for the time being

This image, by Benedetto Bonfigli, a 15th century Umbrian master, puts it quite well. Mankind awaited salvation, groaning as in travail; and then quietly, anonymously: unto us a child was born, unto us a son was given: the only Son of God. Christmas, like life itself, is tinged for us with the knowledge that this child has come to save us, that even as he lies in the manger, he is on his way to Golgotha to present himself alone, on our behalf, in perfect filial love to the Father. It is easy to crowd around the sublime Christmas crib with the Magi and the Shepherds. But who will stay with this child to the end?

This poem, by WH Auden, expresses the problem of which the Bonfigli painting is the solution.

For the Time Being

 by W. H. Auden

Alone, alone, about a dreadful wood
Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind,
Dreading to find its Father lest it find
The Goodness it has dreaded is not good:
Alone, alone, about our dreadful wood.

Where is that Law for which we broke our own,
Where now that Justice for which Flesh resigned
Her hereditary right to passion, Mind
His will to absolute power? Gone. Gone.
Where is that Law for which we broke our own?

The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.
Was it to meet such grinning evidence
We left our richly odoured ignorance?
Was the triumphant answer to be this?
The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.

We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the Eternal do a temporal act,
The Infinite become a finite fact?
Nothing can save us that is possible:
We who must die demand a miracle.

…and going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him.

Its too bad we no longer have the great antiphons from the old Daily Office.  They are available in various places (the English Office, the Breviary), but they aren't a standard part of the Daily Office in the Book of Common Prayer.  They were "reformed" away.  Here, for example, is the old antiphon on the morning canticle "Benedictus" (Luke 1.68-79) aka "the song of Zechariah" for the Epiphany --

"Hodie caelesti sponso juncta est Ecclesia, quoniam in Jordane lavit Christus ejus crimina : currunt cum muneribus Magi ad regales nuptias, et ex aqua facto vino laetantur convivae, alleluja."

or rather:

"Today the Church has been joined to her heavenly Spouse, for Christ has washed away her sins in the Jordan; the Magi hasten with gifts to the royal nuptials, and the guests are gladdened with wine made from water, alleluia."

What a beautiful expression of the mystery of the Epiphany!  You could spend years unpacking the mystical content of that antiphon.  Note, for example, the references to the nuptial aspect of the Incarnation: that in Christ, divine nature and human nature become "one flesh" in the person of Jesus; that we are guests at the banquet.  Note too the oblique reference to Ephesians 5.25 et seq:  "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word..."

What sublime mystery!  We should bring back the antiphons to our office, at least as readily available options.