The Incarnation: The Nativity of the Lord, 2023

                                                             The Incarnation:

The Nativity of the Lord, 2023 

December 25, 2023

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Isiah 9:1-6; Psalm 96; Titus 2:11-14; Luke 2:1-14

 

 

Merry Christmas, friends. Everything is set for Christmas. Our trees are set up and decorated, gifts are wrapped, and meals are planned. It is a wonderful time of family gatherings, renewed friendships, and sharing of gratitude, and we pause to come to Church to hear the first Nativity story. We are moved each year to hear about the angels and shepherds and the message of glory that the heavens sing. We marvel at the child who has been born to us. We know there is an enduring message that gets renewed each time we experience this moment.

 

Christmas is about believers gathering around the birth of Jesus, who is the mystery of God's self-gift. It is a story of God's complete self gift to us without any strings attached that comes about in the birth of an infant. In this boy, the gift of God, the gift of divinity is hidden in our humanity. God chooses to become one of us so that we know that God knows about our loves, concerns, and suffering in our daily life. God could have come in grand ways or in a more influential family, but God becomes vulnerable, devoid of power or authority, to become a tiny, poor, helpless infant dependent upon human kindness for existence. God needs us to survive.

 

The significance of Christmas is the gift of life freely given and graciously received, which is the reason we exchange gifts with loved ones. Most of us would be satisfied to not exchange gifts because we simply want to give one another our time and presence. Children want to return home; parents want to be with their children again; loved ones simply want to spend time in meaningful ways. We want to be together, even those among us who quarrel or are estranged. Hope is born, and we hope that with each passing year we will be able to receive and give our love as it is meant. We keep trying and hoping. 

 

We return home or visit loved ones because we know love exists at the heart of each relationship, even if we express it poorly or are limited in our ability to show it. We want to be loved, and we want to love more freely, without constraints.  We want to be needed, recognized, honored, and valued. We know goodness exists in the other person, and our heart breaks when we cannot share love the way we intend and sometimes we get painfully hurt, but we do try, and we hope that one day all will be reconciled. We don’t just want peace to be the absence of conflict; we want to a peace that heals and brings joy back to the relationship. We want to be redeemed and restored to wholeness with the other person. We see God in the other and recognize that God is the gift. God does not give gifts. The gift of God is hidden in the concrete reality of existence, within the everyday world, in the meals we share, in the hugs we give, in the hopes that we hold deeply for one another in our consciousness. We really do want the best for the other person. We pray for peace on earth and goodwill towards all. 

 

We may feel some obligation to exchange some gifts, but at the root of it, a gift is something freely given and is a personal expression of love. The exchange, the goodwill, binds us together. We belong to one another, and it creates a shared life. It is a token expression of what happens in Bethlehem where a sacred exchange occurs between God and humanity. We replicate that moment when we exchange gestures of goodwill, and it creates the promise of a new future together. That’s what we celebrate at the Incarnation, sharing the gift of life with the hope that we are creating new possibilities for our relationships and for the world. 

 

Christmas awakens our consciousness that we live in hope. We want hope not just to be silently inside of us, but to be a living expression of our faith acted out in goodwill gestures and well-phrased words. We need each other to keep hope alive. We need to put love in those places where love is not, where it does not exist or once existed. This is the hope of Christmas. My prayer for you is that we ask God for the courage to create love in those places that make the angels spontaneously burst forth in song, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to all people of goodwill.”

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

 

Monday: (Acts 6) Stephen worked great wonders among the people and adversaries debated with him fiercely. They threw hit out of the city, stoned him, and laid him at Saul’s feet.  

 

Tuesday: (1 John) What we heard, and saw with our eyes, what we looked upon, and touched with our hands, concerns the Word of life.

 

Wednesday: (1 John) God is light and in him there is no darkness. We have fellowship with him. Walk in the light as he is in the light.  

 

Thursday: (1 John) We are friends with God if we keep his commandments. Whoever loves his brother lives in the light and there is nothing in him to cause a fall.   

   

Friday (Sirach 3) God sets a father in honor over his children; a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons. Take care of your father when he is old.   

