By Stephen P. White
The history of salvation is long. It begins, as we read in Genesis, even before Creation itself. Before space and time were, God already was preparing all that would unfold. The ultimate culmination of that story is as yet unknown, though it has been revealed to us in part. Our own part in the story of salvation is unfolding every moment. And while God comprehends all from outside of time, our own actions and choices cooperate (or not) with the plan which He laid down before the foundation of the world.
We human creatures are not eternal beings; we have a beginning. While our bodies are mortal, our souls are not; there is no end to us. Unlike God, we are changeable - mutable, in the language of theologians and philosophers - in both our mortal bodies and our immortal souls.
From the study of physics we learn about the conservation of mass and energy, by which all the mass and energy that ever was or will be already exists. Carl Sagan famously observed that we are "star dust," which is true in one sense. But the celestial origins of our material existence do not tell the whole story. We are more than recycled bits of the Big Bang's leftovers. Much more.
With the creation of every new soul, an entirely new thing comes into existence. The composition of the cosmos changes in kind, not just degree. When a new person comes into existence, reality itself is altered forever. Souls are not star dust, neither do they pass away.
And so there are new things - genuinely new things - which come into existence every day. Changes - irrevocable, eternal changes - happen all around us. New souls come into being. Souls are marked indelibly with baptism or by holy orders. Souls are parted, for the time being, from their mortal bodies. Souls are judged. And they are saved or they are damned.
The history of salvation, told in something like its fullness, is a story not only of Creation, but of God's continual intervention. God visits His people. He makes covenants with them. He calls them to Himself. He chastises them and shows them mercy. He delivers them from bondage. He keeps His promises.

The central event in this long tale of salvation history is, of course, the greatest New Thing in all Creation. An angel appears to Mary, and she conceives by the Holy Spirit: the Word made flesh. A child is born in Bethlehem. He grows in wisdom and favor before God and man. He is tempted. He is without sin. He preaches the coming of the Kingdom and good news to the poor. He performs great miracles. He is betrayed, suffers, dies, descends into hell, rises, and ascends to the right hand of the Father. He sends the Holy Spirit. He feeds His people with His own body and blood. He keeps His promises.
The scope of this glorious mystery is so vast that it can be difficult, if not impossible, to behold all at once. The Church, in her wisdom, recalls it through the rhythms of the liturgical year. We savor one moment at a time through our successive feasts. The whole is always there, but we encounter it most often in some particular facet: the life of some great saint, the commemoration of great moments in the life of our Lord or of the Blessed Virgin, whole seasons of penance and rejoicing.
It is at Easter, and particularly the Easter Vigil, that the Church draws our eyes to the broadest horizon. We hear the whole story of salvation history, and the full glory and import of the Resurrection is made as plain to mortal minds as our liturgy and praise can make it. Easter joy is cosmic, triumphant, exhilarating. Easter joy is all trumpet blasts and blinding light. Easter joy is apocalyptic in the oldest sense: a revelation of what was previously hidden in the divine mind.
The joy of this season, Christmas joy, is of a different timbre altogether. Christmas joy is humble, quiet, less exalted, somehow more profoundly. . .human. The joy of Christmas is as different from that of Easter as the smile of a sleeping baby is from a triumphal march of the K...

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