The mystery of Christmas shows us that God, the Father, showed Mary all his favor [1], all his love since it was His will that she be truly the temple of His Son, that she be His mother, and that it be she who gives Jesus to the world. Mary gave Jesus to the world at Christmas and at the Cross, keeping nothing for herself. This is perhaps what is most extraordinary in this maternity. It is here that this maternity appears to us in all its contemplative dimension, for here it is for us the manifestation, the epiphany, of fatherhood.

The Word "Made Flesh" in Mary

Fatherhood is a mystery of contemplation. The Father eternally begets the Son, and He willed that through Mary this eternal mystery enter time and transform it. This is indeed what happens beginning with the first moment of the conception of the Word who was "made flesh" [2] in Mary, under the operation of the Holy Spirit. The great mystery of expectation, this invisible presence of the Word "made flesh" in Mary, is brought to completion at Christmas, when Jesus is born for our world and Mary is joyful to give Him to us. And this contemplative maternity will continue unto the Cross; it will continue eternally. It began at the Annunciation, and at Christmas it took on a strength and intensity which never stopped growing until the Cross. Mary is bound to the Cross because she is the mother of Jesus. She is the mother of the Priest; she is the mother of the Savior, the mother of the Redemptor. While receiving everything from Him, she always remains His mother, and she remains eternally the Mother. This maternity is eternal precisely because of her great and radical poverty which makes this maternity no longer human: everything is transformed by grace. The bonds of Mary with the Infant Jesus are bonds of divine love (agape); hers is a maternity of love under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wherein Mary gives everything. Indeed, she is more mother than any other mother, and she is more profoundly so. Jesus only resembles His Father and Mary. He is "one" with the Father, and He is very close to Mary. He is bound to Mary by means of His flesh and His sensitivity; He is bound to Mary through the fullness of His grace, since He is the Head and Mary is the preferred member, the creature who is closest to Him.

There is a unique bond between the Infant Jesus and His Mother since Jesus, during the entire time of Advent, is aware of His dependence, a dependence upon Mary willed by the Father. In the lucidity of His love He consciously lives by this radical dependence upon Mary. He lives it until the end, until the Nativity at Bethlehem. He lives this dependence in obedience to the Father, yet at the same time as a free act; it is an obedience of love, and thus He fully and totally chooses this dependence, He wills it, and He lives this dependence for us in order to be, as it were, the sacrament of our dependence upon Mary, so that we better understand how we must, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, be dependent upon Mary and receive everything from her, to be more and more little children who receive everything from her. God willed this natural dependence between the Infant Jesus and His Mother, a dependence which is miraculous and which, by this very fact, has even greater intensity than in other instances which are natural. It has greater intensity and greater strength, and it is entirely transformed by grace, for Jesus lives this dependency in His fullness of grace.

Mary also lives what the Father asks of her-to be truly source of life for His Son-and lives it in fullness of love, without being possessive. All is given to Jesus, for Him. In Jesus' heart this is lived in perfect lucidity, without any obscurity. Just as the Word has absolute limpidity in the bosom of the Father, there is this absolute limpidity of Jesus in the bosom of Mary, and Jesus lives this total and radical dependence in love. The Creator, the Incarnate Word of God, accepts this dependence in love. This dependence in love is source of grace in Mary; it is source of love in the darkness of faith. Mary believes the message of the angel and, thanks to his message, she lives by this presence. In her faith she directly touches this presence of God that is given to her-Emmanuel, God-with-us, God who is there for her.

