I posted this on my first blogging Christmas....
but I think it bears reposting......

Blessed Christmas to all !
"Let us reflect that the Word left Heaven, and stooped to become man for us." - St. Philip Neri

"His condescension in coming down from heaven, in leaving His Father's glory and taking flesh, is so far beyond power of words or thought, that one might consider at first sight that it mattered little whether He came as a prince or a beggar. And yet after all, it is much more wonderful that He came in low estate, for this reason; because it might have been thought beforehand, that, though He condescended to come on earth, yet He would not submit to be overlooked and despised: now the rich are not despised by the world, and the poor are. If He had come as a great prince or noble, the world without knowing a whit more that He was God, yet would at least have looked up to Him and honoured Him, as being a prince; but when He came in a low estate, He took upon him one additional humiliation, contempt,—being contemned, scorned, rudely passed by, roughly profaned by His creatures.

What were the actual circumstances of His coming? His Mother is a poor woman; she comes to Bethlehem to be taxed, travelling, when her choice would have been to remain at home. She finds there is no room in the inn; she is obliged to betake herself to a stable; she brings forth her firstborn Son, and lays Him in a manger. That little babe, so born, so placed, is none other than the Creator of heaven and earth, the Eternal Son of God."- Venerable John Henry Newman, C.O.

" ' Those of the Old Hope ?' said Finrod. 'Who are they ?'
'A few', she said; 'but their number has grown since we came to this land, and they see that the Nameless can (as they think) be defied. Yet that is no good reason. To defy him does not undo his work of old. And if the valour of the Eldar fails here, then their despair will be deeper. For it was not on the might of Men, or of any of the peoples of Arda, that the old hope was grounded.'
'What then was this hope, if you know ?' Finrod asked.
"They say,' answered Andreth: 'They say that the One will Himself enter Arda, and heal Men and all the Marring from the beginning to the end. ' "- J.R.R. Tolkien, Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth