“God from God, Light from light, true God from true God …”

Editor’s note: This homily was preached, in slightly different form, at the Church of the Holy Innocents, Manhattan, on Christmas 2025.

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Let me set the stage for our reflection on this glorious Solemnity of the Nativity of the Savior of the World.

First, twelve days remain for this Jubilee of Hope. Second, throughout this Year of Grace of 2025, the Church has also been celebrating the 1700^th anniversary of her first ecumenical council which gave us the Nicene Creed, putting into clear relief just who this Jesus is, namely, the one who is “God from God, Light from light, true God from true God. . . consubstantial with the Father,” the one who “was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.”

St. Anselm of Canterbury penned a treatise entitled, “Cur Deus Homo?” (Why did God become Man?), in which he asserts that the divine purpose was to undo the damage done by the sin of our first parents—the same theology which has us sing of the “felix culpa” or “happy fault” of the Exsultet. Another school of thought, however, teaches that, even if man had not sinned, the Incarnation was part of the divine economy from all eternity, so great was the love of the Father for mankind.

A fascinating thought, put forth by not a few Fathers of the Church, holds that God the Father–not long after His creation of man–revealed to the angels His plan for the Incarnation of His Son. Lucifer and his minions were repulsed at the thought of God assuming the nature of humans, lower than the angels in the created order. Hence, their rebellion. God’s love for us was too much for prideful angels to endure. Indeed, as Dante would rhapsodize, it was “the Love that moves the sun and all the other stars” (Paradiso 33.145).

You see, from time immemorial, mankind sought the Face of God, and for 4000 years, His Chosen People in particular, engaged in that endeavor. Which means, wittingly or otherwise, they were hoping for an incarnation of divinity. Hundreds of times in both Testaments of Sacred Scripture, we find mention of a face, apparently connaturally important for truly human experience. Can we not recall how sad we were during the mask-enforced pandemic, deprived of seeing each other’s faces, and also how detrimental it was, especially for children who struggled to determine whether someone was sad or happy or angry, and how that even affected their entire learning process?

And so, the Psalmist could sing:

How long, O Lord? Wilt thou forget me for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? (13:1)

Thou hast said, “Seek ye my face.” My heart says to thee, “Thy face, Lord, do I seek.” (27:8)

Hide not thy face from me. Turn not thy servant away in anger. . . . (27:9)

Let thy face shine on thy servant; save me in thy steadfast love! (31:16)

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God? (42:2)

Restore us, O God; let thy face shine, that we may be saved! (80:3)

The human preoccupation with the face is, of course, nothing less than a desire for beauty. In Psalm 45, the Church has always seen a line which applies in unique fashion to Christ: “You are the fairest of the sons of men” (v. 2).

“Beauty will save the world,” says Dostoevsky’s Idiot. We need beauty. The preeminent theologian of beauty, we might say, was Hans Urs Von Balthasar, who expanded on this notion rather eloquently:

Beauty is the last thing which the thinking intellect dares to approach…. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past – whether he admits it or not – can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.¹

Which is to say that beauty here below allows us, in the gracious words of one theologian, “to pierce through the crust of our commonplace experiences,”² to gain at least a glimpse of the glory and splendor of God.

We also need a very special kind of beauty—music that elevates. How can we forget that it was not erudite theological debate that won St. Augustine’s mind and heart? The sweet chants he heard outside St. Ambrose’s cathedral did the job; it was the “singing Church”³ which brought him and countless millions of others down the centuries into the communion of saints. Augustine would also declare that “Cantare amantis est” (“To sing is the work of a lover”).⁴ St. Thomas Aquinas saw this clearly when he taught that liturgical music had a most important mission: ad provocandum alios ad laudem Dei (to stimulate others to the praise of God).⁵

But what is so beautiful about the Incarnation that it merits such a response? If we were not numb to its full meaning, we should be shocked by the very thought. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, in Gaudium et Spes, explain: “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light.” They then wax poetic—which the mystery really demands—and show themselves worthy successors to the Fathers of Nicea I: “For by His incarnation the Son of God has united Himself in some fashion with every man. He worked with human hands, He thought with a human mind, acted by human choice, and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, He has truly been made one of us, like us in all things except sin” (n. 22).

Preaching on this feast in the fourth century, Pope St. Leo the Great, who presided over the second ecumenical council in history, challenged his listeners thus: “Christian, recognize your dignity and, now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return to your former base condition by sinning. Remember who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Never forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of the Kingdom of God.”⁶ In other words, if we were truly cognizant of the depth of divine love which moved the Godhead to such condescension, we would live lives of an exponentially different manner from that of the pagans among whom we live.

And so, St. Paul would write: “For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor 4:6). In beholding the “face of Christ,” the Incarnate Lord, we are enlightened by the truth, so that we might live holy lives. Beauty reveals truth, which in turn, prods us on to goodness. The pagan—but oh, so Christian—Roman poet Virgil teaches: Omnia vincit amor [Love conquers all]! And then urges: “Et nos cedamus Amori” [And let us, too, yield to Love].

Yielding to love, through what St. Paul calls “the obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5), launches us on the great adventure of divinization as one of the Collects of Christmas prays (a prayer also prayed every day at the mingling of the water and wine): “O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” A bold prayer, to be sure, for it holds (hard as it might be to believe, that through the Church’s sacraments–especially Baptism and Eucharist—the Triune God takes up His abode within us. No wonder, then, that one of the most penetrating motets speaks of all this as the “Magnum Mysterium.”

Our obedience, then, is not subjection to inhumane demands; rather, it comes about as a result of having encountered God. Remember old Moses? In the Book of Exodus, we read: “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, with the two tables of the testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God” (34:29). Simply put, those outside the “household of faith” (Gal 6:10) ought to see in us people who have within us the spark of divinity, something which draws others like a magnet.

