Image credit: Nativity, attributed to Jean Colombe,
from miniature Book of Hours from the Office of the Virgin of Bourges or Troyes.
...here is the surprise that the Christmas liturgy presents to us: the Word of God appears but cannot speak. He comes to us as a newborn baby who can only cry and babble. “The Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Though he will grow and one day learn the language of his people, for now he speaks only through his simple, fragile presence. “Flesh” is the radical nakedness that, in Bethlehem as on Calvary, remains even without words
~ Leo XIV, Mass for Christmas Day
To Read: Fr. Paul Scalia, Imitating the Holy Family
