A Christmas Homily

In front of stores, leading up to Christmas, we see people next to red kettles and ringing bells. In West Bend, WI recently there was a popular miniature horse doing the same.  The money which the Salvation Army raised in this way provides a Christmas celebration for many who cannot afford one.  Thousands receive a special meal at the Wisconsin Center in downtown Milwaukee and thousands who cannot leave home receive a meal delivered to them.  It's a beautiful tradition, but it doesn't compare to what God did.

Quoting from 2 Corinthians 8: 9, Pope Francis said: "He became poor, so that by his poverty, you might become rich."  The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity set aside his power and glory. He emptied himself and became poor.  The Pope said: "God's becoming human is a great mystery."  The reason behind it, he said, is one word--"Love."  It's a love that identifies totally with poor humanity.  He continued: "God did not let our salvation drop down from heaven, like someone who gives alms from their abundance."  God became poor.

In other words, the Son of God left his place not to become a bell-ringer asking for help, nor to become a servant, bringing meals to the hungry.  Rather, he became the one in need--in need of shelter when every door was closed to him, in need of safety when a wicked king wanted to kill him, and his family had to flee, becoming refugees and finding a home in Africa, in Egypt. He became the one in need of humanity's love.

This is what inspired St. Francis of Assisi to become "the Poor One."  It's what inspires all who understand the lengths to which God went to prove his love.

The Prologue of John's Gospel (1: 1-18), which is the Gospel used for Mass on Christmas Day, employs a chiastic structure.  Themes in the first verses are repeated in the second half of the passage.  This technique is designed to draw attention to the central verse or idea.  We often think this climactic verse is verse 14--"The Word became flesh"-- but it isn't.  The center of the chiastic structure of the Prologue is found in verses 12 and 13: "But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man's decision but of God."  

We are the focus here.  We are the reason for Christmas.  You and I are the focus of God's attention and love.  God took flesh, became one of us, and shared in the human condition, so that we could become children of God.  God stooped to our level and shared our poverty so that we could rise to God's level and share in the richness of divinity.  As the Collect Prayer at Christmas Day Mass goes: "O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity."  

This is only possible through grace. Verse 16 is: "From his fullness we have all received, grace in place of grace...."  The grace of God's covenant with the Chosen People is now superseded by the grace of a new covenant meant for all people.  Emptying himself to become one with humanity, the Divine Son has united himself with every human person.  The Second Vatican Council document "Gaudium et Spes" #22 puts it this way:  "For, by his incarnation, he, the son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man."  

And so we, the baptized who have been born of God and are truly his children, now try to live and love as Jesus did.  Inspired by his total self-giving love, we strive to empty ourselves of self-interest and to put our attention where God put it--our God's other children, our brothers and sisters.  

We do this when we give them the greatest gift--time.  Without time, we have nothing else.  When we run out of time, we come to the end of our lives on earth.  Time is God's gift to us and we show our gratitude by giving time to God and to our neighbors.  When we pray, we share God's loving concern for friends, relatives, and all people, including our enemies.  In our Daily Offering we pray for their ultimate well-being as we offer ourselves with Jesus who continues to offer himself to the Father in the Eucharistic celebration.   Though our offering may seem poor, it is made rich because it is joined to the perfect offering of Jesus.

God in the Flesh, a Real Baby

I was going to post a picture of the newborn Jesus in the manger, but most religious art does not do justice to the reality that the Son of God became an honest-to-goodness baby.  I blogged about this in 2009.

And so, whenever I give retreats and talk about the Nativity, I quote Fr. Al Lauer, a priest of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati and founder of Presentation Ministries,  who died of cancer in 2002 at the age of 55. His description in one of his daily reflections that appeared in Presentation Ministries "One Bread, One Body," is one of the best that I've come across.  He wrote:

"He emptied Himself (Phil 2: 7) when He became a helpless Infant. The all-powerful Creator of the world could not walk, talk, or roll over. The second Person of the blessed Trinity talked baby-talk, wet His diapers, and spit out His food. Almighty God weighed just a few pounds, shivered, cried, and nursed at His mother's breast.  

"The message of Christmas and God's incarnation is shocking. He Who created the billions of galaxies with billions of stars, Who created the countless creatures on this little planet, became completely dependent on His parents, just like us. It seems almost blasphemous to suggest that God became a weak human being. Yet He did, out of love for us.... The meaning of Christmas is shocking, but ultimately, it is love."

