Archbishop's Message

The commencement of the history of the Lord God’s promised new creation (of which we have become a part through our baptism ‘into Christ Jesus’), begins with the creation of the Blessed Virgin Mary as “the Immaculate Conception” in eschatological fulfilment of the Lord God’s word to the Devil, immediately after the sinful fall of the progenitors of the human race, namely ‘Adam and Eve’: ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers (Gen.3:15a).’ Her predestined vocation as the Immaculate Conception was to serve, singularly and indefectibly, the Lord God’s providence for the eschatological fulfiment of all His prophetic saving promises ‘for our adoption as His children’ through the incarnation of His consubstantial Son as our Lord Jesus Christ (Eph.1:5). This truth of her divine predestined vocation was manifestly and magnificiently unfolded to her by Angel Gabriel at the moment of his annunciation to her from the Lord God. Through the grace of Her Immaculate Conception she had blossomed in the Holy Spirit as the Lord God’s perpetual Virgin ‘full of grace,’ girded by the Lord God’s presence and power, ever ready to do His bidding as His humble ‘handmaid.’ And the first service asked of her by the Lord God was to bring His eternally hidden consubstantial Son to meet us face to face by conceiving Him in a complete and truly human nature in Her own womb and through His own power as ‘mother inviolate’ and ‘mother undefiled,’ as the historical Jesus Who saves us from our sins, in exact fulfilment of the promise He had made to David concerning this mystery through the prophet Nathan (read 2 Sam. 7:12-13): ‘You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end….The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called the Son of God (LK.1:31-35).’ Accordingly, when the Blessed Virgin Mary brought forth Her divine Son from womb as His Virgin Mother, inviolate and undefiled, and laid him in the manger along with St.Joseph His father in grace, the Lord God, the Eternal Father, announced this advent of His incarnate Son to met us face to face for our adoption as His children ‘in Christ His Son,’ through His Angel to the shepherds in the surrounding locality: ‘I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people:to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Christ, the Lord. This will be a sign for you:you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of goodwill (Lk.2:10-14).” This ineffable loving act of our God, the Eternal Father, should be the substance of our lively and loving meditation during Christmas Mass wherein we not simply meet His Son, but receive Him and eat Him in His very ‘body given up for us’ to receive eternal life from Him in His Holy Spirit. Our Christmas joy is not quite ‘merry christmas’ with one another. Rather, it is holy joy and solemn thanksgiving to the Eternal Father with the Blessed Virgin Mary for all that we have been brought to become by Him ‘in Christ Jesus’ through this great Christmas event.