For December 1, December 8, December 9 (Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception), December 12 (Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe), December 15, December 22, December 25 (Nativity of Our Lord), and December 29 (Feast of the Holy Family)
Homilies for Sundays by Fr. Sam Sawyer, SJ
Homilies for feast days by Rev. John P. Cush, STD
First Sunday of Advent – December 1, 2024
Readings: Jer 33:14–16 • Ps 25:4–5, 8–9, 10, 14 • 1 Thes 3:12—4:2 • Lk 21:25–28, 34–36
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120124.cfm
By Fr. Sam Sawyer, SJ
Last Sunday, the liturgical year came to a close with the Solemnity of Christ the King, and this Sunday, it starts anew at the beginning of Advent.
Generally, as we round the corner of Thanksgiving and head into December, we start looking toward Christmas, and we can think of Advent as a kind of countdown to the feast of the Nativity, following the pattern of every Advent calendar, one door a day until we reach the 25th. Holiday parties start in the first week of December, Christmas cookies are prepared, and of course the decorations come out. The America magazine offices, where I work, are around the corner from Rockefeller Center, where the giant Christmas tree will be lit on Wednesday, Dec. 4th, and for the whole month, our patch of the city is filled to the brim with the Christmas spirit, as well as crowds of tourists blocking the sidewalks to take it all in. It’s lovely and nostalgic, summoning memories of all the Christmases we’ve celebrated before.
But Advent — it is right there in the word itself — asks us to look forward, not back. And it asks us to look forward not only to the commemoration at Christmas of Jesus’ birth and first coming in the flesh, but even more, in these first weeks of Advent, to the final fulfillment of Christ’s second coming. Rather than reminding us of the Christmas stories we know so well — following Mary and Joseph on the journey that leads to the manger, or seeing the shepherds with their flocks — the Scripture we pray with at the beginning of Advent reminds us that we are waiting for Christ to come in glory and judgment and justice, that we are waiting for the fullness of the Kingdom of God.
The Second Coming is often depicted in Scripture as cataclysmic. In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns that “there will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars,” and even that “people will die of fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world,” before they finally “see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” And Jesus counsels us to be eager to greet that moment when our “redemption is at hand.”
So it seems strange, at least to me, that Jesus warns us not to become “drowsy” while waiting, “from carousing and drunkenness” — perhaps Jesus knew something about holiday parties — and from “the anxieties of daily life.” If the Second Coming is going to be cataclysmic, how could we possibly sleep through it? Why is drowsiness the risk that we need to be cautioned against, here at the beginning of Advent?
In order to explore this question, it may be helpful to notice that Jesus is concerned that our hearts might become drowsy. Similarly, in today’s second reading, Paul prays for the Lord to make us increase and abound in love “so as to strengthen [our] hearts,” so that we might be blameless at Jesus’ coming. In preparation for this Advent season, I have been reading Pope Francis’ new encyclical, Dilexit Nos, on the Sacred Heart, released at the end of October. That encyclical begins not by immediately looking at Jesus’ heart, but by asking “What do we mean by ‘the heart’?” And as I have noted, there are Advent references to “heart” as well, scattered through our readings and liturgy, both this week and in the weeks to come.
So today, and continuing through Advent, I am going to delve into this recent encyclical to help us reflect on how we are asked to prepare our hearts for Jesus’ coming and on how our encounter with the human and divine love of the Sacred Heart transforms and changes us.
For today, for a beginning in Advent and a beginning of the encyclical, it is worth looking at that question of what we mean by the heart. Pope Francis speaks of the heart “as a core that lies hidden beneath all outward appearances, even beneath the superficial thoughts that can lead us astray”; it is also “the locus of sincerity, where deceit and disguise have no place”; it is “where are “authentic, real, entirely ‘who we are.’”
But if the heart is where we are at our most authentic, then it is also true that we sometimes struggle to know our own hearts, behind all the superficial appearances and concerns that can distract us. It takes patience, the encyclical says, to engage in the interior life by which we come into contact and harmony with our own hearts. The heart is more than just our ideas, and more even than just our soul in its spiritual reality, for
“Everything finds its unity in the heart, which can be the dwelling-place of love in all its spiritual, psychic and even physical dimensions. In a word, if love reigns in our heart, we become, in a complete and luminous way, the persons we are meant to be, for every human being is created above all else for love. In the deepest fiber of our being, we were made to love and to be loved.”