Yesterday Karen from Nebraska called the Apostleship of Prayer office. Her favorite video among the hundreds of two minute daily reflections that we've produced over the past six years is called "A Helpless Baby."  In it I quote Fr. Lauer.

Pope Benedict said a similar thing in his Midnight Mass Homily of 2008.  He said:

"God stooped down--he himself comes down as a child to the lowly stable, the symbol of all humanity's neediness and forsakenness. God truly comes down. He becomes a child and puts himself in the state of complete dependence typical of a newborn child. The Creator who holds all things in his hands, on whom we all depend, makes himself small and in need of human love. God is in the stable."

Last year in his Midnight Mass Homily, Pope Francis echoed these thoughts:

"God has entered our history; he has shared our journey. He came to free us from darkness and to grant us light. In him was revealed the grace, the mercy, and the tender love of the Father: Jesus is Love incarnate. He is not simply a teacher of wisdom, he is not an ideal for which we strive while knowing that we are hopelessly distant from it. ... Let us pause before the Child, let us pause in silence. ... Let us thank the Lord for having given Jesus to us.  ... We bless you, Lord God most high, who lowered yourself for our sake. You are immense, and you made yourself small; you are rich and you made yourself poor; you are all-powerful and you made yourself vulnerable."

Blessed and Peaceful Christmas Eve to all!

Christmas: The God Who Comes Close

I presided and preached at my Jesuit community’s Christmas celebration today. The readings were from the Mass During the Day: Isaiah 52: 7-10; Hebrews 1: 1-6; John 1: 1-18.

“How beautiful are the feet of him who brings glad tidings, announcing peace, bearing good news.”  So says Isaiah. He goes on: “They shout for joy for they see directly, before their eyes, the Lord….”  We are filled with joy because we don’t see before our eyes “prophets” through whom “God spoke in partial and various ways,” as the second reading says. We see “directly, before our eyes,” because God has been made manifest, “the Word became flesh.”

In his Midnight Mass Homily of 2008, Pope Benedict spoke about our first experience of God being one of distance. God is so far above and beyond us. But then, referring to a medieval theologian by the name of William of St. Thierry, he said: “God became a child. He made himself dependent and weak, in need of our love. Now—this God who has become a child says to us—you can no longer fear me, you can only love me.” 

This is the good news, the Gospel of Joy!

God became lowly in order to raise us up.  God became human in order to make us divine, as our opening prayer said: “O God, … grant we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

This is the miracle of the Incarnation: God, “the Word became flesh.”  This is the miracle of Baptism that John writes about in the Gospel.  Through Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection, we have been given the “power to become children of God,” to be “born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God.”  This is the miracle of the Eucharist. The Son of God became flesh in order to give his flesh for the life of the world. He makes that offering present in every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and he unites his flesh to ours in a “Holy Communion.” 

This is “Evangelii Gaudium,” the Gospel of Joy.  As you know, that’s the title of Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation in which I’m told the word “joy” appears in one form or another 110 times.

What is the reason, the source of this joy?

In section #164, speaking about catechesis, Pope Francis writes that on our lips “the first proclamation must ring out over and over.”  What is that proclamation? “Jesus Christ loves you. He gave his life to save you. And now he is living at your side every day to enlighten and free you.” 

In other words, God is close, very close to each of us. This knowledge is “first,” according to Pope Francis, because it is “principal.” It is most important. It is the foundation of our lives. He goes on to say that this proclamation is principal because it is “the one which we must hear again and again in different ways, the one which we must announce one way or another….”

All are called to hold fast to this proclamation and to announce it.  But, quoting from Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation about priests, Pastores Dabo Vobis, Pope Francis writes: “For this reason too, ‘the priest—like every other member of the Church—ought to grow in awareness that he himself is continually in need of being evangelized.’”  We priests need the Gospel of Joy, a deeper awareness that Jesus Christ loves us, gave his life for us, and is now living at our side every day.

As Jesuits we’ve been given a gift that helps us go deeper in this awareness. Through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, we don’t just think about how God has come close to us. We, as it were, “see directly.” Through the imagination and bringing the senses into our prayer, we experience the birth of Jesus. In this way the familiar stories and the high theology of the first chapter of John, do not remain here, in our heads, but enter our hearts where they can transform us. 