The Descendants of David

Advent is a time of desire because it is a time of promise. Mary's desire became even more intense during the last week of Advent. There was greater thirst in her for the coming of Jesus, and this thirst was lived in extraordinary poverty. This we can see well: there is a sign willed by God so that we might better understand the poverty of this last week. The sign that is given to us is the edict of Caesar. Here there is something very surprising from the point of view of Providence: during this last week everything was in an upheaval. Joseph and Mary were not able to await Jesus' birth in peace and quiet. Joseph was obliged to ask Mary to leave Nazareth, to leave with him on a tiring trip, one which was not exactly normal for a young mother expecting a child. This event in the last week of expectation allows us to understand that the Advent of the Blessed Virgin was not at all as we might imagine. It is a contemplative Advent, in a contemplative interiority, but externally there was not the stability of Nazareth. On the contrary, there was the requirement to leave Nazareth to go to Bethlehem. To go to Bethlehem was to go to a place that Mary and Joseph loved, since it was the city of David. Yet all the same it was an unknown place, and we must not believe that all David's descendants were saints! They should have been, they should have looked forward to this better than all others since they had the privilege of being descendants of David. Yet in fact they were all moved by Caesar's edit... and much less by the Holy Spirit! This is said very politely, yet with sufficient clarity. These descendants of David who should have had the generosity of David, his nobility of soul, did not have the slightest gesture for Mary. This is part of the mystery of Advent.

Just as there are descendants of David and a small remnant of Israel that truly receive Jesus, there will be at the end of time the descendants of David and the small remnant of the Church who will await the return of Christ. Thus we must ask who are the descendants of David in the Church. The descendants of David in the Church are those who have privileges. God loves them since Joseph and Mary are themselves descendants of David, and the grace of God is "irrevocable" [3]. Yet they let themselves be weighed down by difficulties, by circumstances. They are not very attuned to the mystery which is occurring, to the promise being realized. We must ask ourselves what this means since the Advent of the Blessed Virgin, the Advent lived by Mary, must help us understand our advent, the advent of the return of Christ. This upheaval which occurs in the last week is something very great. There are actually people who pray when they are in "their place," their Nazareth. Everything goes along very well there; but if there is a slight change or upheaval (Caesar's decree, which always happens at the right time), they are lost and want to quickly recover a bit of well-being; they are not attentive to what is happening, and they lose the profound meaning of contemplation....

Letting Jesus Be Present for Us

We can only await the return of Christ as Mary awaited the birth of Jesus, if we really do not want Him to come "like a thief" [4]. For God does not want to come like a thief: He loves us too much; He wants us to await Him as Mary awaited the Infant Jesus. The closer she is to term, the more she awaits him, her whole being completely mobilized for the coming of Him who is her King, her Messiah, her God. Her entire being is seized by this presence which becomes stronger and stronger, and her contemplation is increasingly simple in faith and love. Mary is there, attentive to the Father's will, since all is realized by the will of the Father and in the accomplishment of the Father's will: "Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum"; "Let it be done to me according to your word" [5]. It is by means of the Father's will that Jesus is present and Mary lives by this presence. By accomplishing the Father's will more and more, we allow Jesus to be present for us and we can await Him. If we do not have this desire for contemplative life [6], if we do not do everything necessary to preserve this desire (everything that Providence permits us to do), we do not await Jesus. This is very demanding! There is nothing more demanding that contemplative life. Yet once one understands a little what contemplative life is-this desire to be present to Jesus because He is always present, this desire to respond to His gaze because His gaze is always upon us, this desire to respond to His love because His love is always given to us-we can no longer live anything else.

There is no True Contemplation without Poverty

This is indeed what contemplation is. It is to respond to this first love. When we understand that there is this first love and that it must take everything in us, then we try to respond to this gift. At Christmas Mary lives this contemplation that she lived at the Annunciation and during the whole of Advent, especially during its last week. As Saint Augustine says, "she first conceived in her heart before having conceived in her flesh" [7]. This phrase, which is very powerful, expresses well the mystery of divine maternity, of this contemplative maternity which consists first of all in conceiving in her heart. The closer Mary comes to Christmas, the more she carries this mystery in her faith, her hope and her love, the more she conceives it, i.e., offers herself to the action of the Holy Spirit so that Jesus may take everything and that she herself may be His mother. Mary lives this contemplation which is utterly serene, divine, and poor. The fact that she must leave Nazareth allows us to understand that God wills that this contemplation be lived in complete poverty. Poverty is always guardian of contemplation. As soon as there is no more interior poverty, true interior poverty, as soon as we let ourselves be preoccupied by human activities (even very great and beautiful ones), contemplation is immediately no longer what it should be. Of course we have our state in life, but our state in life is to accomplish what the Father expects and demands of us; this is totally different. The accomplishment of our state in life does not interfere with our contemplation if we do it in love and in obedience to the Father's will. It is not the one who says "Lord, Lord" who enters into the Kingdom of God [8]. Contemplation can thus very well coexist with work, generosity in work. Contemplation does not interfere with the rest. Yet it requires, to be able to blossom in our heart, that everything be done in poverty and obedience.

