Since the beginning of the Christmas season, we have been looking at a child in a manger,
or, looking at this new-born held close to her heart by his mother.
Personally, this has led me to think at what God… did NOT do!
We usually contemplate what God has done, but what about seeing the reverse?…
God wanted to reach us, the people he has created, to share his life with us, but…
He did not try to reach us as an angel.
He did not show himself with power.
And, amazingly, he did not come to us as an adult!
Yet, being God, he had a vast choice of options!
He chose to be born from a human mother, small and needy.
A God who must rely on human beings… rather unusual, is it not?
He wanted to be known as a GRACIOUS God.
This is what we hear in the 1st reading (Numbers 6:22-27)
and the Psalm (Psalm 67:1-8) of today’s celebration.
“The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you.”
“May God be gracious to us and bless us
and make his face shine on us.”
In becoming one-of-us, God has ‘graced’ us,
he has blessed us in all kinds of ways –
ways that we have never finished to discover and to understand!
The whole of the new year opening up before us will not be sufficient for this discovery…
But we can start opening the gift now, and doing so day after day!
Note: Another reflection is available on a different theme in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/marie-mere-de-dieu-annee-c-2022/
These are the very words with which the angel Gabriel greeted Mary.