The Bridegroom of Souls

As far as I can determine, December 21 is the only day of the year when there is a Mass reading from Song of Songs, a title which basically means “The Best Song.” It’s also known as Canticle of Canticles and The Song of Solomon who is thought to have been its author.  This Old Testament book consists of a series of love poems and it’s the only book in the Bible that never mentions God. 

The Mass readings for December 21 offer an option to be used instead of the passage from Song of Songs 2: 8-14 which begins “Hark! My lover—here he comes springing across the mountains, leaping across the hills.”  This passage accompanies Luke 1: 39-45, the story of the Visitation when Mary, bearing the newly conceived Son of God in her womb, went to visit her kinswoman Elizabeth.

Jesus is the “lover” who travels across mountains and hills.  Jesus is God-in-the-flesh who, like any lover, wants to be with his beloved. He wants to be with humanity.  He wants to unite himself to each one of us.

I suspect that a second option is offered for the first Mass reading for December 21 because some people are squeamish when it comes to the love poetry of Song of Songs.  Various Biblical scholars have even described it as a celebration of erotic love which some might judge has no place in sacred writings. Yet erotic love or eros is not by its nature sinful.  It is only sinful when it becomes infected with lust which turns another person into an object to be used for pleasure.  In fact, God, who St. John declares is Love, is the origin of eros. God loves each person with a passionate love that is eros.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote about this in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) which was issued on Christmas Day, 2005.  Writing about Song of Songs, he said: “According to the interpretation generally held today, the poems contained in this book were originally love-songs, perhaps intended for a Jewish wedding feast and meant to exalt conjugal love.”  He then wrote about eros and another form of love, agape, or self-sacrificing love: “God loves, and his love may certainly be called eros, yet it is also totally agape.  The Prophets, particularly Hosea and Ezekiel, described God's passion for his people using boldly erotic images.”

In his 2007 Message for Lent, Pope Benedict explained this interplay of eros and agape in God. He wrote: “These biblical texts indicate that eros is part of God's very Heart: the Almighty awaits the ‘yes’ of his creatures as a young bridegroom that of his bride. … Dear brothers and sisters, let us look at Christ pierced on the Cross! He is the unsurpassing revelation of God's love, a love in which eros and agape, far from being opposed, enlighten each other. On the Cross, it is God himself who begs the love of his creature: He is thirsty for the love of every one of us.”

This is the meaning of Christmas. God loves humanity and each individual so much that he sacrifices himself, empties himself, so that we could be one with him forever. Love desires union with the beloved and God sacrificed all in order to be one with us. 

It should be no surprise that the erotic poetry of Song of Songs is in the Bible. While expressing the passion of human romantic love, it also reveals the passionate love of God who has traditionally been called “The Bridegroom of the Soul.”

 

Advent Hope

We're in the final days of Advent, days of expectation and hope.  Many people, especially children, are hoping to find certain things under the Christmas tree. Such hopes are not very big.  God's hope for us is much bigger and as we prepare for Christmas we want to share that hope.

The world today and life in general offer plenty of opportunities to lose hope.  Pope Francis, following Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, has emphasized the need for hope. Hope is more than "wishful thinking."  We can say, "I hope it won't snow so that our Christmas travel plans won't be affected," but there is nothing we can do to stop the snow. However, if we are a student and say, "I hope I pass the test,"--that's a hope that we can do something about. We can study to make sure our hope is realized!

Hope is active.  It involves effort so that what we are hoping for is attained. 

So, what is God's hope for us and how do we share that hope? God's hope is for loving union with us. God created us to be one with him forever in the kingdom of heaven. This is why God became human, uniting in one person two natures--human and divine. That's the mystery we will be celebrating in a few days.  Because God is Love, he cannot force his hope upon us.  We are free to reject God's hope for us.  Advent and in fact our entire life is a preparation to accept God's hope for us once and for all when God comes to us at the end of our earthly lives. 

In his General Audience of November 27, 2013, Pope Francis said: "If my life has been a journey with the Lord, a journey of trust in his immense mercy, I will be prepared to accept the final moment of my earthly life as the definitive, confident abandonment into his welcoming hands, awaiting the face to face contemplation of his Face. This is the most beautiful thing that can happen to us: to contemplate face to face the marvelous countenance of the Lord, to see Him as he is, beautiful, full of light, full of love, full of tenderness. This is our point of arrival: to see the Lord."

