Christmas
2004
Year A
St. Thomas Aquinas, Camas, WA
Fr. Derek Lappe
December 25, 2004
This is our Christ-Mass—my brothers and sisters, this is the
heart, the center of our Christmas celebration of the birth of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ.
And so I would first of all like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!
No one needs a welcome here at St. Thomas—this is God’s
home—all of you are at home here. But at this Christmas Mass I
do want to extend a particularly warm welcome to all of you. We are
so happy to have so many family members who have come home for the holidays,
so many friends and neighbors who are with us for this great act of
Christmas worship this evening (morning). We know we have men and women
who might not be members of our Catholic Faith, but are still so very
welcome. And we know we have Catholics that maybe are not used to attending
Mass regularly, who have come home for Christmas—you are all very
welcome and our Christmas joy is enhanced by your presence.
As many of you know, our Holy Father Pope John Paul has invited the
Church this year to celebrate a “Year of the Eucharist”.
A special year to be dedicated to the Eucharist, to grow in love and
appreciation for the Eucharistic Mystery, a time to reflect upon this
great gift which Christ has left to His Church.
And what better time to do that, than during our Christmas celebration—how
closely united are these two mysteries—The Second Person of the
Trinity took on Flesh so that He might save His people, God became Man
so that He might be with His people—and The Eucharist our sanctification
and salvation, Christ’s real presence among us—The Eucharist
is Christmas prolonged. In fact, writes Bishop Fulton Sheen, “The
mark of a Catholic is the willingness to look for the Divine hidden
in the flesh of a babe in a crib, and to see the continuing presence
of Christ hidden under the appearance of bread and wine on the altar.”
The fact of Christmas
A few years ago, when I was a seminarian I had the opportunity to make
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, one of our first stops was to the city
of Bethlehem, to the Basilica of the Nativity. I won’t try to
pretend that I was overly impressed with the Church itself: it looked
more like a fortress than a church, dark, dirty, filled with tourists,
badly in need of restoration. It was not the type of place that engenders
piety or devotion. But in that church is a small grotto that one descends
into, even more dark and shadowy. And there on the floor an inlaid silver
star with the words "Hic de Virgine Maria Iesus Christus Natus
Est.” The only place in the world that those words can be written:
“Here, from the Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ was born.” I remember
it well because I was suddenly struck by the reality of the Son of God’s
birth into the world. This is not just some nice story for children,
the Gospels do not begin with the words, “Once upon a time.”
Christmas is a fact of history. In a point of time and at a definable
place the God of heaven and earth was born of a woman. It is a fact
that the infinite God became a finite creature. The Word actually became
flesh.
The fact of the Eucharist
What is the fact of the Eucharist? It is that the same Jesus Who was
born on earth not only became man—but remains man. He not only
came into the world, He is in the world. In a word, He came to stay.
Bethlehem is wherever there is a Catholic Church or chapel, wherever
there is a tabernacle containing the Sacred Hosts—there is Christ.
The Eucharist is Christmas prolonged.
The same Gospels that tell of his birth in a manger attest to the fact
that the night before He died, Jesus gathered together his disciples
in the Upper Room, He took bread in His Sacred Hands, He gave thanks
to God, He broke the bread and gave it to his disciples saying, “Take
this all of you and eat it, This is My Body. And likewise the Cup of
wine saying, take this all of you and drink it, this is my Blood of
the New Covenant.” He did not say it was a symbol of his Body
and Blood, or a sign, or a memento to remember Him by, but really and
truly his Body and Blood. And this, my dear friends, is the fact and
the reality of the Eucharist—Jesus Christ really and truly present
Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity under the appearance of humble bread
and wine.
A difficult mystery to believe, our senses certainly fail us here,
but this is exactly the point that Bishop Sheen was making about the
Catholic faith, if you can see in that humble Baby wrapped in swaddling
clothes, the Divine Son of God through whom all things were created,
then you ought to be able to recognize him as well, wrapped in the appearance
of humble bread and wine. The Eucharist is Christmas prolonged.
Why
But let us ask “why” why did Christ want to humble himself
and come to us under the form of bread and wine. Why did he say, “I
am the Bread of Life”? Why did he say, “my Flesh is True
Food, and my Blood Real Drink”?
Well, the answer is the same as “why” he became a Little
Child. Bishop Edward O’Donnell sums up well that “why”
of Christmas in a prayer he wrote for a birthright dinner a few years
back.
O God,
How you’ve tried to change the world from death and disappointment
to life and joy.
You saw a world destroying itself by sin and you sent the flood
to purify it—but, that didn’t change the world—it
just went back to its sin.
You saw a world enslaved, so you sent Moses and Aaron and Joshua
to lead your people to freedom—but that didn’t change
the world—it just went back to its chains.
You saw a world racked by ignorance, and so you sent David and
Jeremiah and Isaiah to proclaim your Word—but that didn’t
change the world—it went back to its ignorance.
So, God, how do you change a world? You know that in order to
change the world you have to change people.
And nothing changes people more than to send them a baby.
Nothing changes lives more than a baby.
Nothing changes a man and a woman more.
Nothing upsets routine more.
Nothing teaches love more.
Nothing changes people’s lives like a baby does.
And so you sent your Son as a baby. You wanted to change the
world, and that baby did change the world. He gave it life and joy
and hope.
There are things in our lives that need to change. Every one of us
has asked ourselves the question, “why did I do that?”,
“why do I do that?”, “why do I always seem to do that?”
There are things in our lives that make us say, “I need to change”.
I’ve got darkness and I need some light, I’ve got rage anger
I want peace, lies I want truth, bitterness and I need patience, I’ve
got addiction, I need liberty, I’ve got lust and I need purity,
I’ve got chaos and I need some calm.
The Christ Child beckons to us with unspeakable love, he invites us
to receive Him as the one who can bring us that light and peace and
truth. He invites us to an act of faith in which we entrust everything
in our lives to Him. He invites us especially to recognize that prolongation
of the Christmas Mystery in the Holy Eucharist. He is really and truly
present here, and his Real Presence in the Eucharist can change our
lives.
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