Christmas Homily 2013

As we get older and as people come in and out of our lives, our rhythms and patterns fluctuate, and we’re never really the same person from year to year.

Adults, think back to when you were children and how you celebrated Christmas with innocence and perhaps a sense of naivety, how relatives would fill the house and how smells of food and the cacophony of laughter and ruckus would linger for hours. Now bring yourself back to the present and think about how much life has changed, fluctuated, the people who have left or gone to be with the Lord and those people who are now in your life - spouses and children and grandchildren. You would have never imagined all the details as they have played out.

Children, cherish the joy this Christmas season brings. Truly spend time with your brothers and sisters, give your parents and grandparents a kiss, tell people you love them and laugh with great joy. Really remember and understand the true source of the joy that comes into our world and lives this time of year.

Naturally, this time of year conjures up a longing nostalgia of the past, an anticipation of love in the present and a hope that it will all be sustained into the future.

There’s nothing wrong with that, it is the rituals and traditions of our lives that help give us meaning and purpose to what we do and celebrate.

That brings us to Christmas…

In our lives, these fluxes and changes, the good times and bad are all revolved around unchanging truths, facts and realities: joy, family, hope, friendship, God, salvation…

For so long, people of good will, people who genuinely wanted and desired the fullness of God in their lives longed for this celebration we have every year. For millennia, people who understood this incompletion of ourselves without God, labored through life with little hope of anything more than an eternal darkness. Now, finally, the invincible Lord Jesus has come into the world and darkness will no longer have claim on our souls. The Lord has arrived on the scene and an Epic Tale now commences! We are given, not merely a nice feeling, but the substance of Salvation! From that day onward, humanity would be celebrating the joy, hope and love of that great birth!

What we do tonight, tomorrow and these days ahead is gather in love with family and friends in carrying out this joyous victory of the birth when the King of the Cosmos humbly was born in obscurity, but had a magnificent plan up his sleeve!

The people, environment, and circumstances of our lives change over time. Often we get teary eyed as we get older and as we long for the nostalgia of days and people past. But, we keep returning to this celebration each year in the hope that rests in our hearts. We hope that the promises, realities, and love of Almighty God may be realized again and again in our relationships with each other and with the Lord and in our worship.

The infant is alive and born into the depths of our hearts at Christmas. We celebrate and gather every year in similar yet ever changing ways to recall what never does change, to celebrate what we hope to see and grasp a little better each time. Next year, we will be different. But what will always be the same is the Lord Jesus who is born within the temples of our hearts and souls, begging you to love Him and bring that love into all relationships and all places you go.

Merry Christmas!

Baptism of the Lord homily

As you know, I returned last week from a pilgrimage to Rome. If you have been there, you can surely testify along side me the immensity and the breadth of the beauty that paints the streets, churches and history of that Eternal City. It really is an overwhelming endeavor to take in and process everything that surrounds you and that is overflowing your senses; it will take me a lifetime to reap all the fruits of such a trip. You can take a square inch of almost everything and extract that as a piece of priceless art worthy of thought and contemplation to appreciate its immense beauty and eternal refulgence. 

Rome is a place where the human mind, senses and spirit are lifted higher and you are helpless against the desire to see, know and experience more because, frankly, you feel united to God, history and the saints. You’re lifted to higher places because you’re around and presented by beauty that desires to do just that, history that ties you into eternity. With so much of your surroundings being priceless art and beauty, you need the time to appreciate it and to digest it and find its meaning and message. That is what true art does, and Rome specially affords the opportunity with being immersed in it.

These past six or seven weeks since the beginning of Advent, we have not been passively engaging in events past, reading about and recalling something that happened to and with people a few thousand years ago. No, we have been present with them and have been journeying and contemplating what has been revealed with them. That contemplating is what has been so essential and what truly reminds us just how real and active this has all been, from the lighting of that first candle to the Baptism of the Lord that draws to a close this Christmas season.

