Christmas December 25, 2022
Fr. Albert St. John the Evangelist, Jeanerette
Allow me to tell you a story… a parable of sorts. Sometime in the past, there once was a man with his daughter. A loving father, a devoted daughter. Living in Australia in its early days, they were both eager to discover what life was like in the old world. After a careless choice by the daughter on the journey, they were separated. Each knowing that the other would not turn back, they resolved to continue the journey, hoping to be reunited along the way. So it was that they wound up on two different ships headed to two very different places. The daughter wound up in Cape Town, South Africa, the father a remote town in the furthest corner of Russia. The distance between them well over 13,000 miles.
For a time, the daughter looked for her father. Checking records of newcomers, scouring local news, studying each new face she came across, just hoping to finally recognize him newly arrived. Eventually, she stopped looking, figuring there was nothing she could do. She did her best to make a living. She worked for local craftsman, eventually marrying him. They had children. Every now and then, she would wonder where her father was, but that faded since things were good.
Then they weren’t. Strained by poverty and addiction, her husband became… dangerous. Her children drifted into vices of their own. Friendships with neighbors were usually tenuous because she had never quite felt at home… always a little out of place and now they unfairly blamed her, the outsider, for wrecking the life of a good local man. Eventually, her husband left. Life grew dark… light faded from her eyes. She turned to her own escapes, giving into more and more vices. Desperate for money, she was willing to sell anything and often did. Sometimes, she’d remember how good her father was; how strong and kind. Sometimes she’d remember him more for his hard work ethic, the way he pushed her to excel and she figured he’d be so disappointed to see her now. She began to believe that, even if they hadn’t been separated, she’d have disappointed him anyway the way she seemed to disappoint everyone around her. Hope was gone.
And then, one day, there he was. Simply standing in her doorway, plainly dressed and gently smiling. Coming from seemingly nowhere, he walked back into her life, learned all there was to learn, and set to work. Building a home for them both, nursing her back to health, it all seemed so… plain. So ordinary. The world around them seemed to carry on as normal, grinding people under the usual battles of power and money. Yet the light returned to her life and though most people around her couldn’t see it, the whole world looked different… it was different.
Eventually, she came to understand what had happened. Though she had stopped looking for him, her father never stopped looking for her. Researching all of the travel routes of the day, gathering every story from every far traveler, he came to know that that was where his beloved daughter must be. Then he began to walk… he traveled the longest possible walking distance on the planet. One day at a time, through every conceivable environment and weather condition. It took years to make that walk, but he never stopped. Every day the daughter unknowingly lived her life apart from the father, he was drawing ever closer to that one, sudden moment when he would arrive and turn everything upside down or rather… rightside up.
We are that daughter. That father is God. The journey is our life… the life of the whole human race. Though we were always meant to travel the whole way with God, we got separated by sin… separated as far as was possible. Reuniting with him seemed impossible. Indeed, it was impossible… for us. But not for him. As the human race plodded along, making a mess of everything, God never stopped. Although the world seemed all darkness, the light was on its way. Slowly, quietly, humbly he drew closer and closer until, one day, in a lowly manger away from the view of the world, a child was born. Though it seemed to come from nowhere when the angels suddenly appeared to the shepherd, though it seemed sudden when John just appeared in the desert proclaiming the coming of the light… it was not so sudden after all.
Each day, each year, each generation in that long list of names that the gospel of Matthew gives/gave us tonight/last night, God was drawing closer and closer to an unaware humanity like the father plodding through cities, wars, deserts, forests, rain, and snow all while the daughter thought each day could only bring more and more darkness.
And when he arrived, it all seemed so simple and ordinary. A poor family having a child in the manger. Them quietly raising that child in a small town… yet for those who would come to recognize this child, this arrival of God in the flesh, the whole world changed. The darkness could not overcome that light. Every day seems darker, yet the light is growing ever brighter, ever closer even when we can’t see it.
That is what we mean by Hope, what we mean by Faith. The daughter had lost faith, so she saw only the increasing darkness. Not knowing that the father was on his way, she had no hope, nothing to look forward to. Yet, she could have… We do have reason to hope. We do know our father is coming for us. God has come for us in the Son who took on flesh as a little child on this night/day. On this night/day 2000 years ago, he, like the father in that story, set to work making things right, rescuing us from our own darkness a little at a time. He will come again and set all things right once and for all…
Though we do not know when, though to all appearances everything seems to be growing darker… our God is drawing ever nearer and one day he will appear. That is why we celebrate this night/day. That is why every week… even every day we celebrate the Mass – so we don’t forget like the daughter did… so that we retain the ability to see past the surface, to remember the father drawing ever closer. Each and every sacrament is a light in the darkness, the father in the doorway, there to bring hope and set us right. More than mere reminders, they are moments of his actual arrival – if we have faith to see it. Confession shows us, like the daughter in the parable, that despite our father’s demanding nature, he is more interested in offering us restoration than disappointment, mercy rather than condemnation. Baptism is what made us his children in the first place and Confirmation is what ennobles us and enables us to speak confidently of his return even to skeptical and worldly neighbors. Marriage and Holy Orders show us that we’re meant to give our lives to others just as Jesus Christ did. Anointing of the Sick is that last testament that darkness will not win, that a new dawn awaits us after we close our eyes that final time.
Most of all, at each and every Mass, each and every celebration of the Eucharist… of thanksgiving in faith and hope, God does come again, is about to come again on the altar, allowing us to receive him with joy and hope to sustain us until that Day when joy is all that is left. Such is the meaning of Christmas: that one day, all will be joy for those who do not lose hope. Draw close, then, to the manger this night/day and see love incarnate. Draw close to the light that heals through confession. Draw close in prayer and praise to the one who hears you whisper his name no matter the distance. Draw close to the child born into each soul that receives him worthily in communion. Week-by-week, day-by-day, stay close. For though the darkness seems to be closing in, the light is even closer and brighter than we can imagine.
Thank for this message of hope and faith.