Christmas in Ordinary Time

We recently completed the Christmas Season and entered Ordinary Time. While Christmas decorations are taken down and stored, Christmas continues. Christmas celebrated the tremendous coming of Jesus Christ to earth in the womb of Mary, his mother. Yet what we call “Christmas” or “Incarnation” (God becoming human) began billions of years ago. Actually, the Incarnation began with the moment of “Let there be light!” in Genesis, chapter one, at least 13.7 billion years before the event that brought angels, shepherds, and magi to the manger. Long before God became Jesus (Jesus’s personal incarnation), Christ was deeply embedded in all things (Jesus Christ’s universal presence). Richard Rohr explains in his book The Universal Christ: “Jesus came out of an already Christ-soaked world. The second incarnation came out of the first, out of God’s loving union with physical creation” (p. 15).

We have often heard “Keep Christ in Christmas.” How do we do that in Ordinary Time when the Church remembers the adult life of Christ? Like the Wise Men we seek the Christ in creation—all creation—people, animals, plants, rocks, everything, every cell, every atom. Like Mary, we nurture the Christ within us and share the Christ with the world. Like the shepherds and magi, we live in amazement of the wonders of God and God’s creation—the “Christ-soaked” creation. With the angels, let us sing God’s praises— “Glory to God in the highest!”