Further, our obedience is not slavish or grudging. Pope Benedict XVI ended the homily of the Mass inaugurating his Petrine ministry, harking back to the inaugural homily of his sainted predecessor, John Paul II:

If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you, dear young people: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.⁷

And besides, who could be afraid of a baby?

Meanwhile, as we strive to live a holy life, we are buoyed up by the virtue of hope, which is not Pollyannish optimism. No, it is a firm trust in the God who stooped down to become one of us. In this lifelong journey of divinization, hope engenders joy, and joy is made manifest in silence and in song, themes found in our many beautiful carols.

From France, the lovely, “O Come, Divine Messiah,” has us plead: “Dispel the night and show Thy face, And bid us hail the dawn of grace,” as “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” tells us when that happened, “And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer, First revealed His sacred face.”

Sacred Scripture itself instructs us: “For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone, thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed” (Wis 18:14-15).

That, in turn, has us take inspiration from the Liturgy of St. James, calling us to awe and wonder, as we sing:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
and with fear and trembling stand;
ponder nothing earthly minded,
for, with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
our full homage to demand.

Of course, can we forget that this great mystery unfolded on a “Silent Night, Holy Night”?

On that first Christmas night, poor shepherds heard the angelic message: “Nuntio vobis gaudium magnum” (“I bring you good news of a great joy”). And that joy impelled the angelic hosts to break the silence to rend the skies with the first “Gloria in excelsis Deo.”

If you want to get to the very heart of the matter, there’s no better guide than St. Alphonsus Liguori, with his “Tu Scendi dalle Stelle,” tugging at our heartstrings, as only a man from Naples could do:

Tu scendi dalle stelle,
O Re del Cielo,
e vieni in una grotta,
al freddo e al gelo.

O Bambino mio Divino
Io ti vedo qui a tremar,ah, quanto ti costò
l’avermi amato!

From starry skies descending,
Thou comest, glorious King,
A manger low Thy bed,
In winter’s icy sting;

O my dearest Child most holy,
Shudd’ring, trembling in the cold!
Great God, Thou lovest me!
What suff’ring Thou didst bear,
That I near Thee might be!

In short order, we shall stand to chant that 1700-year-old Nicene Creed. Note well: It does not encapsulate sterile doctrines or serve as a quaint museum piece. It is life-giving, so be sure to belt it out with great gusto. And a few minutes on from there, we shall join our voices to those of the seraphim, who gaze upon the face of God and can only repeat hour by hour, day after day, “Kedosh, kedosh, kedosh. Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus.” Which leads us to the moment when the Incarnation happens all over again. Yes, just as the Second Person of the Trinity made His debut in the unimpressive guise of a Baby, so too does He come among us again in the equally unimpressive form of Bread. “O Magnum Mysterium!”

What are you to do with all this hope and joy? The great Cardinal Newman – our latest Doctor of the Church – gave this counsel to his congregation as a young Anglican cleric:

Take these thoughts with you, my brethren, to your homes on this festive day; let them be with you in your family and social meetings. It is a day of joy: it is good to be joyful—it is wrong to be otherwise. For one day, we may put off the burden of our polluted consciences, and rejoice in the perfections of our Saviour Christ, without thinking of ourselves, without thinking of our own miserable uncleanness; but contemplating His glory, His righteousness, His purity, His majesty, His overflowing love. We may rejoice in the Lord, and in all His creatures see Him. We may enjoy His temporal bounty, and partake the pleasant things of earth with Him in our thoughts; we may rejoice in our friends for His sake, loving them most especially because He has loved them.

. . . Let us seek the grace of a cheerful heart, an even temper, sweetness, gentleness, and brightness of mind, as walking in His light, and by His grace. Let us pray Him to give us the spirit of ever-abundant, ever-springing love, which overpowers and sweeps away the vexations of life by its own richness and strength, and which above all things unites us to Him who is the fountain and the centre of all mercy, lovingkindness, and joy.⁸

Last but not least, we must not pass over in an unholy silence that woman who made it all possible. No surprise, then, that we learn that Pope Leo has directed that a statue of the Blessed Mother under the title of Our Lady of Hope is to grace the Confessio of St. Peter’s Basilica until the conclusion of the Jubilee of Hope and for the duration of the Christmas Season. The image portrays the Blessed Virgin holding the Christ Child in her arms, with her right hand grasping onto an anchor, the classic image of hope. Yes, Christ is our hope.

Whoever put it more poignantly than the Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen, when he wrote: “Every mother, when she picks up the young life that has been born to her, looks up to the heavens to thank God for the gift which made the world young again. But here was a Mother, a Madonna, who did not look up. She looked down to Heaven, for this was Heaven in her arms.”

Finally, allow me to have recourse once more to Virgil, who, decades before Christ and thousands of miles away, in his Fourth Eclogue, “prophesied,” can we say, with these uncanny words: “Now is come the last age of the song of Cumae; the great line of the centuries begins anew. Now the Virgin returns, the reign of Saturn returns; now a new generation descends from heaven on high.” He goes on to speak of the birth of a child whose coming will bring universal peace and a golden age in which sin and guilt will be wiped away. Speaking to this child, the grand Virgil predicts his victory over the serpent, and then, in great tenderness, he addresses the little one: “Incipe, parve puer, risu cognoscere matrem” [Begin, O baby boy, to recognize your mother by her smile]. Isn’t that why we close each day by hailing Mary as “spes nostra” (our hope) and why Christian piety has lauded her in her Litany as “causa nostrae laetitiae” (cause of our joy)?

Hope and joy, so needed in our time. So readily available in and through the Lord’s Incarnation.

Venite, adoremus.

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