In light of this meaning of “heart,” what is Jesus saying when he tells us to “Beware that our hearts do not become drowsy”? What is Paul praying for when he asks that the Lord “strengthen our hearts”?
We’re being asked to let love move us to action. We are being asked not to be content just with the feeling of love or a sense of warmth and devotion, but for love to shake us up as much as it comforts us. We are being asked to face love as the fire of God’s presence and not just a warm blanket around us.
“In the deepest fiber of our being, we were made to love and to be loved.” We need to hear that both as comfort and as challenge, both as reassurance and as mission.
Here at the beginning of December, as we look toward Christmas and remember, through Christ’s first coming, all the many ways that we know that we have been loved, let’s also allow Advent to call us to look forward to Christ’s second coming and set a fire in us to carry Christ’s love to all those in need. May Advent wake us from our drowsiness, strengthen our hearts, and set our feet on the road, in the words of our opening collect today, to run forth to meet Christ at his coming.
Fr. Sawyer’s homily for the First Sunday of Advent is also featured on America Media’s Preach podcast, along with a discussion of how he approached writing this series of homilies for HPR.
Second Sunday of Advent – December 8, 2024
Readings: Bar 5:1–9 • Ps 126:1–2, 2–3, 4–5, 6 • Phil 1:4–6, 8–11 • Lk 3:1–6
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120824.cfm
By Fr. Sam Sawyer, SJ
The entrance antiphon for today’s Mass is worth hearing in full — or hearing again, if we have already heard it chanted or sung at the beginning of Mass today.
O people of Sion, behold,
the Lord will come to save the nations,
and the Lord will make the glory of his voice heard
in the joy of your heart.
The first reading, psalm, and Gospel all express this longing for God to come in his saving power. Baruch tells Jerusalem to take off her robe of mourning and stand upon the heights to see exiles returning over mountains made low and depths filled in. The psalm recounts the rejoicing of those returning, for whom the Lord has done great things. And the Gospel starts by situating its hearers relative to the powers of the day, including the occupiers and oppressors of the Jewish people, in order to focus our attention not on those powers but on John the Baptist in the desert, proclaiming a baptism of repentance and crying out to prepare the way of the Lord.
The common thread that runs through our readings today is that God’s salvation involves a radical reshaping both of creation and of our own hearts. Mountains and hills are made low, rough ways are made smooth, and those who sow in tears shall reap rejoicing.
Advent is a season of preparation and repentance, but it is ordered ultimately toward rejoicing. Our time in the desert turning away from sin and back to God is how God leads us, as the first reading says “in joy by the light of his glory, with his mercy and justice for company.”
But how can our hearts be made ready to participate in this joy, or as our opening antiphon puts it, to hear “the glory of his voice . . . in the joy of your heart”?
Last week, I invited us to use Pope Francis’s new encyclical on the Sacred Heart, Dilexit Nos, as a way into Advent, by reflecting on how we are challenged to wake up and encounter God’s challenge and call in the authenticity of our hearts. This week, let’s continue in the encyclical, by thinking about how God works in our hearts to transform us as part of the reshaping of creation that prepares the way for Christ’s coming.
In the encyclical, Pope Francis speaks about the “process of ‘setting our life in order,’ beginning with the heart” and reminds us that this happens at the level of affectivity and practice, not merely knowledge and understanding. He gives us examples from a variety of saints to illustrate this point: St. Ignatius, who in the Spiritual Exercises helps us to dispose our hearts to respond to the “inbreaking” of God by attention to our own best and deepest desires; St. Bonaventure, who tells us to pray, in the end, not for light “but for ‘raging fire’” so that the “knowledge that Christ died for us does not remain knowledge, but necessarily becomes affection, love”; and St. John Henry Newman, whose motto, Cor ad cor loquitur (heart speaks to heart) reminds us that this brilliant intellectual and theologian found his deepest encounter with the Lord in the prayerful dialogue of heart with heart.
Or perhaps we can see how this transformation of affection and desire works by listening to St. Paul in today’s second reading, who longs for his brothers and sisters in Philippi “with the affection of Christ Jesus” and prays that their “love may increase ever more and more.”
As Pope Francis says in Dilexit Nos, “Only the heart is capable of setting our other powers and passions, and our entire person, in a stance of reverence and loving obedience before the Lord.”
