The Catholic Church has taught firmly and clearly that the Bible is a library or collection of inspired books handed down to us by Israel and the early Church. In that collection there are many different types of literature including poetry, drama, history and fiction. Indeed between history and fiction there is a whole range of possibilities covering imaginative re-tellings that may have a kernel of fact. In this respect, the Infancy Narratives seem to differ from the New Testament accounts of Jesus’ ministry and death where no eyewitnesses, the apostles, are presented as the source of traditional preaching embodied in the Gospels and the Book of Acts. Some may object that Matthew and Luke surely got their information about Jesus’ birth from His parents. Yet this is never claimed in the New Testament or the earliest Church writings; and the great difference between the two Gospel Infancy stories make the solution improbable.
The major theme of Christmas can be summed up in the words of St. Luke’s Gospel of Midnight Mass. “Today in the town of David, a saviour has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.” No matter how difficult our individual lives may seem, however worried we are about the state of world, the Church, our families, we are confronted with the promise and hope of a child. The coming of God to humanity as a child is an invitation to all of us. We are summoned to rediscover a hidden part of our ourselves – a place where we will still hope, where we are still capable of being surprised, where we still believe and love.