Daniel Mitsui (USA, 1982- )

J.S. Bach. Pastorale, from the Christmas Oratorio BWV 248 (1734). Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, cond. Garcia Navarro.

Reflection

The Christmas mystery has two parts: the nativity and the epiphany. In the first we commemorate God’s humble entrance into human life, the emergence and birth of the holy, and in the second its manifestation to the world, the revelation of the supernatural made in that life. And the two phases concern our inner lives very closely too. The first only happens in order that the second may happen, and the second cannot happen without the first.

The birth of Christ in our souls is for a purpose beyond ourselves: it is because his manifestation in the world must be through us. Every Christian is, as it were, part of the dust-laden air which shall radiate the glowing epiphany of God, catch and reflect his golden Light.
— Evelyn Underhill, The Light of the World (Harrisburg: Morehouse Publishing, 1982).

Prayer

Gracious God, we give you thanks and praise
for Jesus Christ our Lord:
for he was the Word before all creation.
Through him all things come to be;
not one thing has its being but through him.
His life is the light that shines in the dark,
a light that darkness cannot overpower.
The Word was the true light coming into the world.
He was in the world
that had its being through him,
and the world did not know him.
He came to his own, and they did not accept him.
But to all who accept him
he gives power to become children of God.
The Word was made flesh and lived among us,
and we have seen his glory,
as of the only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth.
Jesus, light of the world,
we worship and adore you.
—Church of England. Commomn Worship.