Christmas, communion and the Church

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus and the marvelous events that surround his nativity. We are drawn into the amazing mystery that the second person of the most holy trinity united human nature to himself and was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We are drawn into the mystery that in Jesus Christ, God has become human. This is the mystery of the incarnation.

God always has been present in the world. He is present through his creation. All things come to be and exist only through his creative word. He has revealed his presence through the unfolding of salvation history. He is present in the promises and covenants he made to the patriarchs as well as through the law and the prophets. In the mystery of the incarnation, however, God has transformed his way of being present to his people.

In the incarnation God is no longer only present to his people but he is present with his people. As the prophet Isaiah foretold, “he shall be called Emmanuel,” which means God is with us.
 
Through the incarnation God is with us in a new way. It is not new in the sense that he has not been with us before, but new in the sense that what he had planned from all eternity now was revealed and made manifest. He always had been with us through his power. But now he draws us into intimate communion with himself as he takes on our humanity.
 
This communion with us did not end when Jesus rose from the dead and ascended to the right hand of the father. The incarnation, God’s presence with his people, has been extended through time and space in the mystery of the Church. The Church is the mystical body of Christ and in this mystery, God remains present with us. Communion with God is maintained in and through his Church.

During this moment in the life of the Church, the whole Church has embarked upon a process called the synod on synodality, which I have written about in recent months. This synod is an invitation from the Holy Father not only to bishops but to all the faithful, from every state of life, to walk together in communion with God and one another. In a certain sense, he is calling us to live more authentically the communion of the incarnation that is extended in the life of the Church as the mystical body of Christ.
 
More than merely some task or program or goal to achieve, the synod is an exercise in ecclesial communion: to draw near together, to draw near to the Lord, and to listen in prayer.

We as the Church in the United States also have been engaged in a simultaneous three-year journey of eucharistic revival. The eucharist is at the heart of the communion of the Church, and so the synod on synodality and the eucharistic revival are providentially occurring side by side and influencing one another.
 
The eucharist is in one sense the seed of the Church’s communion and in another its mature fruit. The eucharist makes the Church, and the Church makes the eucharist. Our incarnate ecclesial communion is most profoundly expressed and celebrated in the eucharistic sacrifice, that is, in the Mass.

It is the source and summit of our being Christian together, of living together in faith with Christ. The eucharistic revival must include a revival of our sense of communion, that is, a renewed appreciation and love for the Church, for belonging to the body, and for our duty to care for one another.

An aspect of the mystery, which we celebrate at Christmas, is unfolding for us today in the synod and the eucharistic revival. The communion of the incarnation is experienced today in the communion of the holy eucharist and in the communion of the mystical body of Christ.
 
It is my prayer in these final days of preparation for Christmas that we would turn our attention toward the communion God has brought us through his son, and that we may recommit ourselves to living this communion each and every day.