This is indeed what we are shown here: and if contemplation could not coexist with the exodus that Mary experience God would not have asked her to leave Nazareth. If God asked her to leave Nazareth to go to Bethlehem it is to allow us to understand that contemplation is not human rest; it is not idleness. Contemplation is not living according to our own rhythm; it is something infinitely greater: it is the demand of God's love which is given to us and demands our response, which has a rhythm that is no longer ours. This is why contemplation makes us poorer. It always makes us poorer, and it needs this poverty in order to be preserved, because it can only be preserved if we have good will determined to accomplish the Father's will fully and completely. If we do not have this will to fully accomplish the Father's will, there can no longer be contemplation. Contemplation is neither obedience nor poverty; however, it requires poverty and obedience in order to be realized. This is our way of expressing to God our desire for contemplation. That is why we must constantly renew our desire to obey and to be poor so that our contemplation, i.e., the contemplation that God gives us, can fully blossom in our heart. When there is no longer obedience there is no longer contemplation. When there is no longer poverty there is no longer contemplation. We become wandering beings, agitated beings who no longer know where they are going. Mary shows us this admirably in this last week, when she obeys. She leaves Nazareth to go to Bethlehem; she leaves the place that God had prepared for her, the place she called home, a blessed place, to go to a place to which she is bound through her ancestors but which is not directly hers.

A Royal Heart is Magnanimous

When Mary arrives with Joseph in Bethlehem (we do not know the exact moment; Scripture is not precise and it is not worth the effort to make conjectures about this), there is a new trial, a new trial of poverty. It is extraordinary to see how God likes to test us by destroying all our little projects! God always leads us like this when He wants to maintain contemplation in us. We immediately devise little projects; we have "pet projects." When Christmas comes around we all have our "pet projects" and we are convinced that these correspond to God's will. At the last minute everything collapses. God always makes us poorer. Every year, therefore, we must expect greater poverty. Otherwise it would not be divine; it would prove that God is not that interested in us and that we are not of David's race, although we are chosen by God and loved by Him. This is what it means to be part of David's race, with all the demands this implies: we must respond by giving everything-otherwise we are not magnanimous. We must be magnanimous if we are of royal blood.

The characteristic of the king is to be magnanimous. A royal heart is a magnanimous heart, one that gives everything, one that is not afraid to give everything and accepts, by this very fact, to have nothing. This is tough! Whenever we ask God for this He answers; He always responds and makes us poorer. The poverty of Caesar's edict, the poverty of the lack of charity on the part of our brothers-a poverty even more difficult to endure than Caesar's edict since Caesar's edict is anonymous, it is for everyone, for all those who are of David's race; whereas to see that those who are close to us and who should receive us with love ignore us when we need them most is very tough!

The Test of Authority

Here there is a trial for Mary and Joseph, but especially for Joseph. This test of authority is a great test for him. Christmas is a terrible trial for authority. This is very significant: the closer we come to the end, the return of Christ, the more it will be difficult to exercise authority, the more authority will be tested, and the more it must be exercised in the great poverty of a service. Is this not indicated to us by Scripture? We can see quite well that this is beginning to happen in the Church. It is not easy to exercise authority today: our only desire would be to flee from it as far as possible! It is the most difficult thing possible to exercise authority while preserving one's contemplative life as much as possible. Now Joseph is a contemplative, a great contemplative close to Mary and the Infant Jesus.

