If it's a symbol

And truly, I reiterate, . . nothing's small!
No lily-muffled hum of a summer-bee,
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars;
No pebble at your foot, but proves a sphere;
No chaffinch, but implies the cherubim:
And,–glancing on my own thin, veined wrist,–
In such a little tremour of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct. Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God:
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it, and pluck blackberries,
And daub their natural faces unaware
More and more, from the first similitude.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from Aurora Leigh.

In the Christmas carols that we sing at this time of year, Earth is so crammed with heaven that out of every verse tumble rejoicing angels, stars comet-bright streaking portents, men struck with visions. The presence of God is tangible, touchable. Those of us who are Christian believe that two-thousand-years-and-change ago, our God was physical. Our God was touchable.

There are really no words that adequately express the wonder of that. The Resurrection is a more solemn feast than the Nativity, but if the Resurrection is a deep and abiding Mystery, how great a miracle that God was ever made flesh at all. The Universe was incarnate. The Universe was Man. As a concept it borders on absurdity.

Earth's crammed with heaven

(In such a little tremour of the blood
The whole strong clamour of a vehement soul
Doth utter itself distinct.)

As a Catholic, the body is of vital significance to me. We are not ghosts in machines; our bodies are as vital to our humanity as our souls are. In the quickening of our bodies, each tiny tremor of our veins, our humanity cries out for good and for ill. And God came among us as a man, not throwing on a body like a suit but truly incarnate, sharing with us the experience of a shitting, hungry, thirsty, aching, joyful, delighting, precious body. At that time Heaven was very close to Earth. Today's miracles are harder to see; but they are in each of us, every day, if we can mark the mystery of the mundane, recognise the flame of the divine in - perhaps Gerard Manley Hopkins puts it best -

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Merry Christmas to you all, and to all - good night.