On that first Christmas, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us" (Luke 2: 15).  May we be as eager as they were to see the Lord face to face.  May we have the same hope that God has for us and live in a way that leads to the realization of that deep hope. 

"God Became Poor"

The symbol for the evangelist John is an eagle.  The theology of his gospel is soaringly high.  He begins his gospel writing about the Word or "Logos" which in the Greek world stood for Wisdom.  The early Fathers of the Church said that John found the wisdom about which he wrote at the breast of Jesus during the Last Supper.  When he drew near to the Heart of Jesus he drank from the source of wisdom and was able to soar into the heights that his gospel takes us. 

Every year, during the Mass of Christmas Day, we hear the beginning of John's gospel.  We hear: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word as with God, and the Word was God."  As the Word, Jesus is the perfect communication of God the Father.  According to the beginning of the Letter to the Hebrews, before Jesus came, "God spoke in partial and various ways...."  In Jesus, the Word, God did not speak partially but in the fullest way possible.  Jesus is the complete revelation of who God is. 

As the saying goes, "actions speak louder than words."  So "the Word became flesh."  God took flesh so that humanity would not only hear about or hear from God, but would see and touch and experience God in the flesh. 

St. Ignatius Loyola, in his Spiritual Exercises, invites people to not only read about Jesus, nor to simply think about the scenes in the gospels, but to use the imagination to experience them.  Jesus is the Living Word whom we encounter in the gospels. 

I don't think St. Ignatius' insight is original.  It was this same motivation--to not only read about the birth of Jesus but to experience it as though one were actually present--that led St. Francis of Assisi in 1223 to create what many have called the first Nativity scene.  In Greccio, Italy he brought together an ox and an ass, a manger and hay, so that people would experience for themselves what it must have been like for Jesus to be born.  He wanted them to not only hear the gospel but to see the baby Jesus with the eyes of their hearts. 

At Midnight Mass in 2011 Pope Benedict said the following about this: 

"Francis discovered Jesus' humanity in an entirely new depth. ... This human existence of God became most visible to him at the moment when God’s Son, born of the Virgin Mary, was wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. ... For God’s Son to take the form of a child, a truly human child, made a profound impression on the heart of the Saint of Assisi, transforming faith into love. ... In the child born in the stable at Bethlehem, we can as it were touch and caress God.

"This has nothing to do with sentimentality. It is right here, in this new experience of the reality of Jesus’ humanity that the great mystery of faith is revealed. Francis loved the child Jesus, because for him it was in this childish estate that God’s humility shone forth. God became poor. His Son was born in the poverty of the stable. In the child Jesus, God made himself dependent, in need of human love, he put himself in the position of asking for human love – our love."

God came to save the world not with a purifying and destroying flood, not with legions of soldiers nor armies of angels, not with thunderbolts.  God did not come with violence to impose His will on humanity nor to force people to be good.  God came as a poor, weak baby to attract our attention and our love. 

This is completely contrary to human or worldly wisdom.  Yet, whose birthday is remembered annually throughout the world?  Is it Nebuchadnezzar's?  Is it Alexander the Great's?  Is it the birthday of Caesar, Julius or Tiberius or one of the others?  Is it Napolean's?  Or Adolph Hitler's?  Or Stalin, who once asked, "The Pope? How many divisions does he have?" 

It is the birthday of Jesus that the world remembers every year.  It is His example that inspired St. Francis that great lover of the humanity of Jesus, of the Christ Child.  It is their example--Jesus and His close follower Francis--that continues to inspire people today.

Love is the only power capable of changing hearts and changing the world.  In his First Letter, John wrote "God is love."  Jesus is love in word, in action, in the flesh.  Now we, as members of His Body, make Him present today.  Let us draw near with our imaginations to the Baby Jesus and show Him our love by promising to love those for whom He became a baby and suffered and died.  Let us commit ourselves to be peace-makers as we read these words from Pope Benedict's 2011 homily at Midnight Mass:

"God has appeared – as a child. It is in this guise that he pits himself against all violence and

brings a message that is peace. At this hour, when the world is continually threatened by violence in so many places and in so many different ways, when over and over again there are oppressors’ rods and bloodstained cloaks, we cry out to the Lord: O mighty God, you have appeared as a child and you have revealed yourself to us as the One who loves us, the One through whom love will triumph. And you have shown us that we must be peacemakers with you. We love your childish estate, your powerlessness, but we suffer from the continuing presence of violence in the world, and so we also ask you: manifest your power, O God. In this time of ours, in this world of ours, cause the oppressors’ rods, the cloaks rolled in blood and the footgear of battle to be burned, so that your peace may triumph in this world of ours."