Thus there is a great test of authority. Joseph accepts it; I believe he accepts it with joy, because this is how one really accepts a trial. He accepts seeing the project he envisioned for Mary crumble. For Mary it is much easier, but it is still a trial. It is much easier because she only has to obey, and she experiences such intimacy with Jesus that His presence is the only thing that matters to her. It is the same for Joseph, but not in the same way. Mary has such intimacy with Jesus that for her, to be here or there, in such and such a place, does not matter; it does not matter to her in the least. She is so absorbed in the presence, in the waiting! She is completely ordered towards Jesus. She continues to obey, of course, but her contemplation has not ceased to grow since the Annunciation, and the secret of Jesus' presence in her has assumed everything in her life. Jesus' presence is everything for her, to the point that the fact that there is no room for them in Bethlehem does not trouble her. Mary suffered in her fraternal charity for the descendants of David, yes; because they lacked charity she suffered for them. Yet in the depths of her heart she is joyful, joyful to be somewhat rejected, scorned a bit, or at least forgotten, in order to be more alone in intimacy with Jesus, to be there solely for Him during the last moments of this Advent.

The Gratuitousness of God's Gift

The last moments of the Church waiting for Christ's return should have the quality, purity, and limpidity of Mary's contemplation during the last moments of her Advent. Joseph respects Mary's silence. He is there to serve her; thus he respects this strong, personal bond between Mary and the child who is her God, between the Virgin and her God. Joseph is there as guardian and he is there to live by this presence. The deep silence of Christmas night is always very impressive when the Holy Spirit wants to unite us with the Virgin Mary, when He wants to enable us to live what Mary lived to a certain extent. We must ask this of Him. This contemplation of Christmas night must be lived with Mary in this simplicity, and we must be completely attentive to the Word made flesh, to this gift that the Father gives Mary and us, since it is for men that Mary gives birth to the Infant Jesus. Mary was not in the least bit possessive. The miracle of the divine conception of the Word made flesh in Mary allows her to live by this gift the Father gratuitously gives her very intensely and in great purity. She would not have grasped the gratuitousness with such force if the conception of the Word made flesh in her had not occurred in this miraculous way. If it had not been the work of the Holy Spirit she would not have known the extent to which this gift was a gratuitous gift of love. Contemplation demands that we understand the gratuitousness of this gift.

From Gratuitousness to Gratuitousness

Thus it is in poverty, this great poverty that the Holy Spirit instills in her, that Mary lived this miraculous virginal conception. At Christmas there is still a miracle that shows us how much God is present: Mary gives birth to her Son without ceasing to be a virgin, as the Fathers of the Church liked to say: "She is virgin; she is mother; she is virgin." It is incredible; it is the work of God and Mary: "I have obtained a son with Yahweh's help"-the cry of the first woman, the cry of Eve [9], who announces what Mary says in the silence of her heart. It is true, she gave birth to the Beloved Son with Yahweh, i.e., with the Father, with the Holy Spirit, with the Word of God. It is the work of the Three. The miracle of this virgin birth shows us the presence of God. It is so that Mary might live even more by gratuitousness. Gratuitousness is infinite: one goes from gratuitousness to gratuitousness [10]. Moreover, this is the mystery of silent prayer; we cannot enter into silent prayer if we do not live in gratuitousness. This is the difference between silent prayer and meditation. In meditation we do not live by gratuitousness; or at least we live first of all by our own effort and also by God's grace. Whereas in silent prayer we live first of all by God's grace, and then by our effort. It is not quite the same thing: there is a different order. It is gratuitousness what is given to us in the first place; it is gratuitousness that transforms us and lets us live by presence.