Our readings today, our journey out into the desert with John the Baptist, tell us that preparing for the Lord’s coming involves leveling mountains, filling in valleys, and straightening winding roads. While God’s plan may include that happening in geography and geology, it certainly must also happen in our own hearts. We need to cooperate with God to lower the mountains of our pride, to fill in the valleys of selfishness, to straighten the roads of deception and self-protection so that we can approach God in honesty and humility.
Dilexit Nos also reminds us that this transformation of our hearts has a social dimension, quoting the Second Vatican Council’s teaching that “every one of us needs a change of heart; we must set our gaze on the whole world and look to those tasks we can all perform together in order to bring about the betterment of our race.” The level ground and straight paths that God is shaping are meant for us to walk together, exiles returning home to rejoice together in Jerusalem.
So let us invite God into our hearts’ depths, to reshape them for himself and prepare the way for his coming. May God lead us out rejoicing, hearing the glory of his voice in the joy of our hearts.
Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception – December 9, 2024
Readings: Gn 3:9–15, 20 • Ps 98:1, 2–3ab, 3cd–4 • Eph 1:3–6, 11–12 • Lk 1:26–38
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/120924.cfm
By Rev. John P. Cush, STD
There is no single individual to whom we, as a Christian people, give more honor than the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since the early Church, the clear teaching in our doctrine is that, from the moment of her conception in the womb of Saint Ann, her mother, Mary was freed from the stain of original sin, so that she could be the spotless, sinless vessel to carry the Son of God made flesh, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Mary herself is the Immaculate Conception.
Some people, unfortunately, get the concept of the Immaculate Conception confused with the concept of the Virgin Birth. No, the Virgin Birth of Our Lord Jesus is the logical consequence of the fact that Mary is the Immaculate Conception. Conceived and born without the sin of hubris, of pride, inherited from our first parents, Our Blessed Lady, Mary, never suffered from Original Sin, the state that the rest of us inherited from the fall of our primordial parents, Adam and Eve.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 490–493) clearly defines the Immaculate Conception and tells us that in order to be the mother of Jesus, Mary was given special gifts from God. When the angel Gabriel greeted her, he called her “full of grace,” showing she was filled with God’s favor to accept this unique role.
Over time, the Church has recognized that Mary was free from original sin from the very start of her life. This belief, known as the Immaculate Conception, was officially declared by Pope Pius IX in 1854. He proclaimed that Mary, by a special grace from God and through the future merits of Jesus, was preserved from original sin from the moment she was conceived.
Mary’s holiness, which began from her conception, comes entirely from her relationship with Christ. God the Father blessed her in a unique way through Jesus, choosing her to be pure and devoted in love even before creation began. In the Eastern Church, Mary is honored as “the All-Holy” (Panagia), seen as entirely free from sin and uniquely formed by the Holy Spirit. By God’s grace, she lived her entire life without personal sin.
Therefore, when we hear of the conception of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the womb of Blessed Mary, we recognize that this is not the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but that of the Virgin Birth. And, we recall that, from Catholic Sacred Tradition and dogma, we know that Mary, the Mother of Jesus, the Mother of God, is perpetually virgin, before, during, and after childbirth.
As was mentioned in the Catechism definition of the Immaculate Conception listed above, we know that His Holiness, Pope Pius IX in 1854 declared the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as an infallible dogma of the Church, one of only two times in the history of the Catholic Church that this had occurred.
As Americans, we should hold the Immaculate Conception very dear. Our Lady, under the title of the Immaculate Conception, was declared the Patroness of the United States of America. In fact, it is one of the two Holy Days of Obligation that must always be a “Day of Obligation,” even if it falls on a Monday or a Saturday. We in the United States of America love Our Lady under the title of the Immaculate Conception. And we know that, despite our failings, she loves us. And so, we pray:
Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known
that anyone who fled to thy protection,
implored thy help,
or sought thy intercession,
was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence
I fly unto thee,
O Virgin of virgins, my Mother.
To thee do I come,
before thee I stand,
sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in thy mercy hear and answer me.
Amen.
Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe – December 12, 2024
Readings: Zec 2:14–17 or Rv 11:19a; 12:1–6a, 10ab • Jud 13:18BCDE, 19 • Lk 1:26–38 or Lk 1:39–47
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121224.cfm
By Rev. John P. Cush, STD
As we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, we honor Mary, who appeared to a humble indigenous man, Juan Diego, on the hills of Tepeyac in 1531. In this appearance, Mary chose to come as a mestiza, a mother who spoke the language of her people. In doing so, she showed us that God comes to us where we are, meeting us in our own culture, language, and life circumstances.
When Our Lady appeared to Juan Diego, she brought not only words of comfort but also a message of hope, unity, and love that transcended divisions of race, status, and wealth. She appeared to the indigenous people of Mexico, who were marginalized, oppressed, and often overlooked. Her appearance affirmed their dignity and worth, reminding them that they were not forgotten by God. Through Mary, God reached out with a tender embrace to the poor and the overlooked, assuring them that they are deeply loved and valued.
Our Lady’s message is profoundly relevant to us today. She reminds us that, as disciples of Christ, we are called to see and serve those who are often unseen and unheard. Her call to Juan Diego to build a church at Tepeyac was a call to create a space where everyone could experience the presence and love of God. And in this church, all people would find welcome and peace — a reminder that our communities today should be places of refuge, compassion, and mercy for all who seek God.
Our Lady of Guadalupe also shows us the power of faith and perseverance. Despite Juan Diego’s hesitation and the challenges he faced, he trusted in Mary’s message and followed her guidance. Even when others doubted him, he remained faithful, and through his courage, a great miracle unfolded. The roses that he carried in his tilma, in the dead of winter, bloomed as signs of Mary’s presence and her promise. When we face challenges and doubts, may we find strength in her example and remember that God can bring new life and miracles even in our darkest winters.
Today, we celebrate Mary as the patroness of the Americas, our mother and protector, who is always with us, ready to intercede on our behalf. Just as she embraced Juan Diego with motherly love, so too does she embrace each one of us, with all our struggles, fears, and hopes. Her presence calls us to be people of hope and reconciliation, to break down walls of division, and to create communities that reflect the love of Christ.
As we reflect on Our Lady’s appearance at Tepeyac, let us renew our own commitment to walk in her footsteps — reaching out to the poor, uplifting the marginalized, and living lives rooted in love, compassion, and humility. May we, like Juan Diego, be humble messengers of God’s love in the world, bringing the light of Christ to those around us.
Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us, that we may follow in your example and bring Christ’s love to a world in need. Amen.
Third Sunday of Advent – December 15, 2024
Readings: Zep 3:14–18a • Is 12:2–3, 4, 5–6 • Phil 4:4–7 • Lk 3:10–18
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121524.cfm
By Fr. Sam Sawyer, SJ
Last Sunday, we reflected on how God reshapes our hearts to prepare the way for his coming and to make us ready to rejoice in it. And today, on Gaudete Sunday, that is the command we’re given: “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!”
But as much as we may be eager to rejoice — close enough to Christmas to start hearing “Joy to the world” play in our heads, perhaps — we are still in a season of preparation and God is still at work making us ready for Christ’s coming.
As much as our first and second readings call us to rejoice, the Gospel places a stark challenge before us. The crowds gathered around John the Baptist and asked “What should we do?” I have to imagine that his answers discomfited many who heard them, since they called not only for almsgiving, but for a radical equality that refused to use possessions or power for one’s own self-interest. Whoever has two cloaks should share with whomever has none; likewise with food. Tax collectors, whose own wealth was based on the revenue they brought it, should collect only what is prescribed, and soldiers who could extort others under threat of force should be satisfied with their wages.
Maybe these answers sound to us like John was telling people simply to do what they are already supposed to do — but then why would he have to say so at all? And even if we’re willing to summarize his answer to the tax collectors and soldiers as “act justly,” the radically equal sharing of goods and food goes well beyond what most of us are willing to do in the name of justice.
I think we need to let John’s answers be radical — not least because hearing them fills people with expectation, as the Gospel tells us. They “were asking in their hearts whether John might be the Christ.” Someone who could ask them for so much, who could hope for such generosity, must be something more than just another teacher or prophet. But of course John tells them that “one mightier than I is coming,” who will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
So I think it is worthwhile, a little more than halfway through Advent, to spend some time thinking about why John’s summons to generosity and justice are so moving that they lead people to question in their hearts if he is the long-awaited Messiah.
As we’ve been looking at Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis’s encyclical on the Sacred Heart, through this Advent, there is a key there to help us understand how we recognize Christ through a summons to generosity.
