Christmas
Day Medical Mission Sisters 2025
“The Word of God has taken on flesh and pitched his tent
among us.”
Over the past ten years I have preached at some Christmas Masses within the retirement communities of the
Jesuits but my last Christmas Mass celebrated outside the Jesuit community was
at the Federal Prison not so far away near Pottsville PA in 2016. There was no music and no Christmas décor at
that prison Mass for about thirty men. They
heard in the homily that Jesus, too, was arrested and they heard my favorite
prayer…that of the Good Thief: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your
kingdom.” Several of the men greeted me
with Christmas wishes after the Mass.
Two or three had attended parochial schools in Philadelphia. The Philly Catholic culture even in prison.
I wanted at
that prison Mass to sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ because not many years earlier
I had heard the confession of a troubled guy who weeks later wrote me a
Christmas card with a note about that carol.
He was touched by the fourth phrase
in the opening verse. (Sing the four
phrases): “Hark the herald angels sing,
glory to the newborn king. Peace on
earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled.” The card writer had a Christmas experience.
Of course the scene here today is
quite different from that prison. The
decorations, the music, and a congregation of free people who so often choose
to be men and women for and with others.
First:
An experience or two
Second:
Voices from the Holy Land today
Third:
What we need to hear time and again
But for us Christmas keeps coming
again and again….and again. There is
sometimes a danger that we get used to it.
When that happens to me I repeat the lesson I learned years ago in a
grocery store parking lot. It was a few
days before Christmas and I was making one of those weekly trips to stock the
pantry at our North Philly Jesuit community.
I had a number of bags in a shopping cart. As I pushed the cart to the trunk of my car,
a young teenager suddenly appeared before me.
He volunteered help with the grocery
bags. I was preoccupied and shrugged
my shoulders saying, “Oh, I can take care of this.” He looked at me as if I was out of my mind
and said, “Mister, it’s Christmas!” and certainly restrained himself from
adding: “What the hell is the matter with you?” But he had me in his bullseye and of course
he put the bags in the trunk and I gave him a couple of bucks. But every year when I am feeling like “here
we go again.” I remind myself “Mister, it’s Christmas.
Of course, there are many more
reminders about the season in our everyday lives. Just a few months ago I enjoyed a somewhat infrequent
event in my family, holding a new-born baby in my arms, a great grandniece. Holding a family member was a treat for
me. I heard Mary’s words: “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit
leaps for joy in God my savior.” A
little girl is Hope itself according the poet Charles Peguy (Pee-gee), a point
that Pope Francis made frequently in his own writings. And this particular baby girl I held is the most
recent of those younger than I whose names got written on our family tree…In
fact she is number 45 among those born or married into the family. Whatever the number of persons might be for
any one of us in our families or among
our friends from within congregations and neighborhoods and schools…. we leap
for joy in God our Saviour.
In this time of year, too, even in the
tense and troubled parts of the world hope takes voice. In Jerusaleman ecumenical group of
Christians called “A Jerusalem Voice for Justice” has been speaking out on
behalf of those suffering in Gaza and on the West Bank. I read here from their Christmas message
heralding the presence of Mary and Joseph and Jesus in their suffering
country. And I quote: “We ask ourselves: How can we celebrate? Yet,
celebrate we must! We might indeed be
powerless in the face of Israeli intransigence, which prevents life from
entering Gaza, (and prevents) law enforcement in the West Bank. However, the
message from Bethlehem, Nazareth, and Jerusalem is that equality must come,
injustice must end and light must triumph. Our Christmas celebration proclaims
a message of life in the face of death and darkness.”
So we hear on Christmas Day these voices
from Jerusalem supporting the powerless.
Yes, we join them in their prayers.
And we join also with Jewish voices in our own country questioning the
policies of their cherished Israel. The Jewish Voice for Peace, with many offices
in cities of the United States echoes what we just read from the Jerusalem Voice
for Justice. I quote from the executive director of the Jewish
Voice for Peace who recently published this Hanukkah message. “Hanukkah invites us to use the flames of the Hanukkah candles to
inspire sacred solidarity. … Tonight, as I light my menorah I am doing so as an
act of defiance — a rejection of supremacy, domination and death. A rejection
of both antisemitism and its brutal weaponization against Palestinians. Let us
rededicate to doing everything in our power to end the genocide of
Palestinians, and build a Judaism rooted in collective liberation and safety
for all.”
In our celebration here today let the hope
both of those who stand with the suffering and also of those who suffer, let
their hope be a light that inspires us. We remember Mary, the Mother of God. She magnifies
the Lord who “has brought down monarchs from their thrones but the humble have
been lifted high.”
And when despair or anger threatens to
overwhelm our human spirits, we can remind ourselves of the words of Christian
Wiman, the poet. “If the
last believer were to let go of their faith and Christianity disappeared, Christ would
still appear in the world as calmly and casually as he appeared to the disciples walking to
Emmaus after his death".
So This Christmas Jesus comes before us to
address our need for hope. With more warmth in his voice than my parking
lot prompter he announces “Mister, It’s Christmas” or, where appropriate “Excuse
me, Ma’am, it’s, Hanukkah”. Or
“Brothers and Sisters, it’s Ramadan.”
“The Word of God has taken on
flesh and pitched his tent among us.
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