Merry Christmas

Homily for Christmas Day 2015
Isaiah 52:7-10; Psalm 98; Hebrews 1:1-6; John 1:1-18

Last Friday Pope Francis opened yet another Holy Door in Rome.  Earlier in the month, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (December 8), he had performed the ritual at St. Peter’s Basilica to mark the beginning of the Year of Mercy.  Yet this second door wasn’t to a church; rather, it was to the Caritas Center, a shelter for homeless people near Rome’s bustling (and sometimes chaotic) Termini Station.

I’ve been to the Termini on my various trips to Rome.  It’s teeming with life: from tourists to commuters, from wealthy business people in the latest fashions to immigrants struggling to pull tape-covered baggage to the street.  There are merchants and pickpockets, young and old, people of many races and nationalities…and not a few homeless men, women and children.  Many huddle in alcoves, urging passersby to fill their cups with loose change.  The Caritas Center is right where it needs to be.

In designating and opening a Holy Door at a center that serves the homeless, Pope Francis not only called people to remember the Year of Mercy, he gave concrete expression to what mercy really means.  Most of us associate it with forgiveness; but it’s much deeper than that.  It encompasses compassion, kindness, empathy, generosity and many other virtues.  Mercy, like grace, is a gift that we share with others here on earth because God gave it to us first.

On this Christmas Day, we recall in a special way how profoundly mercy was given to us not merely in a word but in the Word made flesh who dwelt among us:  Jesus.   He is the fulfillment of the hopes of Isaiah and the other prophets.  He is, as the author of the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us, God’s definitive word to the world:  “the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being, and who sustains all things by his might word.”  The second century Jewish Christian community to whom this letter was originally addressed needed that word.  They were weary of living the demands of their Christian faith, and some members had grown indifferent and complacent.

Sound familiar?  We live in a world that too often seems enveloped in darkness:  poverty and the growing gap between the “haves” and “have nots;” communities and nations divided by race, ethnicity and tribe; overwhelming natural disasters caused by everything from climate change to negligence in the name of economic development;  ISIS and terrorism.  It can all seem pretty overwhelming. 

Today we recall, however, that darkness doesn’t have the last word.  We celebrate the coming of the source of our life who is “the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  We celebrate God’s mercy to us and the entire world.  May we welcome that mercy more and more in our own hearts and become deeper vessels of it for others.  Merry Christmas! +