The second chapter of the encyclical starts off: “The heart of Christ, as the symbol of the deepest and most personal source of his love for us, is the very core of the initial preaching of the Gospel. It stands at the origin of our faith, as the wellspring that refreshes and enlivens our Christian beliefs.” And then the rest of the second chapter goes through passages in the Gospel that reveal Jesus’ love for us, almost in the style of a retreat. As Pope Francis writes, by examining Jesus’ “interactions with others, we can come to realize how he treats each one of us.”
And what is revealed is Jesus who seeks people out and approaches them; Jesus who heals people “not from a distance but in close proximity,” touching them and showing them the depth of his love; Jesus who draws near to us in our fear and tells us not to be afraid; Jesus who looks at us and loves us, calling us to leave everything and follow him; Jesus who had compassion for the crowds around him and fed them himself; Jesus who is moved with grief and compassion. Above all, what is revealed is Jesus who loves us.
This is the “one mightier than I” who is coming: the one who loves us.
Our hearts burn in the presence of Jesus because we long for this love. We are moved to generosity when we recognize the one who is already generous with us. The crowds gathered around John saw that only real love could call us to such profound generosity and justice — only a love that is willing and able to give itself as generously as it calls us to give. And the good news that John announces is that this love is not hypothetical, is not just an ideal that can be glimpsed but never directly encountered. Instead, this love is coming to dwell with us, making his home among us.
And when God is in our midst, as our first reading promised today, then we will be glad and exult with all our heart. When we recognize the Lord is near, as Paul writes to the Philippians in our second reading, “the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”
Our hearts will find their peace and their joy in the heart of Christ who loves us beyond measure. That is reason not only to rejoice once, but to say again: Rejoice!
Fourth Sunday of Advent – December 22, 2024
Readings: Mi 5:1–4a • Ps 80:2–3, 15–16, 18–19 • Heb 10:5–10 • Lk 1:39–45
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122224.cfm
By Fr. Sam Sawyer, SJ
Here, at the very end of Advent, we finally get to the beginnings of the Christmas story. Over the first three weeks of the season, we have heard about preparation for Christ’s second coming, about longing for God’s kingdom, and about John the Baptist’s preaching to prepare the way for Jesus. And while everything around us looks more and more like Christmas, the church’s celebration of Advent has kept reminding us that what we are waiting for is not primarily this year’s celebration of Christmas, but the fullness of Christ’s presence and the Kingdom of God.
There’s a sense, therefore, in which Advent is “bigger than Christmas” — or at least Advent is expecting more than just the feast of the Nativity. But there’s also a sense in which everything we’ve been waiting for, everything we could ever wait for, arrives with the birth of Jesus, to a woman named Mary, tucked away and out of sight in the stable and laid to rest in the manger. In today’s Gospel, especially, as Mary greets Elizabeth and the infant John leaps in her womb, we recognize the largest of hopes in the smallest of spaces.
The first reading today touches on this paradox of greatness revealed in littleness. The prophet Micah names “Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah,” as the source of “one who is to be ruler in Israel” and whose “greatness shall reach to the ends of the earth.”
The opening collect today — which may also be familiar to us as the Angelus prayer—names this paradox in theology as the mystery of the Incarnation. “Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts, that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may by his Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.”
But perhaps it is with Mary and Elizabeth, most especially, that we see how profound this mystery is. Mary has set out in haste to visit Elizabeth, in order to find companionship after her life has been transformed in the Annunciation and her acceptance of and cooperation with God’s will for her to bear his only Son. Elizabeth’s life has also been transformed, as she who was thought barren is now close to giving birth. And at this point, it is worth remembering, almost no one else knows what is going on for them. Zechariah is still struck dumb, unable to speak, and Joseph will eventually learn in a dream that he is to take Mary into his house, but no one else, as far as the Gospel tells us, has the slightest clue about what is unfolding in the lives of these two women.
So when Mary reaches Elizabeth and the infant leaps in her womb, they are witnesses to God’s salvation in a way that only they can share and know. Something is happening for the whole world, as Elizabeth recognizes, but right now it is happening to her: “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
How does it happen to us, that God comes so close to us, approaching us with such intimacy and familiarity? How do we join Elizabeth and Mary, as the carol we will sing in three days reminds us, in preparing room for the Lord in our hearts? How, in the words of our opening collect, do we let God pour his grace into our hearts?
