Episode Details
Back to EpisodesChristmas and Our Human Condition, Sermon by Fr. Paul Robinson, SSPX
Season 2024
Episode 28
Published 1 year ago
Description
- Christmas is the night when God gives Himself to us. Isaias gives us a name to call Our Lord when He comes: “God with us”. And he also emphasizes: “A child is born to us. A child is given to us.” It is difficult for us to understand because it exceeds our understanding.
- God is born, in person. God is born for you, for your sakes.
- There is a particularity about Christmas, a concreteness, that has to be noticed and emphasized. There are many ways to look at the Nativity scene, many ways to contemplate it. But tonight, at least, I would like you to think about what it would be like if you were the only one there. Just you and the divine Child.
- When we are there alone with the Christ Child, we are going to realize something right away. We are going to realize that our human condition is important.
- We are going to look at this Child and say to ourselves, “God is a pure spirit, infinite, eternal, all-powerful. Yet He takes on flesh; He becomes human and He confines Himself within the limits of the human nature that He has created. He has started off as an infant, just like I did, an infant that cannot talk, that cannot walk, that cannot feed itself, that is helpless in every way.”
- The Christ Child is saying to us, “I have come to be close to you in the very human nature that I gave to you. I have taken on your human nature, as a gift to you. You must accept your human nature as a gift from me. You must reach your salvation through the limits of your human nature.”
- By that, I mean that we have to live in and love the reality that God has made for us.
- The limitations of our body: sometimes healthy, sometimes sick
- The limitations of a world tainted by sin: sometimes good, sometimes evil we cannot stop
- The limitations of desire: sometimes desires realized, many times desires that cannot be realized