In the Gospel we will hear on Christmas night, an angel appears.
But what is an angel? In the Gospel of Luke, we have a very clear answer: after the angel appears, the shepherds go to Bethlehem; that is, they take the right direction. So what are angels for? To do the right thing at the right time.
Angels are those who, as pure transparency of God, keep their eyes fixed on God. And for human beings there are two alternatives: either their eyes are fixed on God or they are focused on themselves.
In an angel there is the transparency of God; there is no shadow, no opacity, no ulterior motive.
The angel immediately says: “I bring you news of great joy” (Lk 2:10), not just any joy, but a joy that will be for all the people. A child has been born, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger—in other words, a child ready to become food.
And then the angels add: “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to the people he loves” (Lk 2:14). What does this mean? Sometimes we think that God’s world, the world of the angels, is completely detached from reality. We go to church and hear many beautiful things, but then life is something else.
The angels’ message says something completely different: the glory of God in the highest heaven is peace on earth for the people he loves. This means that the glory of God is found in those who have a true relationship with God and live life to the fullest.
Belonging to God does not mean being abstract; belonging to God means being concrete. How often, instead, are we slaves to our patterns, our prejudices, and everything that is in our heads.
A person who belongs to God, instead, is grounded because they know that every day there is a place where God is encountered in life, and that place is our reality. The angel is the one God sends me to enter reality, because the problem is not reality; there is no right or wrong reality, but there is a right or wrong way of living reality.
The Incarnation is God entering reality, entering into our limitations and enabling us to live them fully: my limitations, my wife’s, those of my parish, those of my children.
Indeed, we either live by running away and constantly getting angry, or we live by continually becoming incarnate; either we live with the life of God here on earth, or we live according to human patterns.
So, who is an angel? A messenger of God, someone whom God sends, someone transparent, with no shadow, opacity, or ulterior motive, someone capable of bringing to our lives that annunciation in which the past is transformed into the present and the future.
So I ask for you and for myself that this Christmas not simply be a comparison between last year’s Christmas and next year’s, but that this Christmas God may give us the right word and help us do the right thing at the right time.
This is the wish I make for myself and for you.
You can read the entire meditation, along with those about the other figures in the Nativity scene, and prepare with them for Holy Christmas in the book: Novena for Christmas.