 

Saturday (1 John 2) It is the last hour and the anti-Christ is coming. You have the anointing of the Holy One, and you have all knowledge.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 10) Jesus said, “Beware of men who will hand you over to their courts and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be led before governors and kings.  

 

Tuesday: (John 20) Magdalene ran to Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciples to tell the news that Jesus has been removed from the tomb. In fear, they ran to see the tomb.

 

Wednesday (Matthew 2) When the magi departed, an angel told Joseph to take his wife and child to Egypt because Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.  

 

Thursday (Luke 2) When the days were completed for the purification, Mary and Joseph brought the child to the Temple, where they met Simeon, a righteous and devoted man.

   

Friday (Matthew 2) When Herod died, an angel told Joseph to return to Israel. “Out of Egypt have I called my son.”

 

Saturday (John 1) In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things came to be through him. A light shines in the darkness.  

 

 

Saints of the Week

 

December 24: ERO CRAS

In the Roman Catholic tradition, on December 23, the last of the seven “O Antiphons” is sung with the “Alleluia” verse before the Gospel reading at Mass and at Vespers – Evening Prayer in the Divine Office/Breviary. Most ordinary Catholics, however, are more accustomed to hearing these antiphons as verses in the Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

But the literary construction of these wonderful antiphons is arranged in a unique and surprising way: The order of the seven Messianic titles of the “O Antiphons” (and the seven verses of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”) was fixed with a definite purpose. 

In Latin, the initial letters of the antiphons – Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia – form a reverse acrostic – a play on words – ERO CRAS, which translates into English as “Tomorrow, I will be.”

So, in the silence of Christmas Eve, we look back on the previous seven days, and we hear the voice of the One whose coming we have prepared for – Jesus Christ – speak to us: “I will be here tomorrow.”

 

December 26: Stephen, the first Martyr (d. 35), was one of the seven original deacons chose to minister to the Greek-speaking Christians. The Jews accused him of blasphemy. Though he was eloquent in his defense, Saul of Tarsus condoned his death sentence. 

 

December 27: John, Apostle and Evangelist (d. 100), was the brother of James and one of the three disciples to be in the inner circle. He left fishing to follow Jesus and was with him at the major events: the transfiguration, raising of Jairus' daughter, and the agony in the garden. He is also thought to be the author of the fourth gospel, three letters, and the Book of Revelation. 

 

December 28: The Holy Innocents (d. 2), were the boys of Bethlehem who were under two years old to be killed by King Herod in an attempt to eliminate the rise of the newborn king as foretold by the astronomers from the east. This event is similar to the rescue of Moses from the Nile by the slaughter of the infant boys by the pharaoh. 

 

December 29: Thomas Becket, bishop and martyr (1118-1170), was the lord chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury in England during the time of King Henry II. When he disagreed with the King over the autonomy of the church and state, he was exiled to France. When he returned, he clashed again with the king who had him murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.  

 

December 30: The Family of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus, was a feast instituted in 1921. It was originally the 3rd Sunday after Christmas. The Holy Family is often seen in Renaissance paintings - and many of those are of the flight into Egypt. 

 

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• December 24, 1587. Fr. Claude Matthe died at Ancona. He was a Frenchman of humble birth, highly esteemed by King Henry III and the Duke of Guise. He foretold that Fr. Acquaviva would be General and hold that office for a long period. 
• December 25, 1545. Isabel Roser pronounced her vows as a Jesuit together with Lucrezia di Brandine and Francisca Cruyllas in the presence of Ignatius at the church of Sta. Maria della Strada in Rome. 
• December 26, 1978. The assassination of Gerhard Pieper, a librarian, who was shot to death in Zimbabwe. 
• December 27, 1618. Henry Morse entered the English College at Rome. 
• December 28, 1802. Pope Pius VII allowed Father General Gruber to affiliate the English Jesuits to the Society of Jesus in Russia. 
• December 29, 1886. Publication of the beatification decree of the English martyrs. 
• December 30, 1564. Letter from Pope Pius IV to Daniel, Archbishop of Mayence, deploring the malicious and scurrilous pamphlets published against the Society throughout Germany and desiring him to use his influence against the evil.