O, Holy Night

Merry Christmas, everyone. I leave you with this striking image which is featured on the cover of this week's Magnificat. Via Google (search string was "Giotto nativity detail") I found an excellent scan of it here, and fixed it up. It was painted in 1305, almost exactly 700 years ago. Just look at it for awhile. Pretty "wow", huh? That's God on the left and His Mom on the right. If the story is true, it changes everything. And the story is true, so everything is changed...




The Beginning of The Gospel of John

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

...

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man's decision but of God.

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth.