CHRISTMAS AND THE EUCHARIST: VISITING AND STAYING

Wednesday in the 4th Week of Advent
Lk 1:39-45

In the Philippines, as it is in many places in the world, Christmas is a time of visiting loved ones, relatives, and friends. I wonder though if we know why. Let me suggest a beautiful reason why people make so many happy visits during Christmas.

God was the first to have made a visit on Christmas day. He visited us, His beloved creatures. His visit was such that He took upon Himself our fallen nature and appeared as one like us in all things, but sin. He was not a visitor; He was of our own.

However, God was not contented with a passing visit. He stayed with us. Christmas is Jesus coming to us. In the Holy Eucharist, we have Him staying with us.

While God was the first to have made a visit on Christmas, Mary was the first to have welcomed Him. And with God in her womb, Mary went in haste to make her Christmas visit. The Gospel today paints for us that beautiful visit of the Blessed Mother to her cousin, Elizabeth. Both Mary and Jesus, the God in her womb, paid the favored couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth, a visit. But she, too, was not satisfied with a momentary visit. She stayed with Elizabeth about three months, attending to her cousin’s maternity needs, before she went home. Mary, with Jesus in her womb, is like Jesus in the Eucharist. She came, she stayed, and she served.

The same thing should happen as we received Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Our visits should be visits that bring Jesus to the people we visit. Then our visits become Eucharistic as we linger, not merely pass by, to attend to the needs of the people we go to. When this happens, we ourselves become Eucharistic. If Christmas is Jesus coming to us while the Eucharist is Jesus staying with us, Christmas is receiving Jesus while the Eucharist is becoming like Jesus to others. It is not a choice between the two; rather one should flow to the other. Christmas has its fullest meaning in the Eucharist. Welcoming Jesus in Bethlehem must necessarily lead us to bringing Jesus to everywhere.

This Christmas let us not forget to make our visits truly Eucharistic. Let us stay; and let our presence be the presence of Jesus in us in the lives of the people we linger with. This Christmas let us not visit only our loved ones, relatives, and friends. Let us not forget the forgotten. Visit them. Stay with them. Bring them Jesus.

God has visited us. We surely owe Him a visit. The church is His house; we can always find Him there. But His favorite address is the least of our brethren; we always have them with us.

God stays with us. He truly is Emmanuel, God-With-Us. The Eucharist is His real presence. But we, who receive Him in the Eucharist, are likewise His Body. We are His presence, too. We should be what it means to say that God did not only visit us but stays with us until the end of time.

Christmas is Jesus being born to us. The Eucharist is we becoming Jesus to others.