“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.”1 We are gathered here in the dark of night because we have been drawn to the Light. A few days ago, we observed the Winter Solstice, the shortest, darkest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.
As we drive and walk around the neighborhoods of our city this time of year, we see many lights. As you walked into the church tonight it is likely you noticed the lights illuminating the lovely stained-glass window above the main doors. In the dark and cold of a deep winter night (even a warm one!) the light draws us, comforts us, gives us hope for longer, warmer days.
But the light we hear about from Isaiah is not sunlight, electric light, firelight, or even candlelight. It is the Light of World: Jesus Christ, who was given to you at Baptism when the priest or deacon lit a taper from the Paschal Candle and, handing it to one of your godparents, said: “Receive the light of Christ.”2
Once received, your parents and godparents were exhorted to keep this light burning brightly so that you always walk “as a child of the light and, persevering in the faith, may run to meet the Lord when he comes with all the Saints in the heavenly court.”3
Jesus tells his followers, “You are the light of the world.”4 He describes this using two brief images- a city set on a hill and setting a lamp on a lampstand to light the whole house. He then tells His followers- “your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.”5
Baptism is your deliverance from what Isaiah described as the “land of gloom.”6 This is salvation, the greatest gift of all. Years ago, in his annual Christmas speech to the Roman Curia, Pope Francis noted: “Salvation is a gift … but one that must be accepted, cherished and made to bear fruit.”7
In our second reading, taken from Saint Paul’s Letter to Titus, we receive practical guidance on how salvation can be made to bear fruit. Living as a Christian means living ascetically. The Greek word askesis, or “ascesis,” as it is usually pronounced in English, “means ‘exercise,’ ‘practice,’ or ‘training’ for the purpose of obtaining something that is worth aspiring to, that represents an ideal.”8
Living temperately, justly, and devoutly means practicing the three spiritual disciplines taught to us by our Lord himself: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Prayer corresponds to being devout, fasting to being temperate, and almsgiving to being just, not merely charitable. This is how we make ourselves and the world ready for “the appearance of the glory of our great God and savior Jesus Christ.”9
Birth of Christ, by William Congdon, 1965
Advent, which ended at sundown, is not really meant to be a time for parties and feasting. Advent is to Christmas as Lent is to Easter. It is a time gift we are given to prepare for the feast of the Lord’s coming-into-the world. Advent reminds us to be sober and alert, ready for Christ’s return. But the good thing about Christmas, as my dad, who never shopped before the last minute, used to say, is that it comes whether you’re ready or not. This is good news, indeed!
Living ascetically is not an end, but the means to the end of making God’s kingdom present here and now. Christ’s birth dramatically shows us how this really looks. It is tempting to sentimentalize the Lord’s birth, to clean it up to meet our standards.
In dated English, we say the Christ child was “wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”10 But what this means in modern English is that the poor couple were forced to stay in what was probably a dark, wet, cold cave used to shelter animals, where their baby was born, whom they then wrapped in rags and laid him in a feeding trough.
Since Jesus is “the kingdom in person,” it is no exaggeration to say that the reign of God began with a baby being wrapped in rags and lying in a feeding trough. It’s difficult to imagine a less imposing start to a kingdom that! The Lord’s Nativity is the third Joyful mystery of the Holy Rosary. The spiritual fruit of this mystery is Poverty.
Once fully established, however, this Kingdom will fill the universe and last forever. But until Christ returns in glory, God’s reign is present almost exclusively in ways that are inconspicuous, not likely to make the headlines, the evening news, or trend on social media.
Msgr Luigi Giussani insisted: “we get up every morning… to help Christ save the world, with the strength we have, with the light we possess, asking Christ to give us more light and more strength.”11 We do this by living ascetically, by practicing temperance, justice, and devotion to God through Christ. This is what it means to be to be people who have not only seen a great light but who have been bathed in light by the “Father of lights” and called to illuminate “this present darkness.”12
Going back to your baptism candle, you were told, “You have been enlightened by Christ. Walk always as a child of the light.”13 It is by walking as children of the Light that the Light of Christ continues to shine in the darkness until the dawning of that day when He returns in glory.
The city of God, we learn in the Book of Revelation, will have “no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God” will give “it light, and its lamp” will be the Lamb of God.14 The one who will be all the light the city of God needs is the same Lamb of God who was born in Bethlehem, wrapped in rags, and placed in a feeding trough for animals.
This same Lamb who was born, lived, died, rose, ascended and will return, by our participation in this Eucharist tonight, illumines us from within and then sends us to radiate Christ in the darkness of this world. Keep this Light burning brightly.
Merry Christmas.
1 Isaiah 9:1.↩
2 Order of Baptism of Children, Second Edition.↩
3 Ibid.↩
4 Matthew 5:14.↩
5 Matthew 5:16.↩
6 Isaiah 9:1.↩
7 Matthew 25:14-30; Pope Francis, Christmas Greetings to the Roman Curia, 2018.↩
8 R. Arbesman. “Asceticism,” in New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 1, 772.↩
9 Titus 2:13.↩
10 Luke 2:12.↩
11 Luigi Giussani, Is It Possible to Live This Way?: An Unusual Approach to Christian Existence, Vol. 3- Charity, 127.↩
12 James 1:17; Ephesians 6:12.↩
13 Order of Baptism of Children, Second Edition.↩
14 Revelation 21:23.↩
No comments:
Post a Comment