The First Tabernacle

Today and last Friday the Gospel at Mass was the story of the Visitation, how, after Mary heard that her kinswoman Elizabeth was pregnant, she raced off from Galilee to Judea to help her.  As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby in her womb leaped and she, filled with the Holy Spirit, made an act of faith in the fruit of Mary's womb.  She recognized that Mary was "the mother of my Lord," that she carried within her the Son of God. 

As the celebration of the birth of Jesus draws closer, I often think about a book that George Peate wrote called Unborn Jesus Our Hope.  It is a beautiful meditation on the first nine months of Jesus' life when Mary carried Him in her womb.  Recently the Unborn Word Alliance published on their blog, Unborn Word of the Day, a series of pictures of shrines and art that show the Christ Child in Mary's womb. 

As we believe that Jesus was truly present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, within the womb of Mary s

o we believe that He is present in the tabernacles of our churches.  This is the "Hidden Jesus," an expression that the Fatima seer Francisco Marto used when he spent hours adoring Jesus in the tabernacle of his parish church. 

In his encyclical on the Eucharist #55, Blessed John Paul II made thisame connection between Mary's womb and the tabernacle:  "When, at the Visitation, she bore in her womb the Word made flesh, she became in some way a “tabernacle” – the first “tabernacle” in history – in which the Son of God, still invisible to our human gaze, allowed himself to be adored by Elizabeth, radiating his light as it were through the eyes and the voice of Mary."

The Annunciation, the Visitation, and Christmas are Eucharistic mysteries, for Jesus was only able to give His Body and Blood to us because He first took flesh in Mary's womb, was carried there for nine months, and was born.  May the coming celebration of Christmas during this Year of Faith increase our faith in the Christ Child's hidden presence in Mary's womb and in the Holy Eucharist.

The Christmas Dog

While the Scriptures do not mention a dog at the first Christmas, it makes sense that there was one there. The shepherds probably had a dog or two to help them guard their sheep and the dog would have naturally followed them to Bethlehem. Yet, few Nativity scenes show a dog.

This year, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, Msgr. Robert Ritchie added a dog modeled after his own dog "Lexington." In fact, Demetz Art Studio in Ortisei, Italy, the same studio that carved the other figures in the Cathedral's Creche, created the Christmas dog as well.

One of my favorite places in the Holy Land is the church at Shepherd's Field. The paintings in the corners of the rounded ceilings show the various scenes of Luke 2: 8-20 where an angel appears to shepherds as they were tending their flocks and they go to Bethlehem to see the child about whom the angel had spoken. In each of the scenes there is a dog, barking at the angel

when it appears, racing off with the shepherds, and then adoring the Christ Child with them.

Here's a poem I ran across recently in a 1952 book edited by F. J. Sheed, The Book of the Saviour. It's by Sister Maris Stella and it's entitled "Christmas Carol for the Dog."

This is a carol for the dog
that long ago in Bethlehem
saw shepherds running towards the town
and followed them.

He trotted stiffly at their heels;
he sniffed the lambs that they were bringing;
he heard the herald angels sing,
yet did not know what they were singing.

With tail erect and tilted ears
he trotted through the stable door.
He saw the shepherds kneeling low
upon the floor.

He found St. Joseph watching by
Our Lady with her newborn Boy,
and being only dog, he wagged
his tail for joy.

There stationed by the Baby's crib
he kept good guard through the long night,
with ears thrown back and muzzle high
and both eyes bright.

When the three tall kings came at last
he barked a warning to each one,
then took his stand beside the Child,
his duty done.

Down into Egypt went the dog
when Herod slew the innocents.
He was not wise. He did not know
why, whither, nor whence,

but only, being dog, he knew
to follow where the Family led
to Egypt or to Nazareth.
And no one said

a word about the sharp-nosed dog
who stuck close to the Family then.
And yet, there must have been a dog.
This is a song for him. Amen.

Pope Benedict's Three Christmas Wishes

On December 7 Pope Benedict used a tablet computer to light the world's largest "Christmas Tree" stretching more than 2,000 feet up the slope of Mount Ingino near Gubbio, Italy. As he did so, he shared with the world his three Christmas wishes. As we approach the birthday of our Savior, let's make these three wishes our own as well.

