December 25, 2009 SOLEMNITY OF CHRISTMAS
25 DECEMBER 2009, 9:00 P.M., 8:00, 10:30 A.M.
READINGS: Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14
SAINT MARY PARISH, VIROQUA
Introduction: We all love Christmas. One of the reasons it’s so attractive to us is because it has so many faces, so many melodies, so many themes. Let me speak of just three tonight (today).
1. First, Christmas fills us with wonder. A priest friend of mine recently wrote a column about something he saw last summer. He was watching some young children playing soccer. In fact, there were many fields side by side and many games going on at the same time. The weather was dark and windy. It began to sprinkle. The games went on. They were damp as they tried to kick the ball from one end of the field to the other. Suddenly, one child who was kicking the ball stopped, looked up into the sky and pointed. “Wow! Look,” he said. Another child gazed heavenward following his direction. Soon all the children on both teams were gazing at the sky. In fact, kids from the other fields stopped playing too and looked up at the sky. The parents on the sidelines were startled. “Can’t our children’s team take advantage of the distraction?” Then, they too were captivated. What was it that caught everyone’s attention so that all the soccer games came to a halt? A rainbow! Simple as that. Yet, spellbinding, dazzling, beautiful. That’s kind of what happens at Christmas. We’re shaken from the mundane nature of life by something in the heavens. It stops us from doing what we normally do. We are captivated by a crying baby, the Word become flesh, heaven touching earth, God becoming one of us. Eventually, the rainbow disappears; eventually the awe of Christmas wears off. But, unlike the rainbow that disappears, the God who was born in a manger remains…in the Eucharist, in you, in me, in us. Reason for our wonder remains.
2. And, that’s a second theme of Christmas: that Jesus remains in the world through us. Thomas Merton reminds us that “Christ is born to us today so that He may appear to the whole world through us all year long.” In The Christmas Carol Scrooge promises at the end of the story, “I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all year.” It could be, said one preacher, that the only Jesus we ever envision is the Babe in the manger. But the Babe became a challenging Man. He is much too large for a manger. And, if you attempt to squeeze Him back into it, all you will receive for your efforts will be powerfully painful splinters in both hands. In fact, He is larger than life itself. His message is proclaimed in words and deeds that come from our hearts.
3. Another theme of Christmas, of course, is love. It was Christmas Eve and a young mother was busy wrapping the very last packages. She asked her little boy to polish her shoes for next morning’s Christmas Mass. And, so, off he went. The little fellow was gone quite a while. When he returned he was beaming as he presented the shiny shoes to his mother. “What a perfect shoe shine!” she said. And with that she gave him a shiny new quarter for working so hard and doing so well. The next morning, when she was dressing for church, she found something lodged in the toe of her shoe – something tiny, wrapped in a crumpled piece of paper. Carefully she opened the tiny package, and inside she found the quarter she’d given her little boy for shining her shoes. Written on the crumpled paper in his childish scrawl were these words: “Dear Mommy, I done it for love!” That’s why we’re here for Christmas. Jesus did it for love. There are other harsher loves too, the love of the poor, love of our enemies. Still, that might well be a motto of our lives. (Point upwards) “Dear Father, I done it for love.”
Conclusion: We are indeed full of wonder at this feast because of God’s love for us. May our love for God and our neighbor grow every day more intense!