Feast of the Nativity 24/25 December 2015 - Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons

Nativity in catacombs of St Sebastian, image Giovanni Dallorto

The shortest day has passed and gradually light will return to the early morning and the evening dark will take longer to arrive, the stars will still shine and the Moon complete her cycle but our hearts may be a little lighter as we notice that the mid-winter heralds the spring. This is a good season for the feasts of the Nativity, where in the back room of an Inn the light that never dies, Christ the Word made one-of-us, was born to Mary and also where visitors came, animals all and shepherds and magi. What they felt as the gazed on the child can only be guessed but the Gospels hint at joy and fulfillment.

I hope that most of you will have put up your cribs as well as other decorations, for this gives to our homes a sense of that moment in time when the greatest of miracles took place, heaven stooped down to earth and joined together never to be parted. One of the great Christmas responsories sung at Matins has as its opening words, 'O Admirabile Commercium', O wonderful exchange, referring to the gift of God in Jesus, for he is our true present, the true gift, but before us the text places animal creation, for as another Christmas responsary puts it, O Magnum Mysterium:' Oh great mystery and wonderful sacrament, that the animals should see the new-born Lord lying in a manger.'

As we enter the celebrations of the feast and its season, perhaps it is good to revisit the crib and pray in silence before it. I love meditating on the Ox and Ass, though there is no mention of them in the synoptic tradition, they have kept their place in the Christmas tradition alongside the shepherds and angels. One of the earliest representations of the Nativity in the catacombs of St Sebastian in Rome have the ox and ass worshipping the Christ Child. Maybe, just maybe they form some part of a deep oral tradition.

But be that as it may they form part of Isaiah's great prophecy of a renewed Creation when all will be in harmony, that for me is what the crib represents, all living things connected through the God of Love. When faced with the mystery of God's love for all things all we can do is wonder.

'0 God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our little brothers and sisters to whom Thou hast given the earth as their home in common with us.' --Attributed to Saint Basil.

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain.