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.