The joyous challenge of Christmas is to see each person we meet as a small child of God

<em>When he brings the first-born into the world, he says, 'Let all God's angels worship him</em>.' (Hebrews 1:6)&nbsp; The reading from the letter to the Hebrews for the Mass on this year's Christmas Day included a completion of a prophecy from Deuteronomy (32:43): when Jesus was born, angels did indeed worship him, singing "Glory to God in the highest!" God has appeared in flesh, he became visible and so "we have seen his glory" (John 1:15), as the psalmist predicted: “Your throne, O God, is for ever and ever, the righteous sceptre is the sceptre of your kingdom” (45:6).&nbsp; But it is a paradoxical glory: his throne is a manger, his sceptre a piece of straw. He sleeps on the wood of the manger but his glory will climax when he sleeps in death on the wood of the Cross. He entered the world in the reeking mess of the stable and similarly he will leave it smelling of sweat, tears and blood. His glory shines everywhere, but especially where it is most lacking: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (1:5). No matter how chaotic and inadequate we feel, he rejoices to enter our hearts; even if our best is not much in our eyes, it is always enough for Jesus; even if we despair of ourselves, he never even thinks of giving up on us. Joseph was likely crushed by failing to find an inn for Mary, but she and her Son accepted the stable in peace. Not only has God become a child, to prove his gentleness, but he has made each of us a child of God: "to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the power to become children of God" (John&nbsp;1:12). As we look with instinctive delight at a baby, and at the Christ Child, so God the Father looks at each of us with even greater tenderness, no matter how old we are. The real challenge and joy of Christmas is not only to bathe in God’s loving gaze and contemplate him in the manger: we are called to see every other person we meet as a small child of God, even those we struggle to look at lovingly.&nbsp;<br><br>Let’s renew how we look at ourselves and others by first looking again at Jesus, in the Scriptures and in the Eucharist. For He was born small, silent and frail; and he remains with us, small, silent and frail – in the Blessed Sacrament. <em>Photo: A detail from 'The Nativity' (c 1665), by Bartolomé Estebán Murillo</em>.