Sunday, December 29, 2019

To the Center of Time

From The Catholic Herald:
Christmas Day stands in the centre of all time. The moment when eternity enters time is the moment when time reaches its fullness. The world is opened up to divine grace from within by God now dwelling in it. The children of God are born anew. Christ’s humble and powerful light penetrates the hearts of all believers who communicate with the Bread of Life offered on the Eucharistic table of the mystical Bethlehem, the Church, the true “house of the bread”. Not a region in the world, not a single heart, is excluded from the invitation of divine Love. Communion with God is the horizon of life.

On Christmas Day, beginning at midnight – which is why a Midnight Mass should ideally not be celebrated before this symbolic hour – the Church offers Mass three times. In a wonderful exchange, Christ comes to us on the altar from the heights of the Father who sent Him into the world, and Christ reaches to the Father from the depths of our humanity which He made fully His own. At midnight, at dawn, in the day, Christ’s mystery shines. Christ sanctifies all times and all places by His presence. He opens the riches of God’s Mercy to all hearts. There cannot be an apter expression of gratitude than the threefold offering of Eucharistic thanksgiving which Mother Church presents us with on Christmas Day. (Read more.)
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