Homily for Christmas
Fr. Albert
St. Peter’s, New Iberia, LA
Silence and Darkness. For all the music, for all the shining gold and well-lit churches, God truly loves to operate in silence and in darkness. How do I know this? Because the two most powerful and important things He ever did were done in silence and in darkness. Most important of all was his death and resurrection, where he came back from the dead inside a sealed tomb in the middle of the night, with not a single soul as a witness. Second to that is this very night [day]. God became man, the word became flesh and was born in the middle of the night, in a stable, in a small town with only Mary and Joseph to see.
And silence prevails also among those two; There exists no record of anything Joseph ever said. Then, despite the fact that she is second only to God himself, we have only four lines from Mary who gave birth to God in Jesus Christ. Paradoxically, we sing about the Word of God and the Light of the World in a song titled for the opposite: Silent Night. For God, importance speaks in silence and works in darkness.
And it doesn’t just apply to Jesus. The two most important and well-known saints of the last century, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II would have told you the same thing. Mother Teresa spent nearly 50 years in profound inner darkness and God was silent for her. While still Karol Wojtyla, John Paul II personally experienced a dark night of the soul. He never lost his respect for the profound power of darkness and silence in the workings of God.
So, while we are here [in the middle of the night] to celebrate with lights and songs the joyous birth of our savior, we must never forget why and how that savior was born, or what that means for us. This paradox begs us to understand, to ponder the mystery. Why does the Creator of the Universe, the Word of God, the Light of the world choose to enter into creation in silence and darkness? In a single word, humility.
Humility is itself a paradox. The most important virtue is found precisely by those who aren’t concerned with their own importance. Jesus is God. Jesus is our savior. Jesus is the culmination of thousands of years of planning. And what is the first thing he does once he finally arrives? He sleeps. And he doesn’t even do that on his own. Like any other child, he has to be swaddled, wrapped up tight so that the movements and twitches of his brand new human body do not disturb him.
But let’s not forget that Jesus is also our king, though he has no bed to sleep upon, nor a canopy over his royal place of rest. He lays in manger, a food trough for animals. And, though all the angels are his servants, obedient to his every wish, they do not immediately bow before this king. No, first they go to give the news to the least important people in town, the shepherds. Only after the child is wrapped up, sleeping in a food trough, and being watched by nameless sheep-herders, only then does heaven erupt in song and light, after silence and darkness have purified our hearts and minds to receive the Truth.
So that truth of purification must strike us now. For thirty more years, Jesus will remain silent and hidden in the darkness of Nazareth. If God is perfect, if Jesus always does the most loving thing possible, then we must conclude that 30 years of uneventful carpentry are more important than the countless miracles and abundant sermons that could have been. For all his power and all his words, the thing this God-Hero wants most of all depends so much on us. Our humble trust in Him.
To teach humility, one cannot simply explain it’s definition. It must be encountered, experienced, and embraced, often repeatedly. The flashier the teacher and the grander the words, the easier it is for our vain souls to miss the point. So, God begins and ends in silence and darkness, because humility must be planted in the soul like a seed laid deep in the dark and quiet earth.
So, will you receive that seed tonight [today]? Jesus humbled himself to become man so that we could receive him. He was wrapped in swaddling clothes as a child so we would not fear him. Soon, he will be wrapped in the clothes of burial so that we might not fear even death. Jesus is born in Bethlehem, the Hebrew word for “house of bread,” because he is the bread of life. He is laid in a manger – a food trough – because he gives his body as the food of life, the seed of eternity planted in our souls of time. God has become man so that we might become like God.
And the method of this marvelous exchange is simple. Humility. Humbly admit this mystery is beyond you. Humbly follow the example of a quiet laborer who loves his quiet family. Humbly obey the God who chose to obey the very people he created… and obey the people he has set above you. Humbly prepare yourself to eat the glorious body of Christ so that Christ can one day make glorious your own mortal body. And when in doubt of what to do, go back to where he began… and where he ended. Humbly place yourself before God in darkness. Humbly listen for your God in silence. In time you too will see the light that shines in the darkness. In eternity, you too will sing “Glory to God in the Highest and peace to those on whom his favor rests.”
