If God So Loved Us

With just a few days remaining in the Christmas Season on Sunday, it's time to take a long, loving look at the infant Jesus before we put the creche away for another year. We've had it up for several weeks now and it easily could have become just another decoration which we don't even see now. God so loved us that he sent his Son among us, beginning as we did as a simple, totally helpless and dependent baby. What an amazing contrast...the Almighty becomes a fragile, vulnerable infant. "He humbled himself, becoming a slave, coming in human likeness:" (Phil. 2:7) "If God so loved us, we also must love one another." (1 Jn. 4:11). In so doing, "God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us." (1 Jn. 4: 12).
It is this deep, fundamental truth that inspired St. Marcellin to urge Marists to take the first places at the crib, cross and altar. It is this reality that moved Blessed Andre Bessette, a Canadian Holy Cross Brother, to allow God to bring his love to perfection in him, and through his simple, humble, loving approach to life and people, affect millions seeking to find the path to God.
Brother Andre was a sickly child whose health prevented him from attending school, and, although admitted to the brotherhood, was assigned as doorkeeper because of his lack of ability to do anything else. His humility, his acceptance of who he was, his warmth and compassion, however, were gifts that most of us lack, and won the hearts of those who knocked at his door. His reputation for holiness drew countless pilgrims to that door, asking for prayers of intercession with his favorite saint, Saint Joseph. After forty years at this post and at the age of 88, he died, but his legacy lived on in the magnificent Oratory of St. Joseph, still a favorite place of pilgrimage in Montreal. How God's love transformed his life. How it can transform ours. Yes, let us contemplate the Child in the manger and humbly realize that in our own weakness and simple fidelity to who we are, God's love can sanctify everything we do and effectively touch the hearts of others.
Bro. Rene