Prayers for a very blessed and happy Christmas to each of you. The Lord has blessed me in innumerable ways, but the greatest is being able to serve him in his Church. I am thankful for each of you and hope that my homilies continue to be directed by the Holy Spirit and so continue to strengthen you, the faithful, on our pilgrimage towards heaven.
In the two hearts of Jesus and Mary,
Fr. Dominic
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Homily:
Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord: Mass at Night
Most of you already know this, but before I studied for the
priesthood I was an engineer. And one of
my favorite things that I learned in college was the laws of
thermodynamics. The second law of
thermodynamics is also known as the law of entropy and, although it is
significantly more nuanced than what I’m about to share with you, it basically
says that ordered systems, when left by themselves, always tend towards
disorder, instead of greater order. In
other words, things naturally tend to come apart, rather than come
together. This is something that is
easily observed at both a microscopic and a macroscopic level. Perhaps the simplest example would be to
observe a cup of water. Leave a cup of
water alone on the counter top in your kitchen and what happens? It eventually evaporates, right? That’s because the water molecules, left by
themselves, tend towards disorder; and water vapor is a more disordered state
than liquid water.
An outside force can counteract the effects that this law
of thermodynamics has on a system.
Living systems are an example of this.
Why is it that the body of a dead animal decays while the body of a
living one doesn’t? This is because
there are a lot of internal forces counteracting the effects of entropy: cells
that decay and die are replaced by new ones, the supply of which comes from the
breaking down of cells from other plants or animals which this particular
animal has eaten and converting them into cells useful for maintaining that
animal’s body. The animating life force
inside the animal, which was placed there by God, is the unifying force that
keeps these processes running. When that
life force leaves the animal (in other words, when it dies), all of the
processes break down and entropy continues unabated and the body decays.
This kind of thing applies beyond the worlds of biology,
chemistry, or physics. We can also see
this happen in other, even man-made organizations: for example, a business or
society. How often does a business,
which was founded by someone with a strong personality and a vibrant vision for
what that business would accomplish, fold after the founder dies and is no
longer able to direct the business according to that vision? Once the animating force leaves, the body
begins to fall apart: that is, unless another force (in this case, a successor
to the founder) takes its place.
It shouldn’t be too hard to look around and see that
entropy, at a cultural and societal level, is starting to take hold. Terrorism is rampant in many parts of the
world and, like a vicious cancer, it is starting to infect many of the other
parts of the world where it has yet to establish a stronghold. Meanwhile, our communities are disintegrating
because rapid cultural changes are causing us to abandon traditionally held
values, which have been the animating forces that would renew and regenerate
our communities as members would die or be lost. Perhaps this year even in our own lives
entropy has begun to take over as relationships or career aspirations
disintegrated around us. All of us,
therefore, both as individuals and as a whole, are constantly searching for the
force that can unify us and make us whole.
There are plenty of false ideas out there of what that
force looks like. One of the most
popular ones is on display right now in our local movie theater. The nexus of each of the Star Wars films is
the idea of the Force—an invisible cosmic power that holds the universe
together—and that the Force can be harnessed and manipulated according to the
will of the one who harnesses it. In
many ways, either consciously or subconsciously, this is the motivation behind
our great technological advancements: to harness the power of the universe and
manipulate it to serve us, both to protect us from perceived evil and to bring
wholeness to our lives by using it to reintegrate somehow what we seem to be
losing. My opinion is that it is failing
miserably, but it has created a “reasonable facsimile” and so many of us are
none the wiser.
Still many of us, however, are aware that, for all our
advances in technology, we are still suffering from increasing levels of
disintegration in our lives. And so we
come here, perhaps still in search of that unifying force that has the power to
reintegrate our lives and hold them together and we hear that an angel, at the
birth of a child of a poor peasant couple from a poor town in a heretofore unknown region of the world, declared to a
group of similarly poor shepherds tending their sheep in a field: “I proclaim
to you good news of great joy that will be for all people … a savior has been
born for you who is Christ and Lord.” Good news, they say. This was not news about how the Berries
basketball team has gone 8-0 and so has a real chance at making
sectionals. This is a different kind of good news. The good
news that the angel brings is that of a definitive military victory. Think about what it was like to see the
headline indicating that Germany surrendered to end World War II and you’ll get
the idea. This was news that the
long-awaited one—the one who would reintegrate not only the dispersed people of
the ancient nation of Israel, but rather all peoples of the world—had come to
bring peace—that is wholeness, integrity—to
all on whom God’s favor would rest. And
so, in many ways, this message continues to be good news to us, who are gathered here tonight.
My brothers and sisters, the natural forces at work in the
world that move us constantly towards chaos and disintegration have been
overcome, not by an impersonal cosmic force harnessed by the will of special
“chosen ones”, but rather by a person whose power comes to us when we enter
into relationship with him. Saint Paul,
writing to his disciple Titus, said that “the grace of God has appeared to us,
saving all…” And Pope Francis, in his
letter inaugurating the Year of Mercy, wrote that “Jesus Christ is the face of
the Father’s mercy…” In other words, my
brothers and sisters, it is in Jesus—God, born in human flesh, whose birth we
celebrate this night—that we find the unifying and animating force that can
reintegrate our lives, our communities, and our world and hold them together. This truly is good news of great joy.
Yet, perhaps the even greater news is that tonight Jesus
will come to us again here in this Eucharist.
Just as he came into the world on the first Christmas—quietly, gently,
helplessly, entrusting himself to Mary's care—so he comes to us in Holy
Communion—quietly, gently, helplessly, entrusting himself to our care. God wants to reintegrate our lives, but he
won't force his way in. Instead, he
invites us, he reaches out to us, he trusts us, he makes himself weak so as to
become our strength. He wants to give
forgiveness, hope, and meaning to us and to everyone around us who is suffering
and searching, but he refuses to do it alone.
Instead, today, just like 2000 years ago, he helps us and then puts
himself into our care and entrusts us with the task of bringing him into the
world; to proclaim, like the angel proclaimed to the shepherds, good news of great joy.
Let us, then, open our hearts fully to him tonight that he
might become the force within us to bring reconciliation and healing to a world
so desperately in need of peace. And let
us give glory to God in our thanksgiving for having sent to us his Son, a
savior who makes us whole: Christ the Lord.
Given at All Saints Parish:
Logansport, IN – December 25th, 2015
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