[18] Now it is good to be shown interest for good reason at all times, and not only when I am with you. [19] My children, for whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you! [20] I would like to be with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed because of you.
(CCC 526) To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom (Cf. Mt 18:3-4). For this, we must humble ourselves and become little. Even more: to become "children of God" we must be "born from above" or "born of God" (Jn 3: 7; 1:13; 1:12; cf. Mt 23:12). Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us (Cf. Gal 4:19). Christmas is the mystery of this "marvellous exchange": O marvellous exchange! Man's Creator has become man, born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity (LH, Antiphon I of Evening Prayer for January 1st). (CCC 562) Christ's disciples are to conform themselves to him until he is formed in them (cf. Gal 4:19). "For this reason we, who have been made like to him, who have died with him and risen with him, are taken up into the mysteries of his life, until we reign together with him" (LG 7 § 4). (CCC 793) Christ unites us with his Passover: all his members must strive to resemble him, "until Christ be formed" in them (Gal 4:19). "For this reason we… are taken up into the mysteries of his life,… associated with his sufferings as the body with its head, suffering with him, that with him we may be glorified" (LG 7 § 4; cf. Phil 3:21; Rom 8:17).
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