Vigils Reading – Nativity of the Lord

FROM THE CRIB TO THE CROSS

By St Edith Stein

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God has come to redeem us, to unite us to Himself and to each other, to

conform our will to His. He knows our nature. He reckons with it, and has

therefore given us every help necessary to reach our goal.

The divine Child has become a teacher and has told us what to do. In

order to penetrate a whole human life with the divine life it is not enough to

kneel once a year before the crib and let ourselves be captivated by the charm of

the holy night. To achieve this, we must be in daily contact with God, listening

to the words he has spoken and which have been transmitted to us, and obeying

them. We must, above all, pray as the Savior Himself has taught us so

insistently. “Ask and it shall be given you”. This is the certain promise of being

heard. And if we pray every day with all our heart: “Lord, they will be done” we

may well trust that we shall not fail to do God’s will even when we no longer have

subjective certainty.

More: Christ has not left us orphans. He has sent His Spirit, who teaches

us all truth. He has founded his Church which is guided by His Spirit, and has

ordained in it His representatives by whose mouth His Spirit speaks to us in

human words. In His Church He has united the faithful into one community

and wants them to support each other. Thus we are not alone, and if the

confidence in our own understanding and even in our own prayer fails us, the

power of obedience and intercession will assist us.

“And the word was made flesh”. This became reality in the stable of

Bethlehem. But it has also been fulfilled in another form. “He who eats my flesh

and drinks my blood has eternal life”. The Savior, knowing that we are and

remain men who have daily to struggle with our weaknesses, aids our humanity

in a manner truly divine. Just as our earthly body needs its daily bread, so the

divine life in us must be constantly fed. “This is the living bread that came down

from heaven”. If we make it truly our daily bread, the mystery of Christmas, the

Incarnation of the Word, will daily be re-enacted in us. And this, it seems, is the

surest way to remain in constant union with God, and to grow every day more

securely and more deeply into the mystical Body of Christ.

The Christian mysteries are an indivisible whole. If we become immersed

in one, we are led to all the others. Thus the way from Bethlehem leads

inevitably to Golgotha, from the crib to the Cross. When the blessed Virgin

brought the Child to the temple, Simeon prophesied that her soul would be

pierced by a sword, that this Child was set for the fall and the resurrection of

many, for a sign that would be contradicted. His prophecy announced the

Passion, the fight between light and darkness that already showed itself before

the crib.