Throughout Advent, we have been drawing on Dilexit Nos, the recent encyclical on the Sacred Heart, in order to prepare for Christ’s coming. Today, we will look at how meditating on Jesus’ heart can help us enter more deeply into the mystery of his Incarnation.
In the third chapter of the encyclical, Pope Francis writes:
“The eternal Son of God, in his utter transcendence, chose to love each of us with a human heart. His human emotions became the sacrament of that infinite and endless love. His heart, then, is not merely a symbol for some disembodied spiritual truth. In gazing upon the Lord’s heart, we contemplate a physical reality, his human flesh, which enables him to possess genuine human emotions and feelings, like ourselves, albeit fully transformed by his divine love. Our devotion must ascend to the infinite love of the Person of the Son of God, yet we need to keep in mind that his divine love is inseparable from his human love. The image of his heart of flesh helps us to do precisely this.”
The mystery of the Incarnation is not only that Jesus’ divine nature enters into the smallness of human infancy and birth, but that Jesus’ human heart and emotions become the sacrament of his infinite divine love. Or, as the encyclical quotes Pope Benedict XVI saying, “from the infinite horizon of his love, God wished to enter into the limits of human history and the human condition. He took on a body and a heart. Thus, we can contemplate and encounter the infinite in the finite, the invisible and ineffable mystery in the human heart of Jesus the Nazarene.”
In these last days of preparation for Christmas, let us ask to stand alongside Elizabeth and Mary, and feel God moving within our hearts as Elizabeth felt the infant John stir within her womb. As God pours his grace into our hearts, let us ask also for our own hearts to respond to Jesus’ heart, that we may love him as he has loved us.
The Nativity of Our Lord – December 25, 2024
Readings (for Mass during the Day): Is 52:7–10 • Ps 98:1, 2–3, 3–4, 5–6 • Heb 1:1–6 • Jn 1:1–18
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122524-Day.cfm
By Rev. John P. Cush, STD
Today, we celebrate the Nativity of the Lord in the flesh. As we believe, from all eternity, God exists. God exists as one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, from all eternity. The Father, the lover, the begetter, loves and knows the Son, the beloved, the only-begotten, from all eternity. The bond of love and knowledge that exists from all eternity between the Father and Son is the Holy Spirit. This is the Triune God in whom we believe.
Out of love, God deigns to create the world and all reality. By the will of the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit, all things visible and invisible come into being. God, who is all good, creates for one reason, his very nature, love. All that God creates by his Word, his Son, is good. God himself pronounces it good.
The highest of all of God’s creation was the human being, male and female, created in God’s image. At first, the man and the woman lived in that original justice, that peace with God, but through the work of the fallen angel, Lucifer, and through their own fear and pride, original sin enters the world. And so begins the long slog through salvation history.
Patriarchs, judges, kings, and prophets, exiles, and sufferings all lead to that day, when at the appointed time, the Father sends the Son, born of a woman, a virgin, into the world, at the Annunciation, which we heard proclaimed at the Mass of the Immaculate Conception. In the Immaculate womb of the Blessed Virgin, time and eternity meet, truth and peace kiss, and the long reign of sin and death is conquered. The New Eve, Mary, gives us the New Adam, who is Christ. Our weak frail human nature, at the Nativity of the Lord, is caught up into the eternal Godhead.
This baby, this newborn King whom we hail in the manger, he is a danger. He is a danger. This child is dangerous because nothing is as lovable as a baby. Babies, by their nature, are cute and cuddly. It’s as if they have a little something about them that makes people want to take care of them. If children were lovable, even more so must have been the most adorable Jesus. This little Lord Jesus, asleep in the hay, is dangerous. Why? Because if we take seriously what goes on in the Nativity, then our whole little world will have to change; the world as we know it will have to change. Think about it: in our fallen human condition, how do we know the world, in its fallen human state, in our fallen human nature? We know it as violent, filled with hatred, with anger and avarice, with lust, shame; a world of sin. This Earth is groaning under the weight of it all.
Into the darkness comes this very little word, this logos, the light of the world. We have the God of paradox present in our midst. God, all powerful, becomes all weak as a baby; God, all wise, becomes all needy, as a baby; God, who is eternal, enters into time as a baby. And he does this, all the while remaining God.
