Daily Archives: December 26, 2011

Solemnity of the Nativity – Cycle B

26 December 2011

Reflecting on Luke 2:1-14

We were arguing when it happened.  We were keeping the night watch in the fields.  The new hire, the one who just got out of one of Herod’s prison dungeons, started leading the sheep away from the water.  But we wanted to spend the night there, drinking wine and telling stories about our good times up north in Jerusalem.

And all of a sudden it wasn’t night, and it wasn’t day.  It was just LIGHT, everywhere LIGHT.  And this Angel was standing right in the circle where we’d been arguing.  We were terrified.  Somehow we heard this Angel speak. And our fear just fell away as we heard about this Baby, this Savior, who had just been born just three miles away in Bethlehem.

And then!  The sky was filled, from every corner, with these HUGE, BEAUTIFUL messengers of LIGHT.  And oh, the music.  Try to imagine the sweetest sound you’ve ever heard, coming from LIGHT in every corner of the sky.

Glory to God in the highest!  And Peace! Peace! Peace!

We don’t remember running.  We couldn’t stop until we found Him.  He was there, this heavenly Child, lying in a manger in the back of a barn.  We shouted out what had happened in the skies, and what we had learned about Him.  And we knelt in front of this Child and His mother.  And nothing will ever be the same.

As we left we saw the Beautiful Mother gazing at the Child, and we wondered what she was seeing.  She was quiet as we walked away.

What mysteries of your own life do you “ponder in your heart”?

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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).