Before lighting the tree, I would like to express three wishes. … Looking at it, our gaze is naturally drawn upwards, toward heaven, toward the world of God. My first wish, therefore, is that our gaze, that of our minds and our hearts, not rest only on the horizon of this world, on material things, but that in some way, like this tree that tends upward, it be directed toward God. God never forgets us but he also asks that we don’t forget him. The Gospel recounts that, on the holy night of Christ’s birth, a light enveloped the shepherds, announcing a great joy to them: the birth of Jesus, the one who brings us light, or better, the one who is the true light that illuminates all. …

My second wish is that this reminds us that we also need light to illumine the path of our lives and to give us hope, especially in this time in which we feel so greatly the weight of difficulties, of problems, of suffering, and a veil of darkness seems to surround us. But what light can truly illuminate our hearts and give us a firm and sure hope? It is the child whom we contemplate on holy Christmas, in a poor and simple manger, because he is the Lord who draws near to each of us and asks that we receive him anew in our lives, ask us to want him, to trust in him, to feel that he is present, that he is accompanying us, sustaining us and helping us.

But this great tree is made up of many lights. The final wish I’d like to make is that each of us carry a little bit of light into the environments in which we live: our families, our jobs, our neighborhoods, towns and cities. May each of us be a light for those who are at our sides; may we leave aside the selfishness that so often closes hearts and leads one to think only of oneself; may we pay a little greater attention to others, give them a little more love. Each small gesture of goodness is like one of the lights of this great tree: Together with the other lights it is able to illuminate the darkness of the night, even the darkest ones.

And from the Apostleship of Prayer in the United States: A Blessed and Happy Christmas to all!

Christmas Animals

I remember being fascinated by my grandparents' Nativity scene when I was growing up. It was a complex arrangement with a beautiful background and all sorts of interesting figures, including animals. I wanted to play with them, but they were not to be touched.

Most Nativity scenes have animals, especially sheep. Though sheep are not mentioned in the Gospel accounts of the Nativity, it seems natural to include a few with the shepherds who were the first to visit the newborn infant. Nativity scenes, like the one in the main chapel of my Jesuit community, usually have two other animals--an ox and a donkey--which are also not to be found in the Gospel but which were probably the residents of the stable where Jesus was born. A few days ago I ran across a Scriptural reference to them: Isaiah 1: 3.

An ox knows its owner,
and an ass, its master's manger;
But Israel does not know,
my people has not understood.

When I was growing up and we set up the Nativity figures, my mother told me to put the animals close to the manger where they could breathe on the baby Jesus to keep Him warm. This passage from Isaiah is another reason to place the ox and donkey close to the crib. They recognize their Creator.

Pope Benedict's Mission Intention for December has been: "That the peoples of the earth may open their doors to Christ and to his gospel of peace, brotherhood, and justice." When someone knocks on our door we are reluctant to open it unless we first recognize and feel safe with the person knocking.

According to Isaiah, while the animals recognized their Master, Israel (and we could add, the world) has not recognized and welcomed Him. Is it fear that keeps us from opening the door and letting Him in?

Shortly after his election as pope, in the homily at his inaugural Mass, Pope Benedict XVI used this image of opening doors, an image that Pope John Paul II also used frequently. Pope Benedict said:

At this point, my mind goes back to 22 October 1978, when Pope John Paul II began his ministry here in Saint Peter’s Square. His words on that occasion constantly echo in my ears: “Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!” ... Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? Are we not perhaps afraid to give up something significant, something unique, something that makes life so beautiful? Do we not then risk ending up diminished and deprived of our freedom? And once again the Pope said: No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship are the doors of life opened wide. Only in this friendship is the great potential of human existence truly revealed. Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation. And so, today, with great strength and great conviction, on the basis of long personal experience of life, I say to you...: Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. When we give ourselves to him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life. Amen.

We have spent Advent preparing to open the doors of our hearts to Christ this year. As we now celebrate His birth, let us recognize our Maker as we draw near to His manger.

St. Ignatius' First Mass

On Christmas Day, 472 years ago, St. Ignatius Loyola celebrated his first Mass. He had been ordained 18 months earlier, on the feast of the Birth of St. John the Baptist, June 24, 1537. He had been hoping to celebrate his first Mass in the land where the Son of God took flesh and was born, but because of the threat of Turkish pirates no ships would sail from Italy to the Holy Land. He settled for the next best place--the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome. This church, one of the major basilicas of Rome, was the first Roman church built in honor of the Mother of God. In it was a chapel dedicated to the Nativity and relics from the manger where Jesus was laid after His birth. If he couldn't celebrate his first Mass in Bethlehem, he would celebrate it there, on Christmas Day.

Christmas is a Eucharistic feast. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity took flesh and was born in order to give His flesh for the life of the world. The Bread of Life was born in a town named Bethlehem, a name which means "House of Bread." His mother placed Him, who would one day say, "my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink" (John 6: 55), in a manger, a feeding trough.

After (and probably during) that first Mass and throughout his ordained life, St. Ignatius cried during Mass. Such tears are a sign of spiritual consolation which St. Ignatius describes in his "Spiritual Exercises" as "when some interior motion is caused within the soul through which it comes to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord.... Similarly, this consolation is experienced when the soul sheds tears which move it to love for its Lord..." (#316). His early Jesuit companions testified that St. Ignatius felt cool and without consolation if he did not shed tears three times during Mass. It got so "bad" that "his doctor forbade him to surrender to tears because it was destroying his eyesight and his overall health. As was his wont, he obeyed his doctors and received even more consolation, albeit without tears" (Harvey Egan, S.J., "Ignatius Loyola the Mystic," page 190).

If we pause and reflect, it will be clear that today, Christmas, is a day of consolation. How much Jesus loved us by becoming incarnate, being born, living our human life with its joys and sorrows, and even sharing in our death so that we who die might share in His resurrection. How much Jesus loves us by giving Himself to us in the Eucharist. If we really thought and prayed about this we would have what Pope John Paul II hoped for the entire Church in his Encyclical on the Eucharist--"amazement." It's an amazement that could even bring us to tears.

"In the Bleak Midwinter"

The other day a member of my Jesuit community asked me if I was familiar with a poem by Christina Rosseti which she wrote in 1872 in response to a request for a Christmas poem from the magazine "Scribner's Monthly." I said "no" and he not only sent me a copy of the poem but also the link to a beautiful rendition of the poem by the composer Gustov T. Holst. So, as my Christmas present to all the followers of this blog and others, here is the poem and the link, embedded in the title:

"In the Bleak Midwinter"

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.
Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.
What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

This is the spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer and "offering it up." Jesus is the Son of God who took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mother. He loves us with a Heart that is human and divine. Having given His Heart to us, He asks one thing, whether we are rich or poor. He asks for our hearts in return.

As we celebrate His birthday, let us give Him the best present, the one that He desires most. Let us give Him our hearts.

Blessed and Merry Christmas to all!

Our Baby God

I wondered about the title I gave this particular entry. Somehow it didn't seem right. The expression "Divine Child" or "Christ Child" sounded better. Yet, the reality we celebrate today is that God became a tiny, fragile baby. The Divine Word through whom everything was created, became a baby completely dependent upon His earthly parents. He cried, had to be nursed and fed, couldn't roll over on His own, spit out his food, soiled Himself, and in time, talked baby-talk. It sounds almost scandalous to say those things, yet they are part of the truth that God became human and lived our human existence, including the first fragile days, weeks, and months of it. If this is at all scandalous, it's the scandal of the cross. The Second Person of the Blessed Trinity began His earthly life on the wood of the manger and died on the wood of the cross. He, the eternal God, could die because He became human, lived as a weak baby and died as a crucified man. This "scandal" is the mystery of love, of what lengths God will go to prove His love for us.

Unfortunately much of our Christmas art makes it hard for us to appreciate this truth of our faith. I have Christmas cards and holy cards that make the newborn infant appear to be a two year old child with wisdom beyond His years, blessing the shepherds and animals and wise men who come to visit Him.


That's why my favorite image of the Baby Jesus is one that a Twin Cities artist, Christopher Santer, painted some years ago. I first saw it when I visited the National Evangelization Teams office in West St. Paul in 2000. In a corridor, on a wall, was a copy of a painting that had Mary raising her newborn infant in the air. And the baby looked like a real baby, with unfocused, startled eyes as though He were asking, "Whoa! Where am I?!" I immediately asked who the artist was and where I could get a copy of this painting. It now hangs in the office of the Apostleship of Prayer--a constant reminder that God loved us so much that He became a baby.

A BLESSED CHRISTMAS TO ALL!