Homily:
Christmas – Mass During the Day
In
April of 2015, I joined a group of pilgrims on a journey to the Holy Land. I wasn’t leading the trip, like many priests
do, but rather “tagged onto” a trip that another priest was leading; and this
for a couple of reasons. First, because
I wanted my first trip to the Holy Land to be a “personal” pilgrimage, in which
I could just focus on praying and engaging the pilgrimage on my own. This, because my first trip may be my only
one and I wanted to be sure that I didn’t get lost worrying about keeping a
group together. The second reason was to
make a pilgrimage of thanksgiving for have been in remission from cancer for
five years (at that point). This, again,
necessitated that I make a “personal” pilgrimage, instead of a pilgrimage in
which I’m trying to lead a group.
Nevertheless,
on the pilgrimage, I couldn’t escape the fact that I am a priest on a
pilgrimage with a group of lay persons and so, inevitably, I was asked to lead
certain portions of the trip, like celebrating Mass on some of the days (which
I was happy to do). Since that
pilgrimage, every time that Christmas rolls around, I’m reminded of that trip;
and here’s why.
As
I said, the trip was in April. In fact,
the trip left the Wednesday after Easter, which meant that we were celebrating much
of Easter week in the Holy Land. It was
awesome to be celebrating the Easter Solemnities in the land on which Jesus
walked and which was the birthplace of the Church. A certain set of circumstances, however,
meant that we were presented with an interesting situation when the Second
Sunday of Easter—Divine Mercy Sunday—rolled around.
The
day before—Easter Saturday—we attempted to visit the church of the Nativity in
Bethlehem. As it turned out, however,
the Eastern Orthodox Christians weren’t celebrating Easter week that week, but
rather Holy Week. Thus, it was Holy
Saturday according to the Orthodox calendar and the church of the Nativity was
full of Christians preparing to celebrate the Easter Vigil. This meant both that there was a long line of
people waiting to descend the staircase to the crypt to visit the location of
Christ’s birth and that access was about to be cut off since the Easter Vigil
was soon to begin. As it turns out, we
didn’t get to make our visit that day.
The next day—again, the Second
Sunday of Easter for us—another turn of events meant that our schedule for that
day was upended. Our very experienced
tour guide decided to take the opportunity to take us back to the church of the
Nativity so that we could make our visit.
In addition, he arranged it so that we could celebrate Mass there that
day. As it turns out, it was my turn to
celebrate Mass and I was excited to be able to do so there.
One thing to note about
celebrating Mass at these pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land is that, when you
celebrate Mass at one of them, you celebrate a votive Mass for the events or
persons honored at that place: including using any scripture readings that
refer to that event or person as the readings for Mass. Thus, at the church of the Nativity, we were
handed scripture readings for the Mass of Christmas. So, there we were, celebrating Divine Mercy
Sunday, while hearing the readings we heard today, which proclaim Christ’s
birth to us.
It was a striking contrast,
but it immediately made sense to me: for we do our faith harm if we try to
separate the birth of Jesus from the death and resurrection of Jesus; and we
have to recognize that the mercy that we celebrate in Jesus’ death and
resurrection was first made manifest to us in his birth as an infant in
Bethlehem. The message of Christmas is,
therefore, one of mercy: God’s Divine Mercy made manifest to us.
Let’s pause and take a moment
to think about mercy. Although there are
many ways that one could define mercy, I like to think of it in this way: that
mercy is giving something to someone that he/she absolutely does not
deserve. To use perhaps a most common
example: often when we forgive someone, we do so even though he/she doesn’t
really deserve it. He/she has hurt us in
some way and the apology, though sincere, has not restored to us what has been
lost and so he/she does not deserve our forgiveness. Yet, we forgive: often, I guess, in the hope
of restoring the peace and harmony in our lives that was lost by the
offense. Nonetheless, this is mercy:
even if it doesn’t qualify as mercy in the grand sense that we may often think
about it. And so, in light of this, how
is the birth of Jesus a manifestation of God’s mercy?
Let’s take a look at our
Gospel reading. There we find the
prologue of John’s Gospel. In it, he
begins by speaking of Jesus’ “other”-ness: that is, that the Word of God, the
Divine Logos, is not only separate and set apart from the world, but
also completely above and before all creation.
Christ, the Second Person of the one God, existed before all things and
needs nothing of creation to be complete in himself. This Divine Word of God “became flesh and
made his dwelling among us”. Later in
John’s Gospel we’ll hear the reason for this: “sic Deus dilexit mundum...
for God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who
believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life”.
This, my friends, is the
greatest act of mercy ever made. We
sinful humans could not be any more undeserving of God’s forgiveness, yet “the
Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us”. As we celebrate the birth of our Savior
today, let us remember and acknowledge God’s mercy: that we, completely
undeserving of this gift, have nonetheless received it. And let us give thanks, as we do here in this
Eucharist today. Then, as recipients of
God’s unfathomable mercy, let us go forth from here to be generous distributors
of God’s mercy to all those around us.
Given at Saint Mary’s Cathedral: Lafayette, IN – December 25th,
2018
Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord
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