Transcript of Abbot Clement’s Christmas Homily December 25, 2006
First of all, on behalf of myself and my community, my brothers in Christ, I want to thank you for joining us to really give glory to God for this great act of his gift of himself to win our salvation and to give us the fullness of life. So welcome.
I don= t know how many of you have seen Mel Gibson= s Passion but if you have you can= t miss the fact that Mel did a rather good job of showing the character of the Blessed Mother. He used flashbacks and then the actual portrayal of her connectedness with Jesus was so obvious that it didn’t take much to realize the Blessed Mother was really joining Jesus in his work.
Then if you have seen Nativity you will find that the history is pretty good and I don= t think there is really any objection but they really didn’t develop the character of the Blessed Mother. They could have used flashbacks, they could have used a number of things, but they didn’t. As a result the fullness and the impact of the Nativity are not really brought out.
What would they have to have done? First of all the Blessed Mother must have been a person who always was one with herself. And therefore, she had certain contentment about her life all the time. Her whole life, and because of that and because of that oneness, she was open. Open to people, open to life, open to God. Down to the roots of her being. So that she was appreciative. She could recognize the good that was coming into her life from God. I= m sure by the time she was seven. For her God is Abba, Father. She knows she= s loved. Not only that, but because she didn’t have this stance of wholeness and openness and went to a monastery to live this life, she was living an ordinary life, she was open to people. So when she grew up and started to learn about the world it was exciting for her and also profoundly connected to how God was blessing her. So she must have been a very interesting person to encounter. Because she could talk about a lot of things with significance. With depth. Not only that she must have been a person that really impacted you to good. Because we all know that good people make good people and bad people make bad people.
So we saw in the 4th Sunday of Advent, the gospel of Mary engaging Elizabeth, her cousin, just after the angel left and announced that she would be the mother of God, she saw that gift not simply for herself. She knew it was God= s gift for the world and so in the interpretation of realizing that this is God= s will she runs to Elizabeth to minister to her. As soon as she speaks a welcome, a hello, to Elizabeth grace flows into Elizabeth even to John the Baptist and the movement of God= s grace and the work of redemption takes a further step. John is sanctified in the womb and he will later on prepare for the coming of Christ and Elizabeth can= t do anything but acknowledge the truth that the woman before her is none other than the mother of the Lord.
But then Luke= s turns to what we heard proclaimed. It= s now six months later and the world scene is rather disrupted. Caesar Augustus has proclaimed a census of a sort and obviously it took time to get down to all the areas especially the far off eastern section of the empire and it affected everybody. Everybody was in a movement toward their hometown. And Joseph and Mary were wrapped in this. And then in one simple verse we are told about the event of the birth of Christ in Luke= s gospel. That Mary was ready to conceive at this point, she conceives, wraps the child in swaddling clothes and places him in a manger because there= s no room for them in the inn. That’s it.
What is Luke trying to show us and why is Mary portrayed this way? We know that in the Book of Wisdom Solomon is aware that he= s the king and that he= s in a certain sense, high and mighty. But because he’s a man of wisdom he says that he= s no different than anyone else who is born and wrapped is swaddling clothes. That he like everyone else will die. So Luke is proclaiming that Jesus truly became man. It= s Luke= s way of saying what John says in his gospel and in the prologue the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It means Jesus truly entered our human condition. God has become fleshly. Not far away. Knows our conditions, experiences our conditions, and has come here. Even to the point of solving our problem with death. So the swaddling clothes is Luke= s way of saying that Jesus is truly human.
Then, of course, the Blessed Mother places him in a manger. Mankind was known of course already in ancient times to need to be fed wisdom if he was to be fulfilled. So in this statement of the Blessed Mother placing him in the manger, Luke is telling us that this is the food for mankind. We know that this wisdom is Jesus= pure love. When we engage in the Eucharist, and are fed on Christ, we just don= t receive something passive like a hot dog, we receive someone who transforms us into that dynamic of self giving that Jesus is in his resurrected life. So we are transformed. Luke is showing that Mary is holding Jesus up to us saying here is your Savior. Here is the one that will transform and bring you the fullness of life.
Then the scene changes, now we are on the hillside. There the shepherds and the angels appear. And the angels remind the shepherds that today is a day of great joy. First because the Savior is born. Secondly because the Savior is the Messiah, the promised One. And thirdly, he is Lord. He’s King of kings and Lord of lords of the whole universe.
And later on which is not proclaimed because it= s the next section of the gospel. When they find Jesus that= s exactly what they do, they worship him. But that doesn’t happen with this particular passage. It’s immediately first open with a whole flood of angels, praising God and glorifying him. Why? Because the angels see what human beings do not see, namely, that this act of God to come in our midst superceded all expectations that God would ever do who is Supreme, happy, filled with the fullness of life and goodness and he has deigned to come and become a human being with pure goodness. He wasn’t looking for hurrah= s. He did it just because he= s good and he wants to do good to us. So they just burst into praise. Because even the angels are surprised what God has done by becoming man and saving us. So the corresponding two verses of the hymn that they sing is not only glory to God but peace to all on whom God= s favor rests. Not the superficial peace of exterior non conflict, but that deep peace that places man and God in union that is filled and rich and transforming. That= s the peace that we are celebrating that Jesus wins for us.
So this proclamation has to be made again and again and again because it takes us time to really sense how much God has poured out himself for our salvation. And how close he is, that he knows our condition because he was in it and remains with us to bring us the fullness of life. So what does Jesus find today in this proclamation in the world? He finds the same problem that ends that verse, that single verse on the birth of Jesus - there was no room for him in the inn.
Downtown Cleveland put up all the Christmas decorations, no crib, no mentioning Jesus. In fact you are pulled out of any kind of program in which you proclaim that. I know because I talked to an artist who had a tremendous voice and they asked him to sing because they knew he had a tremendous voice. When he said he wanted to sing some Christmas Carols, etc., they said, "No."
So the same problem exists today. In fact, I think it was Michael that was telling me that we have a different celebration. We now have the celebration of the Winter Solstice in which we celebrate the memories of the winter season. That’s going back to Paganism. That’s a lot of darkness, and you know who is on the side of darkness.
So we have to ask ourselves this feast how do I hear God speaking to my heart to offer me salvation? Jesus is on fire for the salvation of souls. He is eager to bring us the great love and compassion of the Father. He wants us to know that God is pursuing our salvation and he has won it for us. So what= s the response that we have in our heart? Is Christmas really a place where you begin to deepen and become more Christ like this year than you were last year? If not, why not? Because God speaks to every person’s heart. There= s not one that he doesn’t. The question is what do you do when you hear nudges by the Lord? Because it’s there that you begin to discover that you= re a sinner like everybody else. That you need salvation like everybody else. That God is offering it to you, free of charge if you want it. And it means your peace. It means your salvation. It means your transformation into all that you= re hoping that your life would be. The fullness of life, and what we learn also from these proclamations is that in case you miss out what the Lord is saying to you run to the Blessed Mother because she will form Christ in you also. She will show you that she truly is your Mother.