A child is born for us, and a son is given to us (Isaiah 9:5)
The Mass of Christmas Day begins with these joyful words of Isaiah’s prophecy, recalling how God spoke to the whole of humanity in the birth of a child, the Holy Child of Bethlehem. The joy of Christ’s birth leads us in the Communion Antiphon to declare that: “All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God”. Saint John of the Cross reflected on this revelation in memorable words that have found their way into the Church’s Catechism, “In giving us his Son, his only Word, he spoke everything to us at once… and he has no more to say…” God chose to place himself into our hands in the vulnerability of a tiny Child, as the same Lord Jesus gives himself to us now in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
