“O little child lying in a manger, by means of a star, heaven has called and led to You, the Magi, the first-fruits of the Gentiles, astounded to behold, not scepters and thrones, but extreme poverty. What, indeed, is lower than a cave? What is humbler than swaddling clothes — and yet the splendor of your divinity shone forth in them resplendently. O Lord, glory to You!” (Christmas Hymn)

Today, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ appears on earth in human form. The tiny newborn child, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, is the longed for Messiah, whose coming was prophesied centuries before.

“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwell in the land of gloom a light has shown!” (Isaiah 9:1)

Today God gives Himself completely for our sake and our salvation. We, in turn, are to give ourselves entirely to God. He asks our all because He gives His all: He asks for our love and our hearts, because He has given us His love and His heart.

The three Wise Men or Kings from the East offered to the newly born Messiah symbolic gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh. Each gift symbolizes His great love for us. In gratitude, therefore, we are to offer gifts which symbolize our love for God: the gold of the richness of our souls — a symbol of His kingship and His reign in our hearts; incense, the sweet aroma of our prayers of faith, hope, and charity; and the myrrh of loyalty, forgiveness, kindness, tolerance and sympathy — a sign of our sacrificial efforts, which is the real sign of true love.

The Church established this feast to draw our attention to Christ’s Holy Mother and to give us an opportunity to praise her after the birth of her Divine Son. In addition, this feast reminds us of the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt in order to save the Divine Infant from the massacre of the innocent children of Bethlehem as ordered by King Herod after the departure of the Magi. (This is described in the Gospel reading during the Divine Liturgy.)

Let us remember that this same “massacre” is occurring at present — each and everyday — through legalized abortion. Please remember in your prayers all the unborn babies being murdered by abortion - not only on the Feast of the Synaxis of the Most Holy Theotokos - but especially on the Feast of the Holy Innocents commemorated on December 29.

The Gospel account of Christ’s Nativity is a bit like the story of Beauty and the Beast. In the animated film version, Beauty stepped into the ugly world of the Beast, not because he was lovable, not because he deserved her, but because she loved her father. But the world of the beast did not change right away, even though Beauty was there. Even\ though the servants who shared the curse of the Beast, warned him that Beauty might be the one they had been waiting for, the Beast continued to rage and scream and roar, finally sending Beauty away. She was attacked by the wolves, and Beast saved her. As she nursed him back to health, they began to bicker and blame each other, until in one beautiful moment, Beauty stepped into the heart of the ugly beast. From that moment on, the Beast began to change slowly. He started to laugh and play. Finally, Beast realized that he loved Beauty, and in an amazing act of love, he released her to find her father. Beauty and her father returned to the ugly world of the Beast to warn him of the danger of the townspeople’s attack, but they were too late. In the fighting, Beast was stabbed, and as he lay dying, Beauty confessed her love for him. The spell was broken. Beast was changed by the love of Beauty. Because Beauty stepped into the ugly world of the Beast, Beast was changed little by little, until one day he was transformed into a wonderful handsome prince.

In Jesus, God stepped into our ugly, beastly world as savior and a sign of God’s permanent presence with us…to change it, to bring to it — to us — the beauty of the love of God’s kingdom. But change comes slowly. Yes, just look at our world.  There are so many ugly people, so many beastly things happening. But there are some people who are changing and some who have been changed by the beauty of God’s love, and they both begin loving others. May this happen to all of us.