Perfections.

The Incarnation is the first step in the process by which Divinity comes to “woo”, to “court”, the soul of each and every one of us. In the courtship process, which is comprised of the entire life [and death] of Jesus upon this earth, and which continues in and through the Church’s Liturgy, the Divine Heart has pressed into service its infinite Wisdom and Its Infinite Power for the purpose of convincing every Human Soul of its Supreme Goodness, Beauty and Livableness, so that we will undertake the effort to find all our happiness in Him, and thus satisfy both the deepest longings of our own hearts as well as allow God, that is, each of the Three Persons, to satisfy the deepest longing of their own Divine Heart, namely, to be for each and every one of us, the Source, the Fount, the Eternal Wellspring of Divine Life, and in that way constitute for each and every one of us the Beatitude we were created to enjoy forever with Him.

We know that it is easy for us human beings to find the Lord God, as manifested in Jesus, supremely attractive, but how can Divinity, the Divine Heart find us human beings attractive? Especially since the original beauty of our souls was lost as a result of the sin of our First Parents, and indeed further defiled and made uglier by our personal sins!

But that is precisely what attracts the Love of the Divine Heart, for the highest form of love is Merciful Love, a love that finds its greatest joy in stooping to what is poor and weak and defective and crippled in order not only to re-confer upon that misery all the created participations in the Divine Perfections it had lost, but to bestow even greater and more perfect participations in the Being and Life of God.

Let us not, therefore, forget these truths which the Church helps us to recall at Christmastime. Let us continue to be attentive to what is revealed to us through the Liturgy during the course of the Year. If we do, we will discover that God is an “incorrigible” Lover of humankind. Thanks, glory, praise, Love and thanksgiving be to Him, Who never ceases to remain Merciful Love for us, no matter how grievously we may have offended Him, provided of course, we acknowledge our sinfulness and our nothingness, and turn to Him with utter confidence and trust in that same Merciful Love.

* * *
Have the best Christmas ever! I regret that I don’t have time to include a personal message.

With Love in the Infant Saviour,

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