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> From the Son of God.

> Merry Christmas — from all of us at Church Militant — to all of you and your loved ones. If Thanksgiving was any indication, lots of people will tell their governors and official scaremongers to shut up, and then hit the road to see their loved ones.

> And what is the very first thing they will do? They will hug because they are so excited to see each other. They'll hug so tight, it looks like they'll damage each other's spines. It's always a joy-filled moment that bespeaks a spiritual reality, expressed in a material manner, like the first Christmas.

> People hug really hard as though they would pull the entirety of the other person into them, fuse together, form an unbreakable union so intense that they would practically be the same person, almost indistinguishable. That's what you are looking at when you look at the manger: A union of the divine and human.

> God "hugging" humanity so closely, so strongly, that in this case, they are fused together inseparably. The God-Man. The Man-God. And this is precisely what is going on when we receive Holy Communion. Our Lord was born of His immaculately conceived Holy Mother and placed by her into a feeding trough.

Transcript continues here: https://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/vort-the-hug-of-martyrs