In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God

The first lines in John's Gospel (John 1:1-18) combine two beautiful poetic images that celebrate the birth of Christ on spiritual levels that go beyond the bucolic events in Bethlehem. The Word of God is revealed to us and inspired by scripture and prayer as John's use of metaphor speaks to us in the language of the soul and not our intellect. When we surrender to his will, a call, a prompting, we too allow the Spirit to penetrate the depth of our being and join in his birth.  The Word becomes our flesh as we celebrate the birth of love in us and through us and we too become bearers of the light, his light to be lived and shared.

 

Let it be done unto me according to your word. Let it be to me according to your word concerning the Word, Let the Word that was in the beginning with God become flesh from my flesh. Let the Word, I pray, be to me, not as a word spoken only to pass away, but conceived and clothed in flesh, not in the air, that he may remain with us. Let him be, not only to be heard with the ears, but to be seen with the eyes, touched with the hands and borne on the shoulders. Let the Word be to me, not as a word written and silent, but the incarnate and living. That is not traced with dead signs upon dead parchment but livingly impressed in human form upon my caste womb; not by the tracing of a pen of lifeless reed, but by the operation of the Holy Spirit. Let it thus be to me, as was never done to anyone before me, nor after me shall be done

Annunciation Dialogue, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)