Since everyone experiences joy at receiving a gift that comes from the heart, Christians should be in absolute awe at Christmastime when they remember God’s gift of himself, Pope Benedict XVI said.
“The original Christmas gift,” he said, was the gift of God becoming flesh in Jesus Christ and giving his life for the salvation of the world. “It is important to recover our awe in the face of this mystery and to allow ourselves to be enveloped by the greatness” of the Incarnation, Pope Benedict said during his weekly general audience Jan. 9, continuing a series of audience talks on the meaning of Christmas. In the liturgical calendar, “Christmastide” runs to the feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which is Jan. 13 this year.
Reflecting on the Incarnation, Pope Benedict said the Gospel phrase “the Word became flesh” is repeated so often, and Christmastime brings so many extra obligations and events, that sometimes Christians lose sight of the fact that Christmas celebrates “something absolutely unthinkable, something only God could do and something we can accept only with faith.”