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Christmas Day
December 25, 2015
Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, Chestnut Hill MA
Joseph M. O’Keefe, S.J.
What’s not to love about Christmas? The visual feast of lights, the sound of
melodic carols, the scent of pine, the festivals of food, the warm embrace of friends
and family, the beautiful New England weather (well, this Christmas at least). All of
these things are true. But most of all, I love Christmas because it is time to
appreciate anew that God came to be one of us. It’s not just that God came, but how
God came. He was born to a poor peasant woman in an unremarkable corner of the
world, in an animal trough because His family was homeless at the time of His birth.
And soon Jesus and His family became refugees, escaping cruelty and terror because
His coming threatened the power-hungry leaders of His occupied country. God did
not enter the world with might and majesty; He was lowly and utterly vulnerable. I
love Christmas because God entered a broken world with the promise to make that
world whole again; He entered a dangerous world to let us know that we need never
to be afraid; He entered into the darkness of night be a light for all; And His birth
into this life carries the promise that we will enter into the next life to be with Him
forever.
I love Christmas because Christmas brings hope, even as we look back at the
challenges of 2015, a year when many are experienced the types of hardships that
the Holy Family endured. God came to be with us hundreds of years ago; may we
appreciate that He comes to us this Christmas also. Let us be attentive to the words
of a Christmas prayer from the Christian community of Iona.
When the world was dark and the city was quiet, you came.
You crept in beside us. And no one knew.
Only the few who dared to believe
that God might be doing something different.
Will you do the same this Christmas, Lord?
Will you come into the darkness of today's world;
not the friendly darkness as when sleep rescues us from tiredness,
but the fearful darkness,
in which people have stopped believing that war will end
or that food will come or that a government will change
or that we as the church care?
Will you come into that darkness and do something different
to save your people from death and despair?
Will you come into the quietness of this city,
not the friendly quietness as when lovers hold hands,
but the fearful silence when the phone has not rung, the letter has not come,
the friendly voice no longer speaks,
and the doctor’s face says it all?
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Will you come into the darkness, and do something different,
not to distract, but to embrace your people?
And will you come into the dark corners and quiet places of our lives?
Because the fullness of our lives
depends on us being as open and vulnerable to you
as you were to us when you came,
wearing no more than diapers,
and trusting human hands to hold their maker.
Will you come into our lives, if we open them to you
and do something different?
When the world was dark
and the city was quiet
you came.
You crept in beside us.
Lord, we ask you to do the same this Christmas.
Let us open our lives this Christmas 2015, so that God can do something
different. May God creep in beside us to bring hope and consolation. May God come
into our lives during this Jubilee Year of Mercy, teaching us how to be merciful as He
is merciful, to be empathic to those who suffer, to be kind to those close to us and to
those far away, to be a blessing to friend and stranger alike. In this Jubilee Year of
Mercy Pope Francis invites us to embark on a revolution that will transform the
world, what he calls a revolution of tenderness. Let that revolution begin today.