Emmanuel
FROM THE EDITOR
Emmanuel’s late longtime editor Father Eugene LaVerdiere, SSS, often
told his audiences with a smile, “My home is in the Gospel of Luke.”
And then he would add, “But I have a very nice condo in the Gospel
of Mark!” That’s nice to know as we soon begin a new liturgical year
in which Mark will be the principal evangelist for the Church’s public
prayer and reflection.
Gene, a respected biblical scholar and a cherished confrère, said and
wrote many memorable things. One of the recurring themes in the
years before his untimely death in November 2008 was “The Word of
God made flesh made Eucharist.” This sentence touches on a powerful
truth: that God redeems through self-emptying love. In the sublime
Christmas hymn, we hear:
O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum. . . .
O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord
lying in a manger!
Blessed is the Virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Christian soteriology is incarnational. Along with the dying and rising
of Jesus, it is the heart of the Good News. Israel’s God was not a distant,
unmoved being, but one who constantly reached out to his creation
in love and mercy. This entailed a relentless movement downward on
the part of God, as Paul instructs the church at Philippi: “. . . Christ
Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with
God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking
the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in
appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even
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