When we say ‘it is Christmas' we mean that God has spoken into the world his last, his deepest, his most beautiful word in the incarnate Word, a word that can no longer be revoked because it is God's definitive deed, because it is God himself in the world.  And this word means: I love you, you, the world and humankind.  And God has spoken this word by being himself born as a creature.

- Karl Rahner, The Eternal Year (Burnes & Oates, 1964), pp. 22-23.