A Homily for Christmas
[The Nativity, by Rogier Van der Weyden]
All throughout the Advent season, I have been sharing the reflections of Fr. Alfred Delp, the German Jesuit who was martyred during the Second World War, so I think it is only fitting to share with you some of Fr. Delp’s reflections on Christmas. While his Advent reflections came from a series of homilies that he gave to his parishioners during 1941, these reflections comes from a meditation that Fr. Delp wrote in 1944 while he was imprisoned in Tegel Prison. Fr. Delp did not know that that would be his last Christmas here on earth. The Nazis executed Fr. Delp on February 2, 1945.
Fr. Delp first noted that Christmas is often prone to so many misunderstandings. That is still so true today. It often seems that the “reason for the season” is for the stores to make 40% of their yearly profits. There are also the many Christmas parties where there is much food, and drinking and good times with family, friends and co-workers. All of that is good, but where is the real Reason for the Season? How much room do we make for the Christ Child in out lives? Does He make it into our celebrations?
Of course Fr. Delp, and many of his parishioners, were not celebrating during the Christmas of 1944. Their world was being devastated by war. Many were hungry and homeless, and they were very much afraid for their lives. Actually, we still have many people who are hungry, homeless, and afraid. Fr. Delp asked himself, “Is the world more beautiful and life healthier because of that first Christmas?” (Delp, Advent of the Heart, p. 160).
Fr. Delp was able, even while imprisoned, to answer “Yes” because he kept himself in constant contact with Jesus. He took great care to celebrate Christmas with great realism, and he based this realism on three Christmas messages.
“The God Whose Coming We Celebrate Remains the God of the Promise.” If we did not have the lovely music ministry that lead us in our entrance song, at the Christmas Vigil we would have recited the Entrance Antiphon, “Today you will know that the Lord is coming to save us, and in the morning you will see his glory.” While clearly this refers to the relationship between the vigil Mass and Christmas Day, it also reflects a basic principle in our lives. In the seminary we called it “the already but not yet.” We can already experience the Kingdom of God in our lives, yet that experience will not be complete until we live with God in heaven. This creates a tension in us; we have the desire for paradise, we have had our taste wetted, but we cannot have this ultimate desire completely satisfied in this life. Sometimes we grow weary, and seek satisfaction in the things of this life – money, material possessions, relationships, fame, power – yet none of these can truly satisfy us. The journey is not at its end. We cannot allow weariness to cause us to stop; we must keep going, traveling toward’s life’s prize. This is what it means to hunger and thirst for righteousness. We need to remember that Christmas is the celebration of God becoming Man, not our ultimate union with God. At Christmas we celebrate the incomprehensible fact of God entering into human history – stepping into our law, into our space, into our existence – and not only like one of us, but AS one of us. History becomes the mode of the Son’s existence; Jesus is to be encountered in our streets.
“The God of the Christmas Encounter Remains the God of Challenge.” As the shepherds approached the Babe of Bethlehem, Christmas means that we have more of a right to “approach the throne of God with confidence and to plead with Him. God is on our side” (Delp, p. 165). Yet, just because God became a baby in a manger in Bethlehem, does not mean that God has abdicated His role as God. There is a tendency to reduce the divine features from the face of the Child, and later, of the man, Jesus. Some turn Him into some idyllic cartoon character of children’s stories. Jesus is reduced to being just our friend. Others make Jesus just an upstanding citizen and wise teacher and example for all of us. Jesus IS our friend, and the wisest of all teachers, and the model of our life, yet He remains the Lord of all creatures and of all creation. We need to approach His presence in reverence and adoration. “These smiling eyes of the Child will someday focus on us in mature, solemn examination and judgment” (Delp, p. 166). With that in mind, we will recognize that in each encounter with God a response is demanded of us. Will we take up the mission that Jesus entrusts to us, or will we turn away? In the Gospel reading for Christmas Day, St. John writes, “He came to what was His own, but His own people did not accept Him.” Have we accepted Him into our lives; not only as the cute child in the Christmas manger, but as our Lord and Savior triumphing on the Cross?
“The God over Whose Coming We Rejoice Remains the God of Trials.” Often after we have encountered Christ Jesus in our lives, and we have taken up our cross to follow Him as His disciple it seems as if Jesus leaves us alone with our burden. In order to avoid the temptation to despair we need to think of Mary. At the Annunciation the Angel told her that God was entrusting to her a great mission, to be the Mother of God. In her “Yes,” her “Fiat,” Mary had really given herself to God; she held nothing back. Her “Yes” to God was unconditional. And then God was silent. Joseph, the righteous man, and her betrothed looked at her with questioning eyes when she told him that she was with child by the power of the Holy Spirit. Mary undoubtedly felt alone. Yet God was with her. What joy she must have felt when Joseph rushed to her after his dream, which we hear in the Gospel of the Christmas Vigil, especially when he told her that the angel told him to name the child Emmanuel, with means “God is with us.” Not only did the dream reassure Joseph, but it addressed Mary’s own aloneness – “God is with us”, God was with her.
We must make Mary’s experience personal. When we face trials and difficulties, like many of us have over the past year, when we feel alone in our struggles, we must recall that “God is with us”!
“We should not avoid the burdens God gives us. They lead us into the blessing of God….God becomes Man…. And Man has become something more, something mightier. Let us trust life because this night must lead to light. Let us trust life because we do not have to live it alone. God lives it with us” (Delp, p. 170).
