Christmas is the Birth of God's Self-Understanding within Us

 

"The Father [the transcendent Ground of the Godhead] turns to Himself with His divine comprehension.  He sees Himself with a luminous understanding of the essential abyss of His eternal being, and out of this pure comprehension of Himself He utters the Word which is His Son.  The eternal birth of the Son is nothing else than the Father's own knowing of Himself.  The Son remains within the Godhead in unity of essence, and proceeds from the Father in difference of Person.

"Now it is certain that if God is to be born in the soul, . . . it must [like the Father] turn in toward itself, must recall itself, and concentrate all its faculties within itself . . . If a person would prepare an empty place in the depths of his soul there can be no doubt that God must fill it at once . . . So you must be silent.  Then God will be born in you, utter His word in you and you shall hear it.

"If we want God to be born in our soul as He was in Mary's soul, we must know what were the qualities of Mary.  First, all of us should inwardly be a pure virgin.  This is how Mary lived, with no thought for anything except the things of God; all her fruitfulness was hidden in her soul.  'All the splendor of the king's daughter is within' [Song of Songs]; this is true of every inward virgin.  Next Sunday - on Christmas Eve - we sing these words: "'When all around was silence and everything was utterly still, when the night had run its course, then, O Lord, Your almighty Word came down from the royal throne [of spaciousness].'  This is how it must be with us: perfect stillness all around, everything in deepest silence.  Then we can hear the Word."

Johannes Tauler, 14th century Germany

Please note:

The divine Source is often called "Father" and referred to as "He" not because God is a male being, but because transcendence, beyondness and formlessness are masculine qualities.  These qualities, are, however filled with a sense of presence that we experience as personal. In addition, the term "Daughter" or "Sophia" could be substituted for the word "Son" because the mirror of self-awareness in which Transcendence sees itself contains "mirror-images" that have their source within the world of immanence, form and flow, all of which are feminine qualities.  Here we might remember that the word "matter" comes from the word "Mater" - mother.

Photo: The moon and Venus, Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 26, 2011