As we gaze on the crib this Christmas we are again brought face to face with the awesome mystery of God, almighty and eternal, entering into our human nature in such poor and lowly conditions. Being born of humble parents in a stranger's shed is not our idea of the proper arrival of a VIP! Did God really plan it this way or was it just an accident?

There was of course no accident. The lowly circumstances of Jesus' birth are entirely consistent with the rest of his life. In infancy he had to flee with his parents as a refugee into Egypt. Then he spent 30 quiet years in the small village of Nazareth, where he was known simply as "the carpenter's son" ó no miracles, no fame; just the ordinary daily life of family, community, work and prayer. Later he chose humble fishermen to share his public ministry and travelled the roads of Palestine on foot.

He built no monuments and didn't even have a home of his own: "he had nowhere to lie down and rest". He mixed freely with the poor; with all who were suffering, troubled or rejected. He refused all honours and titles, dressed like the ordinary people and strongly condemned the pretence and external show of the Pharisees and priestly class. He was persecuted for his principles and condemned to a shameful death.

As we celebrate another Christmas we may ask why God chose to "become flesh" in this way? In choosing a life of poverty, simplicity and suffering rather than riches, fame and comfort, what was he saying? Jesus never condemned wealth in itself, and when a good-living rich young man came to visit him we are told that Jesus loved him. But when he walked away rather than give up his wealth, Jesus remarked sadly, "How hard for rich people to enter the Kingdom of God".

Why is it hard? Not because wealth is sinful, but because of what riches, status and power can do to us. Firstly, they may cause us foolishly to believe that we really are better than others; superior, successful, more respectable - "I thank you God that I am not like everyone else". We can become filled with pride, arrogance and greed, all deadly obstacles to entry into the Kingdom.

Secondly, they can drug us into a sense of security and complacency that leaves us indifferent to the existence and suffering of the poor and rejected. We live comfortably in our ivory towers, give the occasional handout to charity and perhaps even pray for those in need. Beyond that, the poor and the social systems which oppress them, do not concern us; a case of "out of sight, out of mind".

The dominant vices of fallen humanity are greed and selfishness. These are the sins which cause and perpetuate the scandal of abject poverty worldwide, in the midst of affluence and waste; sins which cry to heaven for vengeance.

Our Christmas celebrations need to go beyond feasting, decorations and presents. We need to ponder on the dignity and sacredness of every human life and our absolute equality before God, regardless of social status. Spare a special thought for all those babies who will be born this Christmas in circumstances similar to Bethlehem - in rural huts, in squatter sheds, in cardboard shelters, in slums around the world. In them, Jesus continues to be born among us, if we have eyes to see.

1015  "The flesh is the hinge of salvation" (Tertullian, De res. 8, 2: PL 2, 852). We believe in God who is creator of the flesh; we believe in the Word made flesh in order to redeem the flesh; we believe in the resurrection of the flesh, the fulfilment of both the creation and the redemption of the flesh.

1016  By death the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrection God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with our soul. Just as Christ is risen  and lives for ever, so all of us will rise at the last day.

1038  The resurrection of all the dead, "of both the just and the unjust", will precede the Last Judgement. This will be "the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the Son of Man's] voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgement." Then Christ will come "in his glory, and all the angels with him... Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left... And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

1053 Hell's believe that the multitude of those gathered around Jesus and Mary in Paradise forms the Church of heaven, where in eternal blessedness they see God as he is and where they are also, to various degrees, associated with the holy angels in divine governance exercised by Christ in glory, by interceding for us and helping our weakness by their fraternal concern" (Paul VI, CPG 29).

1057 l's principal punishment consists of eternal separation from God in whom alone man can have the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.