Christmas Vigil-2019

The season of Advent is past, and the period of anticipation is complete. Now it is time to commemorate the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, which occurred some 2,000 years ago.  Looking through the telescope of Christ’s Resurrection, the New Testament authors, as well as the Fathers of the Church, reexamined foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, in the writings of the prophets, and they identified Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah.

Why did God want to become a human being?

Ideas affect our actions. The idea that we have of another person affects how we relate to that person. If someone gives me a million dollars, I am going to think he is a great guy, and I will treat him accordingly.

If I find out that a friend has been stealing from my bank account, I am going to think he is a liar and a back-stabber, and my dealings with him will turn cold. Our idea of someone affects how we interact with them. What is our idea of God? What do we think God is like?

As the Catechism teaches us, God is the origin and end of all things, and "man was created to live in communion with God, in whom he finds happiness" (#45). Communion with God, a relationship with God, this is what we were created for. But the quality of that relationship depends on what we think this God is like. Someone who doesn't believe in God at all will have no relationship with him. Someone who thinks God is an angry, intolerant tyrant will have a fearful, unstable relationship with him. Someone who thinks God is a distant and impersonal force will have a cold, distant relationship with God.

God became man on Christmas Night 2000 years ago because he wanted to correct our mistaken ideas about what he's like. He wants us to have the right idea about him, so that we can live in a right relationship with him. To have a relationship with him we need to accept and welcome him in our life.

We need to reserve a room for Jesus in our heart. Christmas asks us a tough question. Do we close the doors of our hearts to Jesus looking for a place to be reborn in our lives? There is no point in being sentimental about the doors slammed by the folks in Bethlehem, if there is no room in our own hearts for the same Jesus coming in the form of the needy. We need to reverence each human life, and to treat others respectfully as the living residences of the incarnate God. To neglect the old, to be contemptuous of the poor or to have no thought for the unemployed and the lonely, is to ignore those individuals with whom Christ has so closely identified Himself. Hence, we all need to examine ourselves daily on the doors we close to Jesus.

 We need to experience Jesus as Emmanuel: The real meaning of Christmas actually is Emmanuel, God-with-us – God coming down to us; God seeking us out; God coming alongside us; God revealing Himself to us; God bringing us forgiveness, healing, comfort, moral strength, and guidance — God dwelling within us. Each one of us has, deep down in our soul, an incredible hunger: a hunger for purpose and meaning; a hunger to feel and celebrate the redeeming, forgiving, sustaining love of God; a hunger to be in the presence of God. Christmas is special because it reminds us concretely that God is, indeed, with us. In every circumstance of life, even when we are frightened or lonely or in sorrow, God is with us. As we celebrate the Incarnation of the Word of God this Christmas, we might make a conscious effort both to remember that Jesus is always with us in our hearts and in the Eucharist and to share our joy in His presence with others.

Years ago a young man was riding a bus from Chicago to Miami. He had a stop-over in Atlanta. While he was sitting at the lunch counter, a woman came out of the ladies’ rest room carrying a tiny baby. She walked up to this man and asked, “Would you hold my baby for me, I left my purse in the rest room.” He did. But as the woman neared the front door of the bus station, she darted out into the crowded street and was immediately lost in the crowd. This guy couldn’t believe his eyes. He rushed to the door to call the woman but couldn’t see her anywhere. Now what should he do? Put the baby down and run? When calmness finally settled in, he went to the Traveler’s Aid booth and together with the local Police, they soon found the real mother. You see, the woman who’d left him holding the baby wasn’t the baby’s real mother. She’d taken the child. Maybe it was to satisfy some motherly urge to hold a child or something else. No one really knows. But we do know that this man, breathed a sigh of relief when the real mother was found. After all, what was he going to do with a baby? In a way, each of us, is in the same sort of situation as this young man. Every Christmas God Himself walks up to us and asks, “Would you hold My Baby for Me, please?” And then thrusts the Christ Child into our arms.  And we’re left with the question, “What are we going to do with this Baby?” Take him with us or leave him back in the church and go home and celebrate Christmas? Don’t we all feel comfortable with Jesus in a manger? And not coming with us and becoming part of our lives? If we take him with us we need to remember to feed him, nurture him daily and make him grow in our life through prayer and sacraments. Let’s make the choice now, take him with us or leave him right here and come and see him only on Sundays?