Virginity, Poverty and Joy

Thus the miracle of this nativity is so that Mary may live more profoundly by the gift received, by the gratuitous gift. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in her, and to have us clearly understand that it is above all a gratuitous gift; this miraculous nativity is necessary according to the divine economy; Mary must receive from the Father Him who is her Son but first of all the Father's Son; she must receive Him gratuitously in her faith and her love and she must receive Him in order to give Him everything. This first moment of the nativity, reserved for Mary and Joseph, is given to us and we must live by it in order to prepare for the return of Jesus, a gift that will also be given gratuitously and will only be given to us if we receive it gratuitously, considering that everything we have done, all our efforts to be faithful, are nothing and that the grandeur of the gift is unique. Let us understand that this miraculous nativity must help us to go to the end in poverty, in voluntary deprivation and to accept that things may come about in a way other than what we might have foreseen, in spite of ourselves. It must help us to be truly poor and have no rights, so that love may assume everything. It is because of this poverty that the mystery of Christmas is a mystery of pure joy. For Mary it was really a mystery of pure joy which assumed everything in her. At the Cross sorrow assumes everything, nevertheless leaving divine joy in the depths of Mary's soul. At Christmas this divine joy is not obscured by any suffering and it seizes her entire being. This must have been something extraordinarily beautiful, in simplicity. She who is "virgin, mother, virgin" receives her God and her child in this total poverty, in this silence....

It is wonderful that there were angels who sang to leave Mary in silence! That is part of the mystery of Christmas. The angels sang their Gloria; they sang for the shepherds; they did not even disturb Mary. Mary's silence was so great, and Joseph's so strong, that the Infant Jesus' presence assumed everything, seized everything, polarized everything in them. It is a mystery of joy because it is the mystery of presence and gratuitousness par excellence. This joy did not last-although in all its purity it lasted until the end. Indeed, Mary, at the end of her pilgrimage, lived by this same joy. This joy grew in her and never left her soul since Mary always remained in this act of love and the fullness of this gift; yet it is at Christmas that this joy burst forth and really assumed everything in her.

Awaiting Jesus' Return in Truth

It is because of this joy that Mary welcomed the shepherds-this is also part of the mystery of the nativity. The Church will become extremely hospitable at the moment of Christ's return. Catholics will become truly Catholic at the moment of Christ's return. There are things that we will understand at that time, because we will be so overcome by Jesus' love that our love will be victorious and fully hospitable. We must consider this. We are not hospitable enough vis-à-vis the little shepherds, i.e., those who come without any right to do so, who come before David's descendants (since it is they who were awakened by the angels), who come with love and simplicity, without speaking yet bringing what they can give, bringing the only thing they can give. This is part of our awaiting Jesus' return in His glory. Let us ask the Blessed Virgin to teach us to be particularly attentive to this mystery of contemplation, to await Jesus' return in truth.

Notes
1
Cf. Lk. 3:22; Mt. 3:17, 17:5, and 12:18 (Isa. 42:1); Mk. 1:11; 1 Pet. 1:17.
2
Jn. 1:14.
3
Rom. 11:29.
4
See Rev. 3:3, 16:15; 1 Thes. 5:4; 2 Pet. 3:10; Mt. 24:43; Lk. 12:39.
5
Lk. 1:38
6
We must clearly understand that contemplative life is not reserved for monks, for a certain category of religious. Christian faith is contemplative in itself; it is ordered to the beatific vision, like Saint Thomas says, and as Jesus Himself allows us to understand: "The one who believes has eternal life" (Jn. 6:47). "Eternal life is to know you, the one true God, and the one whom You have sent, Jesus Christ" (Jn. 17:3). Let us understand that contemplation is not something abstract. Contemplation is a profound desire of our soul, of our will, a desire that our heart be transformed into Jesus' heart. It is a look of love towards a person (one only contemplates a person), it is a look of faith that allows love to blossom and that, by this, enables us to live in unity with Jesus.
7
See (among others) Sermon 215, PL 38, col. 1074; Contra Faustum 29, 4, PL 42, col. 490. Cf. St. Leo, Sermo I in Nativitate, PL 54, col. 191 B.
8
Mt. 7:71; cf. Lk. 6:46.
9
Gen. 4:1.
10
Cf. Jn. 1:16: "From His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace."