Homily for Christmas Day

Homily for Christmas Day

Dec. 25, 2007

John 1: 1-5, 9-14
Provincial House, New Rochelle, N.Y.

On Christmas Eve 3 of us SDBs concelebrated Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in D.C.  This morning we had a modest Mass at home with just the 5 of us who make up our modest community.  Since I wasn't the celebrant at either of those Masses, I offer my modest readership a homily from the archives.

“In the beginning was the Word.  All things came to be thru him.  We saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son” (John 1: 1, 3, 14).

The Word, the voice of God, the communication of God, the revelation of God, was from the beginning.  He was with God; more, he was God.  He spoke when God said, “Let there be light,” when God said, “Let us make man in our own image” (Gen 1:3,26).  The Word overcame the darkness of primeval chaos.  The Word brought life and light.

The Word continued to speak to humanity thru the centuries:  “God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors thru the prophets” (Heb 1:1), but with only partial effect because so many people preferred darkness, chaos, sin.

And therefore God spoke a more definitive Word:  “In these last days, he has spoken to us thru his Son” (Heb 1:2).  “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:9)—not in overpowering form, so that his glory should overwhelm us as the sun does the naked eye; but “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (1:14), humbly “pitching his tent” among us, as the Greek says literally, evoking Israel’s remote nomadic ancestors:  “My father was a wandering Aramean,” the Jewish profession of faith in Deuteronomy declares (26:5).  Today, of course, the Word’s pitching of his tent is a “pitch” for the Boy Scouts.

The Shepherds and the Angel (Carl Bloch)

God fully reveals himself in his enfleshed Word.  He reveals “his glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth” (1:14), not by blinding us, not by stunning us, but by gently demonstrating the Father’s love for us, by inviting us to return to our original status as God’s children, made in his own image— calling us to share in the glory:  “This life was the light of the human race” (1:4).

The true light who has come into the world shines upon us anew at Christmas.  But truly the Word speaks to us daily, is given a kind of flesh in our human voices and on the printed page—not only when we do a formal lectio divina but also whenever we listen to the Word with open ears and open heart.  Every Scripture reading at Mass, every psalm, canticle, and reading in the Hours is an opportunity for the Word to speak to us if we’ll listen.  Too often it seems we’d rather rush thru the Office, this officium, this “duty,” than let it sink in, let ourselves respond to it.

A response to the Word is called for, as John’s prolog brings out:  “He was in the world…, but the world did not know him.  He came to his own” home or his own place, “but his own people did not accept him.  But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God” (1:10-12).

When the Word dwelt among us in the flesh, he called for a response, a yes or a no:  “Come, and I’ll make you fishers of men” (Matt 4:19); “If you wish to be perfect, sell your possessions, give to the poor, and come, follow me” (Matt 19:21); “Do you want to leave too?” (John 6:67); “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is unworthy of me” (Matt 10:38).  The invitation, the choice, the possibility of what might be, is laid before every human being, laid before each one of us.  Christmas reminds us of God’s love and of what we can be.  It invites us to respond.  But truly we are invited every day to respond, to accept Jesus as our Lord, our teacher, our model, our friend—or to look elsewhere for truth, fulfillment, life.

Finally, John reminds us that the invitation, the possibilities, are a gift, a grace.  “To those who did accept [the Word] 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” (1:12-13)—by God’s choice, by God’s call, by God’s grace, by God’s gift.  And to such believers God has given it to “see his glory” in the “Son, full of grace and truth”; and, following the Son, to come to grace, the divine favor, to come to glory thru the Son, to dwell in the truth of God’s love, of God’s fatherhood; ultimately, to pitch our tents and make our dwelling in the home of the Father.

“The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him” (1:18), revealed God as love, most desirous to have us as his own.  Our acceptance is glory to God in the highest and joy for the world.