Unrecognized at His Birth, Rejected by Most Men Today

The world knows and applauds its own.

The "world" has never known Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was made nothing that was made: in Him was life, and the life was the Light of men; and the Light shineth in darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to testify concerning the Light, that all might believe through Him. He was not the Light, but he was to testify concerning the Light.

That was the true Light, which enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. (John 1: 1-11.)

Our Lord told us what to expect from the world if we remained faithful to Him as He has revealed Himself to us through His true Church that He founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope:

[18] If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you. [19] If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. [20] Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also.

[21] But all these things they will do to you for my name' s sake: because they know not him who sent me. [22] If I had not come, and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. [23] He that hateth me, hateth my Father also. [24] If I had not done among them the works that no other man hath done, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. [25] But that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law: They hated me without cause. (John 15: 18-25.)

The coming of Our Lord as the Newborn Baby King this very night as the fruit of His Immaculate and Virginal Mother by the power of the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, had been heralded through the pages of the Old Testament. Even the great pagan Roman poet, Virgil, was given to know, however inchoately, of the First Coming in time of the Son of the God he did not know, Who was using him to help human hearts to prepare room for Him in their hearts so that they might respond to the preaching of the Apostles following His Ascension into Heaven and the beginning of Holy Mother Church's missionary work on Pentecost Sunday:

Now is come the last age of the Cumaean prophecy: the great cycle of periods is born anew. Now returns the Maid, returns the reign of Saturn: now from high heaven a new generation comes down. Yet do thou at that boy's birth, in whom the iron race shall begin to cease, and the golden to arise over all the world, holy Lucina, be gracious; now thine own Apollo reigns. And in thy consulate, in thine, O Pollio, shall this glorious age enter, and the great months begin their march: under thy rule what traces of our guilt yet remain, vanishing shall free earth for ever from alarm. He shall grow in the life of gods, and shall see gods and heroes mingled, and himself be seen by them, and shall rule the world that his fathers' virtues have set at peace. But on thee, O boy, untilled shall Earth first pour childish gifts, wandering ivy-tendrils and foxglove, and colocasia mingled with the laughing acanthus: untended shall the she-goats bring home their milk-swollen udders, nor shall huge lions alarm the herds: unbidden thy cradle shall break into wooing blossom. The snake too shall die, and die the treacherous poison-plant: Begin, O little boy, to know and smile upon thy mother, thy mother on whom ten months have brought weary longings. Begin, O little boy: of them who have not smiled on a parent, never was one honoured at a god's board or on a goddess' couch. (Virgil, Fourth Ecologue, referred to be Saint Augustine as the "Messianic Ecologue," Eclogue IV.--Pollio )

Yes, God had used many different means to prepare the world for the coming of His Divine Son, its very Divine Redeemer. Yet it is that the world knew Him not, finding a place for Him ultimately on the wood of the Holy Cross as He shed every single drop of His Precious Blood to pay back the debt of Adam's sin that man himself could not repay.

We came to know Our Lord by means of Sanctifying Grace in the Baptismal font, getting to know more about Him as He is taught by His true Church through the teaching provided us by our parents, if they had been believing, Catholics, and/or by parish priests and parochial school teachers before the conciliar revolution. Many others came to know Him as a result of the promptings of God the Holy Ghost to seek Him out through His true Church, perhaps, like Saint Augustine before them, discovering the emptiness offered by the allurements of the world, the flesh and the devil.

We are drawn into greater intimacy with the Newborn Christ the King in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance and, of course, by the worthy reception of His greatest gift to us: His Real Presence in the Most Blessed Sacrament.

We have been given that for which the Jews longed to see but rejected when they saw Him in the very face.

We have been given that for which even many pagans longed to see but could not find in the sterility of pagan worship and the exaltation of emperors.

We have been given the gift of the Newborn Christ the King, He Whose very Nativity was made possible for us by His Most Blessed Mother's perfect Fiat to the will of His Co-Equal and Co-Eternal God the Father at the Annunciation, He Who was cared for with such tenderness and true fatherly love by His foster-father, our Good Saint Joseph.

Even in the midst of the sacramental desert of conciliarism, it is still the case that many Catholics have access to the gift of being present at Midnight Mass at a time when most people in the world today do not have access to the true Sacraments.

Do we treat this gift with reverence?

Do we truly adore the Newborn Christ the King?

