Christmas Conversion
Article written by Fr. Luis Gerardo Belmonte-Luna, OCD
"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light," writes the prophet Isaiah. The birth of JESUS, the Son of God becoming man to reconcile us with Him, is the spark of light on our path. His light leads us to Him while it illuminates our misery.
The celebration of the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the love we have received through His incarnation is also a moment of self-reflection. As St. Athanasius writes, “The Son of God became man to make us God.” Christmas is therefore a time of conversion and to recognize that before our misery the mercy of God abounds. It was at Christmas 1886 that St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus experienced a profound conversion.
She recounts in Story of a Soul that at midnight mass that evening a renewal had come upon her as she had felt charity enter her soul” and “the happiness of receiving the strong and powerful God.”
Immediately after mass, her transformed heart found occasion to show itself in her. The family’s custom was to watch the children take their gifts out of their shoes placed by the fireplace (the French tradition). Thérèse’s sister Celine had prolonged this tradition with Thérèse, who was days away from turning 14, as the baby of the family.
Returning home after mass that Christmas Eve, Thérèse overhears her beloved father express grumpy impatience about it. Seeing her shoes by the fireplace, he grumbled, “Well, fortunately, this will be the last year!”
Thérèse understands at that moment Christ’s invitation to step beyond the wounded sensitivity of her childhood and be healed. Instead of reacting as she would have previously, Thérèse bravely shakes off her painful tears and goes to her father and accept her gifts joyfully. Then she realizes that she had recovered the “strength of soul” that she had lost at age four at the death of her mother. “Thérèse was no longer the same; Jesus had changed her heart!” she explains.
St. Thérèse called this conversion a great gift. From that moment on, she will think of others, and as she later says: "Since then I have been happy."
Regarding the command "Be holy because God is holy," we can say that it consists in making us as God. Perfection, as St. Therese said, " consists of doing God's will, in being what He wants us to be." The mission of the Son is to reconcile us with the Father to sanctify ourselves through Him. The more we understand the mystery of the Incarnation, the more we will approach LOVE to become holy.
Most of our unhappiness is rooted in a selfishness that prevents us from sharing and relating to others. In the depths of our hearts, though, is a manger where Jesus wants to be born and radiate his light and illuminate our darkness.
This LOVE is precisely what gives meaning to our existence, a total love that consists of an unconditional and unique surrender. For us Christians, to celebrate Christmas is to receive the merciful love that is once again given to us through this glorious exchange of the divine and the human. This is what we celebrate, what we share, what we want to live and wish for all those "men and women of good will": that peace, harmony and hope come to us.
Article first published in the Apostolate of the Little Flower Vol. 86, No. 4
Born in Mexico, Fr. Luis Gerardo Belmonte–Luna, OCD had a calling to the priesthood as a child. He spent six years as a catechist and Master of Ceremonies for the Carmelite fathers in his hometown before entering the Discalced Carmelite Order at age 24. He then began his studies in philosophy in Valencia, Spain, among the very Discalced Carmelite community that had sent the delegation of friars who settled in San Antonio in 1926, entering the U.S. from Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. He then attended Teresianum Pontifical Theological Faculty in Rome, where he again served as Master of Ceremonies with the Carmelites. He was ordained in 2007.
