Have you ever seen a woman who has just heard from her son or daughter for the very first time the most striking word: ‘Mum”? Have you ever seen a man who has just heard from his son or daughter for the very first time the most striking word: ‘Dad”? You could easily conclude that it made their day or maybe better to say it made their lives. What is so striking about these two words? Do they come from a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature? They come from a baby who, by these words, identifies itself in relation to the mother and the father. These words are a manifestation of the unbroken relationship established between the child and it mother and father.
My Dear Sisters and Brothers gathered this Day of Christmas to worship God who ‘for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.’ As we will recite the Creed after this homily we will fall to our knees at these very words. This celebration of the Lord’s Nativity is not a lecture we have to comprehend but it is an act of adoration. St John, whose Prologue we have just heard, wrote with a profound sense of adoration: ‘The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.’
At the midnight Mass the Gospel revealed that ‘the glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds’ as they attended to their flocks in the fields outside Bethlehem. St Luke who wrote these words in the Gospel used them only once more. It was in the Acts of the Apostles when he told the story of the conversion of Paul who while travelling to Damascus to imprison the disciples of Jesus had a vision of the Risen Christ. That vision left him blind. However that glory of God Paul witnessed left him also grapple with the words he heard from the shining person: ‘I am Jesus.’ The blindness from which he was later miraculously cured was the beginning of his contemplation of the mystery of Christ Jesus. In the Second Reading for this Mass taken from the Letter to the Hebrews we read: ‘At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son.’
As Christians we never cease to treasure the mystery of Jesus. We continuously recall events from his life among us as we read the Scriptures, as we pray them and as we listen to them in our Churches. Jesus Christ whom St John called the Word is not a secret code we need to figure out to gain some higher knowledge. Jesus Christ who St John called the Word by his life, death and Resurrection conveys that we are God’s sons and daughters. Mary, Joseph and the shepherds from Bethlehem were the first to look at the little baby no just because he was so cute but because that baby who couldn’t say a word at that time was God who by his very human presence was telling them who they were for God.
If words ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’ from a baby send the waves of joy, love and peace to the mother and the father of the baby, the human life of Jesus Christ, who was manifested in Bethlehem, sends the waves of joy to me, and I pray it can affect you similarly, as it tells me and you what God thinks of us: my son, my daughter. These words are a manifestation of the unbroken relationship established between us and our heavenly Father.
My Dear fellow believers! I pray so that as we raise, after falling to our knees at the mystery of God made man, we may also raise to new life which is all about living who we are: God’s sons and daughters.
That’s what makes Christmas merry.
Merry Christmas Sons and Daughters of God!
My Dear Sisters and Brothers gathered this Day of Christmas to worship God who ‘for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.’ As we will recite the Creed after this homily we will fall to our knees at these very words. This celebration of the Lord’s Nativity is not a lecture we have to comprehend but it is an act of adoration. St John, whose Prologue we have just heard, wrote with a profound sense of adoration: ‘The Word was made flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.’
At the midnight Mass the Gospel revealed that ‘the glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds’ as they attended to their flocks in the fields outside Bethlehem. St Luke who wrote these words in the Gospel used them only once more. It was in the Acts of the Apostles when he told the story of the conversion of Paul who while travelling to Damascus to imprison the disciples of Jesus had a vision of the Risen Christ. That vision left him blind. However that glory of God Paul witnessed left him also grapple with the words he heard from the shining person: ‘I am Jesus.’ The blindness from which he was later miraculously cured was the beginning of his contemplation of the mystery of Christ Jesus. In the Second Reading for this Mass taken from the Letter to the Hebrews we read: ‘At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son.’
As Christians we never cease to treasure the mystery of Jesus. We continuously recall events from his life among us as we read the Scriptures, as we pray them and as we listen to them in our Churches. Jesus Christ whom St John called the Word is not a secret code we need to figure out to gain some higher knowledge. Jesus Christ who St John called the Word by his life, death and Resurrection conveys that we are God’s sons and daughters. Mary, Joseph and the shepherds from Bethlehem were the first to look at the little baby no just because he was so cute but because that baby who couldn’t say a word at that time was God who by his very human presence was telling them who they were for God.
If words ‘Mum’ and ‘Dad’ from a baby send the waves of joy, love and peace to the mother and the father of the baby, the human life of Jesus Christ, who was manifested in Bethlehem, sends the waves of joy to me, and I pray it can affect you similarly, as it tells me and you what God thinks of us: my son, my daughter. These words are a manifestation of the unbroken relationship established between us and our heavenly Father.
My Dear fellow believers! I pray so that as we raise, after falling to our knees at the mystery of God made man, we may also raise to new life which is all about living who we are: God’s sons and daughters.
That’s what makes Christmas merry.
Merry Christmas Sons and Daughters of God!
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