Michael Whelan SM, PhD

Christmas evokes many different reactions and responses. There are those who would happily dispense with it. Others welcome it for commercial reasons. Still others dread it for family reasons. Some love it for the holidays it brings. And so it goes. Listen within: What does your faith tell you? In this Feast we celebrate the most momentous event in the history of the cosmos: “The Word became flesh”! The Divine is united in love with the human, the eternal with the temporal, the infinite with the finite. Utterly incomprehensible, but true. I cannot prove it or even begin to explain it, but I believe it.

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“St. Augustine says that the ‘entire purpose of the Christian life is to awaken the eye of the heart whereby God may be seen’” (Martin Laird and Sheelah Trefle Hidden, The Practice of the Presence of God: Theology as a Way of Life, New York, NY: Routledge, 2017, 103).

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In 2006, the German film, The Lives of Others, was released. It is a brilliant film, one of the best I have ever seen.

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In John’s Gospel, “seeing” is closely linked with “believing”. The Greek verb pisteuō – “believe” – in various forms, appears more than 100 times in John’s Gospel. It is always as a verb. “Seeing”, “believing” and “witnessing” together are constitutive elements of discipleship. All are embodied in John the Baptist.

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Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.” From that time Jesus began to proclaim, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

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When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

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