Do we contemplate on the wonder that is the miraculous manner of His birth and the joy that this brought to the Immaculate Heart of His Blessed Mother who had nurtured Him in her Virginal and Immaculate womb for nine months as He denied Himself nothing of the human experience, being made like unto us in all things except sin?

Do we understand that every true offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is Christmas Day in miniature, that the Sundays outside of Advent and Lent (and the period of Septuagesima before it) and Holy Mother Church's feast days remind us of the song sung by the angels to the shepherds this very night so that that they, the rugged tenders of dumb animals, could adore the gentle Good Shepherd Himself, He who wants shepherd us, the dumb sheep of His flock, home to Heaven through His Catholic Church?

Do we understand that Our dear Saviour, the Infant King born this morning, is born on altars of Sacrifice every time a true priest utters those terrible words at the Consecration during Holy Mass, thus calling Him down from Heaven under the appearances of the mere elements of the earth, bread and wine?

The world did not want Our Lord as His Nativity. There was no room for Him in the inn in Bethlehem. There is no room for Him in the inn of human hearts today.

Will it be this way with us?

We must spend the Octave of Christmas and the season of joy that continues until the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary on February 2, 2014, in wondrous contemplation of the Sacred Mysteries by which the fairest flower of the human race, Our Lady, and her Most Chaste Spouse, Saint Joseph, were given to care for God Incarnate, begging them to have care for Him in the inns of our souls, where He is to be wanted and welcomed at all times as we consider it a privilege to bear whatever cross He sends us for love of Him as His consecrated slave through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary.

The following words, contained in a Christmas reflection of Padre Pio, should stir our lukewarm hearts into desiring to make the greatest Christmas gift we can to the Baby Jesus: a soul cleansed in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance that is ever reading to welcome Him with something approaching the purity and devotion, humility and fervor with which Our Lady, Saint Joseph and all the saints have shown before us: 

The heavenly babe suffers and cries in the crib so that for us suffering would be sweet, meritorious and accepted. He deprives himself of everything, in order that we may learn from him the renunciation of worldly goods and comforts. He is satisfied with humble and poor adorers, to encourage us to love poverty, and to prefer the company of the little and simple rather than the great ones of the world.

This celestial child, all meekness and sweetness, wishes to impress in our hearts by his example these sublime virtues, so that from a world that is torn and devastated an era of peace and love may spring forth. Even from the moment of his birth he reveals to us our mission, which is to scorn that which the world loves and seeks.

Oh let us prostrate ourselves before the manger, and along with the great St. Jerome, who was enflamed with the love of the infant Jesus, let us offer him all our hearts without reserve. Let us promise to follow the precepts which come to us from the grotto of Bethlehem, which teach us that everything here below is vanity of vanities, nothing but vanity. (A translation of Padre Pio's words by Mr. Frank Rega. See Padre Pio Christmas Meditation.)

Let us put aside the works of darkness and all petty grudges that we might bear towards others.

Let us put aside the errors of Modernity and those of Modernism in the conciliar church, whose "pope" refers to "believers" when referring to anyone who says he believes in God even if they deny the Sacred Divinity of the Child born for this day.

Let us pray for all men to be of truly good will as members of the Catholic Church, outside of which there is no salvation and without which there can be no true social order.

Let us pray that we will be maintained always in the state of joy that is with us during this holy season of Christmas.

As Dom Prosper Gueranger wrote in The Liturgical Year: 

This God our Saviour hath at length appeared! and with such grace and mercy! He alone could deliver us from dead works, and restore us to life. At this very hour, he appeareth to all men, laid in his narrow Crib, and fastly wrapped, as a Babe, in swaddling-clothes. Yes, here we have the Blessed One, whose visit we had so longed hope for! Let us purify our hearts, that he may be pleased with us; for though he is the Infant Jesus, he is also, as the Apostle has just told us, the Great God, and the Son of the Eternal Father, born from all eternity. Let us unite with the Angels and the Church in this hymn to the Great God, Jesus of Bethlehem. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year.)

Our Lord is born for us! Rejoice as you pray the Joyful Mysteries today and every day during this holy season.

Rejoice! And keep close to Our Lady and Saint Joseph, begging them to help you to surround the Child Jesus with the love that they did on this day upon which God Himself was born so that we could have, and have to the full for all eternity.

A blessed Christmas to you all!

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, triumph soon!

Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, pray for us!

Saint Joseph, Patron of Departing Souls, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Isn't it time to pray a Rosary now?