Consider the shepherds in the fields. They were simply doing their tasks of watching the sheep and warding off predators. But, from a distance they saw angels and as the angels drew closer, they began to stop and wonder what they were and what purpose they had for being there. Then the angles announce “Glory to God in the Highest” the savior is born! They go then to see this baby laying in the soft glow of perhaps an oil lamp in the coolness of the darkened stable. They gaze upon him and wonder, contemplate who this is and the angels’ message.

Consider the three kings, the wise men who traveled from countries far following a star. The star appeared and, in their wonderment and desire to see their King, they follow it, not knowing where it would lead them, but trusting only in the power of faith and the existence of this star in the heavenly cosmos. Their hearts are restless, they travel with no regard for what’s easier and what’s more convenient or without thought of the possibility that this could lead them nowhere or to their deaths. They travel and contemplate the meaning of this star. Then, they arrive to the humbleness of the manger and present this baby the gifts of a king, a man and a God. Not fully aware what had just transpired or what this baby would become, they go back and contemplate Him on their journey.

Consider Mary, the Blessed Mother. She, if anyone should have had all the answers and understanding of the Messiah, of her baby, but she doesn’t! Yes, she could tell us he weighed 8lbs 4ozs at birth and was 20” long and about his first words or how he would cry all night or when he would have gotten sick and she had to care for him, or when she had to go call him in for supper, or how he struggled with his math and everything else a mother can tell you about her son, but she too had to contemplate her son, God. Scripture tells us she kept these things in her heart and contemplated them. She was in the same boat as us in needing to seek the face of God and to gaze upon Him in the silence of the heart so as to know Him as He reveals Himself to us.

Today we remember the baptism of the Lord when His cousin John baptizes Him in the Jordan and Jesus is set now for His entire public ministry once the Father  reveals Himself that Jesus is the Christ. Again, we need to have Him revealed, we need to have our hearts and eyes set in Him so as to see Him and know Him and ultimately Love Him. Like Rome which requires a lifetime and then some to take in and process all the beauty and holiness draping every corner to fully appreciate and see all that’s there, so too does it take that long and even more to see Him and know Him and have Him reveal Himself to us.

This is truly the vocation of every Christian: to contemplate the presence and the beauty of God so as to have Him more revealed to us so as to know Him and love Him greater. Just as the beauty, history and holiness of Rome leads the human heart mind and soul to transcend itself and attain something higher, so too do the revelations of God pull us to transcend ourselves and fly into His embrace.

This is the message and meaning of Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and The Baptism of the Lord- these last seven weeks of liturgies. Let us take this knowledge, insight and excitement into this brief period of Ordinary Time and seek Him, follow Him and contemplate His face, the very face of Love.

Christmas Homily 2012

     "Once in Royal David's City" is hands down my most beloved Christmas Hymn. Aside from the beautiful music it is written to, the words provoke much contemplation about the mystery of Christmas and leaves the listener, or singer, helpless against the urge to wonder in awe. This Advent, I made it a personal 'theme' of mine in prayer and in my preaching to the parish a particular line from the hymn. It is the first line in particular from my favorite verse:

And our Eyes at last shall see him

Through His own redeeming love

For that Child so dear and gentle

Is Our Lord in Heaven above

And He leads his children on

To the place where He is gone

      Seeing. Isn't that what Advent was all about? Each of us has been preparing to gaze upon the face of the infant Jesus this night - the face of God, the face of Love. 

    
      What do we desire to gaze upon? What do we wish above all else that we could behold? In times of emptiness, loneliness, fear and insecurity, what do we desire to soothe us?

    

      In the darkness and stillness of this Holy Night, our eyes at last see what we need and hunger for. Born this night is the fulfillment of every human heart and desire. Because sinfulness has brought us un-fulfillment, alienation, a myriad of suffering and desolation to varying degrees, we need the presence of something whole, beautiful and true. 

