The Church at Christmas: The Light of Truth Shines In The Darkness

"Christ is the light of humanity; and it is, accordingly, the heart-felt desire of this sacred Council, being gathered together in the Holy Spirit, that, by proclaiming his Gospel to every creature, it may bring to all men that light of Christ which shines out visibly from the Church"--Vatican II, Lumen Gentium?1

GLADE PARK, CO (Catholic Online) -- Man bears within himself an irrepressible desire for communion with the Other who is the Alpha and Omega of life, love and peace. As St. Augustine so beautifully stated: our hearts will not rest until they rest in Thee, O God. The truth about man is that he who lives as if God does not exist remains woefully incomplete, flawed, miserable. Thus the importance of the truth about man and of the Truth who is God.

This unceasing yearning for unity with God, which is rooted so deeply within every man and woman so as to be unremovable, cannot be sufficiently explained merely in the hope of escaping ?an encounter with the emptiness found in the world; nor is it only a product of our longing to alleviate that loneliness which often remains an unwelcome guest who all-too-often knocks in the night; nor can it be solely the result of an unfulfilled physical or emotional need. Further, the longing for God found in the human heart runs far deeper than simply an effect of the want to remove suffering. Taken in toto, in all, these things fail to adequately explain our hunger for God.

All men experience -- whether clearly recognized or not, whether sincerely admitted or not -- an unrelenting movement within their being which reaches for something beyond itself and which thirsts to transcend the boundaries of man's finitude: we crave a participation in the supernatural life of the Other: our God who is Creator and Author of Life. Man's thirst -- an unquenchable, inescapable and continuous thirst -- is for the Infinite, the Eternal, the Love who is Lord and giver of life.

Why is this so? The answer is self-evident: man is made for the Creator who himself has made man. That is why man is homo religiosus: religious man. In the Creator's infinite wisdom, he has made us men of religious thirst: men who long to worship God, to abandon ourselves to the Other who is our origin and end, and who experience an intrinsic need to share as fully and completely as possible in the sublime life of the Holy Trinity. Our human fulfillment and flourishing, our brotherly and sisterly freedom, our happiness as man, love and joy and peace and truth and goodness, all these are attainted in their totality in God alone.

Man: Called Into The Womb of Holy Mother Church

So critical is the understanding of man's relationship with God, the Catechism of the Catholic Church at the outset explains the origin of our insatiable thirst for communion with the Creator:

"God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life" (? 1).

The Father calls all men across the vast sphere of the earth to become members of the divine family: baptized sons and daughters who freely reside within mother Catholic Church. It is here, within the guiding and nourishing womb of the Church, that the sacraments of life -- instituted by our Savior in order to usher us into the kingdom of heaven -- are conferred upon the faithful "that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10) in Christ.

If we trace this wondrous invitation to abundant life to its specific, historical origin, we find it became a reality in first the conception and then the birth of the Prince of Peace: here, we stand with the shepherds in the solitude of Bethlehem and, along with the sweet Virgin Mother whose fiat brought salvation into the world, gaze into the eyes of the Christ Child who is Savior and Redeemer. The Star who infinitely outshines every star in the cosmos has risen in the East. The eternal Word of God is made man for our sake: the gates of heaven are unlatched, and, through the Paschal Mystery, they are swung open.

Thus St. Bernard was able to write: "Notice that peace is not promised but sent to us; it is no longer deferred, it is given; peace is not prophesied but achieved. . . . As the Scriptures tell us: A little child has been given to us, but in him dwells all the fullness of the divine nature. The fullness of time brought with it the fullness of divinity. God's Son came in the flesh so that mortal men could see and recognize God's kindness."

The Light Shines In The Darkness

Yet we could not know of such a wondrous and incomparable reality with certainty if not for holy mother ...

Source: http://www.catholic.org/hf/faith/story.php?id=44252&wf=rsscol

marzieh vafamehr marzieh vafamehr lady liberty lady liberty the rum diary addams family in time