The incarnate God: God becomes one like us in all things but sin. “Nothing human is foreign to him.” He knows our pain, our fear, our suffering. He who did not know sin becomes sin itself. The same Christ who is born in the wood of the manger, poor and naked, wrapped in cloths, is the same Christ who died on the wood of the Cross, poor and naked, bloodied, “bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,” as the Stabat Mater reminds us. This child, born to us, unto us a Son is given, is a promise and a pledge, but also a challenge. This Christmas, bathed in Love’s pure light, may we accept this challenge.
The Feast of the Holy Family – December 29, 2024
Readings: Sir 3:2–6, 12–14 or 1 Sm 1:20–22, 24–28 • Ps 128:1–2, 3, 4–5 or Ps 84:2–3, 5–6, 9–10 • Col 3:12–21 or 1 Jn 3:1–2, 21–24 • Lk 2:41–52
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122924.cfm
By Fr. Sam Sawyer, SJ
“And his mother kept all these things in her heart.”
On the Sunday after Christmas, the Church celebrates the feast of the Holy Family, giving us a chance to pray with and alongside Mary and Joseph with the child Jesus. But as much as we may be used to imagining the Holy Family in perfect peace and harmony, the Gospel we read today shows us Mary and Joseph in confusion and alarm, at least to begin with.
We may not feel this as sharply as we should, because the Gospel takes only two sentences to cover what for Mary and Joseph was three days or more. One day journeying along with the caravan, thinking that Jesus would be found among their relatives and acquaintances, and then returning to Jerusalem to search for Jesus.
This past Labor Day, I got to spend some time showing my two nephews, who are just on either side of twelve years old, around New York City. It was a wonderful time, but I remember a couple of frantic moments where I worried that I had lost track of them for even five minutes. I cannot imagine being in that state of terror for three days, and I’m sure parents feel this far more vividly than uncles.
So imagine, if you will, Mary and Joseph rushing into the Temple exhausted and distraught, with adrenaline pumping through them, and then hearing the response “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” The Gospel summarizes their reaction with “But they did not understand what he said to them.” I’d say that’s putting it mildly.
Throughout Advent, I have been inviting us to pay attention to the use of the word “heart” in our readings, and to explore it through Pope Francis’ encyclical on the Sacred Heart, Dilexit Nos. And while I hope that has been helpful through Advent, we have perhaps an even better opportunity with today’s Gospel to delve into the encyclical, which deals with this passage directly.
Reflecting on this passage, Pope Francis writes that
“The heart is also capable of unifying and harmonizing our personal history, which may seem hopelessly fragmented, yet is the place where everything can make sense. The Gospel tells us this in speaking of Our Lady, who saw things with the heart. She was able to dialogue with the things she experienced by pondering them in her heart, treasuring their memory and viewing them in a greater perspective.”
The Holy Father speaks of Mary “treasuring” and “pondering” things in her heart, putting them together “in dialogue with herself.” And because of this dialogue with herself, the pope writes, what Mary “kept” in her heart “was not only her memory of what she had seen and heard, but also those aspects of it that she did not yet understand; these nonetheless remained present and alive in her memory, waiting to be ‘put together’ in her heart.”
I think this is profoundly wise and worth taking our time to absorb fully. Mary and Joseph do not emerge from the finding in the Temple understanding what’s going on. They return to Nazareth, and Jesus is obedient to them, and advances “in wisdom and age and favor before God and man,” but that is not the end of the story. Throughout all this, Mary is keeping in her heart even what she does not understand.
How often do we try to race ahead to the end of our own stories, to figure out what something means or what God is doing while it’s still unfolding? This also happens frequently in family life — we understandably want to make sure that those we love are safe, and sometimes that means we try to pin down what is going on as soon as possible, to preserve what is good and avoid what is bad, to make sure that things turn out all right.
Perhaps one grace that God offers us today is a way to wait faithfully in moments of uncertainty, doubt and confusion. Like Mary, we can keep in our hearts both what we understand and what we do not yet understand, trusting that in dialogue with ourselves and with God, these things can be put together in our hearts.
When we pray, as we did at the beginning of Mass today, for the Holy Family to be a shining example that we may imitate in the virtues of family life, let’s also remember that they practiced those virtues in moments of uncertainty — not by magically resolving all the uncertainties ahead of time, but by letting their hearts “keep” even what they did not understand and staying close to God throughout.
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