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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

The Nativity of the Lord (Christmas): Mass during the Night
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Gospel text (Lk 2:1-14): In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. So all went to be enrolled, each to his own town. And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. (…).

Christmas: "You are my Son; this day I have begotten you"

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, with the words “You are my Son; this day I have begotten you” (Psalm 2), the Church begins to live Christmas, meaning, the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ in the stable of Bethlehem. Formerly, this Psalm used to belong to the ritual of Judah’s king coronation: Israel, because of his election, was felt as the “son of God” and, since the king was the personification of the people, his enthronement was experienced as a solemn adoption by God.

On the night of Bethlehem, these words acquired a new and unexpected meaning. The Child in the manger is truly the Son of God. He is not eternal solitude but rather a circle of love in an act of mutual surrender and re-surrendering. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Moreover, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God from God, became man.

—God’s eternal today has descended on this ephemeral world of today, dragging our present’s passing into God’s perennial present.

April 25th
Feast of Saint Mark, evangelist

Gospel and commentary video