Conceived in Heaven, Born in Bethlehem, a Jubilee Year Awaits

"If God’s Son was truly to be made a genuine human being, made of flesh and blood, then of course, He must have a genuine human mother of flesh and blood too."

From Crisis

By David Torkington

If God’s Son was truly to be made a genuine human being, made of flesh and blood, then of course He must have a genuine human mother of flesh and blood too.

Before He was born as Christ the King on earth, He was “born” in the “mind” and “heart” of God as Christ the King in Heaven. He was firstly born in eternity before time began, so that the glory that reigned in Heaven could also reign on earth, in Him. However, if God’s Son was truly to be made a genuine human being, made of flesh and blood, then of course He must have a genuine human mother of flesh and blood too. That is why in the very first thought of God, to embody His Love in His Son, He must of course have a human mother. Nor could that mother be besmirched in any way by the sulphurous stench of sin. That is why Mary was conceived, in that very first “thought of God” as His Immaculate Mother. 

She might only have been crowned a Queen later, after her assumption into Heaven, but she was a Queen from the very beginning, as the mother of Christ the King. When the great mystical theologian Blessed John Duns Scotus first explained this, he said, “If God chooses an end, then he must choose the means.” And that means was Mary, Christ’s own Immaculate Mother, and our Immaculate Mother too. Only a Mother free of all the sins that are born of a fallen nature, and fallen nurturers, could give birth to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the fullest possible embodiment here on earth of God’s love in Heaven.

Nothing could change God’s plan from the very beginning before time began, not even the sins of humankind that were yet to come. Christ would still come as King, but He would be asked to take on another role thanks to the perversity of human kind, as a Redeemer too. For God’s original plan was that every man and every woman made in the image and likeness of His Son would share in His royal love to give all honor and glory to God on earth. So now He would be born as both a King and as a Redeemer, who would not only be born in a wooden crib in Bethlehem but would die on a wooden Cross in Jerusalem. He redeemed us by His Royal Love, received fully at what St. John called His Glorification on the first Easter Day and poured out on the first Pentecost day. 

This love would draw all who were open to receive it into His Kingdom, set up anew on earth within His own risen and glorified body, later called His Mystical Body. Here we would be animated by the same divine love that raised Christ up on the first Easter Day, as our King and Redeemer. His royal blood, His everlasting love, was ready and waiting to transform and transfigure all who would receive it into what God had originally planned for all of us before we decided otherwise. 

He had planned that these men and women would give birth to myriad more human beings to give glory to God as Christ their King. It was for this that we were originally created and recreated in Christ the King. His royal blood is nothing other than the love that He had received from His Father and returned in kind—in, with, and through the Holy Spirit from all eternity. That is why God wanted to replicate on earth, in matter and form, in flesh and blood, in men and women, and in family love, the infinite love of God, in finite human beings, and all for the same end: to give glory to God—Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.

That is why when St. Francis of Assisi returned from the Holy Land, he wanted to burn into the hearts and minds of all the love of God that he experienced at Bethlehem and at Calvary. That is why, in 1223, he built the first crib in Italy high up on the hillside overlooking the Rieti Valley in the little village of Greccio. From that time onward, Catholics began to build cribs at Christmas to remind them of the Love of God made flesh and blood on the first Christmas day. But the ultimate expression of God’s love for us was not just that Christ our King chose to be laid in a wooden crib in Bethlehem but that He should die on a wooden Cross in Jerusalem, where He finally redeemed us. It was this that made St. Francis pray to God that he, too, could experience the pain that Christ suffered on the Cross and the joy that drove Him to such an awesome expression of His love for us.

On the feast of the Holy Cross the following year, his prayer was answered. While praying before dawn on Mount Alverna, the Crucified Christ appeared bearing the stigmata that was then imprinted on the body of St. Francis. He was not only the first person to receive the stigmata but the only person to receive it in such a painful way. For within the wounds, the nails that fixed Christ to the Cross could be seen. One of his early biographers said that the nails so protruded on the reverse side of his hands and feet that they circled over to form a ring large enough to enable you to place your finger through them. 

As they made walking all but impossible, St. Francis had to travel all the way back to Assisi on the back of a donkey—that is, until St. Clare made special footwear to enable him to walk again. No words were exchanged as St. Francis received the stigmata. But lest he and others should misinterpret what had just happened and the pain that St. Francis would have to endure, Christ spoke to him moments before He appeared to him. The revelation that he received was short, but it was a clear repetition of the very essence of the Gospel, and of what subsequently came to be the very heart and soul of Franciscan Spirituality and the leitmotif of the mystical theology of Blessed John Duns Scotus. The words were these: “It is not through suffering that you are united with me, but through love.” 

This must be the enduring message that we need to learn and take away with us, not just at every Easter but at every Christmas too. However, be clear about this: Christ does not mean that we are united with Him by human love alone but by God’s Love. That is the love that was poured out on the first Pentecost. It is this love that suffuses and surcharges human love, to generate a new form of highbred loving, as we open ourselves to receive it. This is the only love that can purify us in such a way that we can be united with Christ, our King and our Redeemer, and with His personal love of our common Father. 

But all love, and in particular the love of God that comes to us through Christ, cannot be forced on anyone against their will. That is the very nature of both human and divine love. This means that just as God chose to share His love with us through Christ, we must freely choose to receive that love. Prayer is the word used by the Christian tradition to describe what we must do—and how we must do it—so that we can receive the love of God. Thanks to the Resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit, we can turn and open ourselves to receive that love not just on the first Pentecost day but on every day, and every moment of every day, so that eventually we are able to practice what St. Paul called the prayer without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). 

But this sublime prayer can only be learned not in days or even months but in years, by those who begin to learn how to pray at specific times so as to come to know and experience the love of Christ that was first manifested to the world on the first Christmas Day. We are about to begin a Jubilee Year, which, above all else, has always been seen as a time to turn back to God in prayer. 

That is why, in this Jubilee Year, I want to introduce all Catholics to a new retreat movement designed specifically for the forthcoming year. It is called “Metanoia”: Back to Prayer, forward with Christ. His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider is the patron of this new initiative, which is dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel. It is called more specifically a Catechetical Retreat, for it is aimed at both the head and the heart simultaneously, to unite us all as one so that together we may help to herald a Catholic spiritual renaissance for the deep and lasting renewal that must turn us all back to God. 

It is only through the deep prayer which leads to contemplation that we will begin to receive in ever greater measure what St. Thomas Aquinas called the fruits of contemplation. This alone can refashion and reform us into the image and likeness of Christ our King, so that He can rule once more, as He originally intended, through those who are prepared to radically open themselves to receive Him.