The process does not stop at man, Sheen said. A higher life exists above man and that is God.
“If man is ever to be lifted up,” Sheen said, “God, in some way, must come down to man.”
Sheen gave a picturesque overview of the annunciation of the archangel Gabriel to Mary, and marveled over the mystery of divine omnipotence existing as a babe in the manger.
Sheen ultimately concluded that Christ did not come “to make us nice people.” Instead, he “came to make us new men, to change our natures, because everything else in nature is changed by being lifted up.”
“Suppose any of us who are just creatures, just men, certainly began to be children of God, so that the divine nature began to pulsate within us; so that we were lifted up by offering our human nature as Mary offered the first human nature; so that we could in a [inaudible] way be united with the divine person; so that his truth with all that great wisdom would begin to flood our mind and that his will and his love would begin to possess us and would begin to impregnate and suffuse itself over every single love that we had. Oh if that ever came to pass and it does come to pass. That would be the meaning of Christmas,” Sheen said.
In his conclusion, he stated that God came to earth to make us other sons of God, “more than just human beings.”
Those who feel unworthy of God’s love will say that they are a “beast” or “foul” and “dare not be lifted up.”
But Sheen said: “Remember that he was laid in a manger and his companions were beasts. That is our hope, our joy, our peace, our merry Christmas.”
Joseph Bukuras is a staff writer at the Catholic News Agency. Joe holds a bachelor’s degree in Political Science from The Catholic University of America. He has interned in the U.S. House of Representatives, on a U.S. Senate campaign, in the Massachusetts State House of Representatives, and at the Susan B. Anthony List. He is based out of the Boston area.