Deus incarnatus est!

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone had a lovely day full of friends, family, and food. I had a wonderful time watching Bacon tear through all of Santa's careful wrappings and opening my very own Chicken Purse.

The Midnight Mass this year was wonderful. The cathedral was exquisitely decorated, and Archbishop Chaput had the standing-room-only crowd go and sit in the sanctuary, to be part of the community that we celebrate at every Mass, and of course at Christmas.

He also gave a sermon about the three things Christmas is about. He said it's about us: Jesus came to save us, because God loves us. It's about peace: the peace we find in God, in Christ, the peace that we hope the whole world will have.

And Christmas is about the body: God became flesh. God was incarnate.

Deus incarnatus est.

God did not become fleshly to hate the flesh. God did not take on a human form in order to force that form to do what it was not intended to do. God, who created us in all our varied forms, did not come among us to count His calories or restrict His food groups or talk about how fat He was and how horrible that made Him.

Deus incarnatus est.

God became flesh to be one of us. God took on a human form because He loved us so very, very passionately that He determined to save us from hell and all the power of sin.

Does a God who loves so fervently, so ardently, that He suffered and died as one of us, love us only if we're perfect? Does He love us only if we're pretty? Only if we're thin? Can we say we respect the body because we're pro-life even as we denigrate our own flesh by denying it should exist?

Of course not. Deus incarnatus est. God is in the body. God is in the flesh. God is with us - Emmanuel. Sent for all of us, not only for the thin, not only for the pretty, not only for those who are "worthy" - because not one of us is worthy of Him.

Be yourselves incarnate. Be of the flesh, because God loves us, because God loves our flesh. Respect your body as much as you respect any other's. Celebrate your own incarnation as you celebrate His, as I celebrate mine on the same day.

Deus incarnatus est!