     This night we behold that which was robbed from us in the egregious act of original sin: Life; life to the full and life that makes us full. It was at that first Christmas where we saw the shimmer of Love glistening upon the human heart. It was this Love made flesh that every human soul searched for for centuries. It was This infant, this innocent and vulnerable child, that was the answer to every question of doubt and anguish. It was His promise that we would find in Him everything. It is in the presence of this infant child that everything we need and desire is found!

     Is this idealistic or for the pious? No. He is for everyone, and everyone needs Him. This isn’t just some nice thing that Christians find comfort in or some formula to anesthetize us from the pains and unflattering truths of this world. Jesus is for everyone and everyone needs Him and His presence. The existence of pagan mythologies, plethora of world religions and every other attempt by man to search for and construct god and gods is proof that man, regardless of background, is universally craving this vision of God. For it is in this presence of the infant that we become whole again and find our true wholeness. 

     The infant Jesus, in his crying, cooing and cawing, contains in His entirety what every man, woman and child needs and longs for. He is the reason for great rejoicing this festive and hope-filled time of year. 

     His birth shows us that the Love of an other said yes to Life and allowed the baby to be born, bringing with Him Love to those He will be around. Life necessitates Love, and Love cannot help but bring Life. 

     What do we need to see? Love. What do we need? Life. With the events of this Holy Night, we see and we live! We sit in the manger beside the Holy Family, shepherds, angels and kings in silence just looking, watching, gazing upon the face of Love made flesh. 

     It is a great mystery, one that requires us each year to call to mind these events in a special way to remind us of what we were made for and what completes us. We live lives often drastically void of any semblance of the quiet manger scene and the serenity of the loving touch of Jesus. Let us take advantage of this season of Christmas to carry us forward and make us strong in our commitment to both Love and Life in our world, nation, home and hearts. 

     And our eyes at last shall see Him. We have come to Bethlehem, let us now look upon our Lord and let all other things melt away as we sit in awe and wonder of His presence. 

Merry Christmas

Text of my Christmas homily...

Christmas is always a great time of year for many of us. It is the apex of most of our lives and of our year. It is the canvas on which most of our fondest memories are painted upon.  It is a time of warmth, love, laughter, peace and joy. We come together as family and friends and create memories and exchange gifts out of love. This truly is a great season and holy day and it is my wish it is that for all of you.

But we, as believers in the Good, True and Beautiful God, know there are richer depths to Christmas that are in addition to family, friends, gifts and fun: Our Savior was born! What’s amazing about this is that our Savior: The King of Kings, Lord of Lords and The Prince of Peace came as an infant vulnerable to everything.

The Infinite One became a finite infant

He who looks down on all Creation, now looks up at His mommy

He whom everything belongs is born of poverty and homelessness

The infant hand that squeezes the hand of His mother is the same hand that brought creation into existence and the same hand by which Salvation will be won.

He who is sung to, ministered and adored by myriads of angles and archangels is tended to by a few simple shepherds from the field.

Our Savior, Our God, Our All in All was a baby!

This night we celebrate the simple, quiet, beautiful and mysterious birth of Jesus Christ, God made man. We celebrate the fact that instead of coming with armies and vengeance, he came in utter vulnerability with only coos and caws.

Instead of coming bedecked in Jewels and Royal robes and garments, he was wrapped in dirty rags.

Tonight we celebrate that instead of death, wrath, war and fear marking the entrance of our Savior into the World, He chose the complete opposite.

He desired to show us that His relationship with us remained rooted in Love.

What is a better image of Pure Love for us than the innocence, smile and touch of a child in its mother’s arms?

This defines our Savior: we should be moved to rejoicing!

We give gifts, we come together and have fun, laugh, enjoy each other’s company and feast ultimately because our Savior came in pure Love and we have nothing to fear from Him.

We are only called to Love God, our neighbors and ourselves with the love and affection we would show a baby, a little child. That is the ultimate model of Love, of Salvation, of our relationship with God and others and Christmas!

Have a Merry Christmas