Dear LCG Members & Friends:
This Christmas has been busier than usual for me so that I have not been able to send out Christmas Cards to as many that I would like to send my best wishes.
The following is a short reflection on the mystery we are about to celebrate but before I do this, let me share a little instance that speaks to me of this mystery if I may dare to say so. I have a little sleeve-less jacket that I wear on cold days and I lost track of it yesterday. So I went looking in all the different places where I had been and found nothing. Then this morning I walked into my office where I had looked quickly once or twice and found it right there in front of me on a chair.
We may look all over for the Christ who comes to us at this season but we can all too easily miss His presence right in front of us, involved in our everyday tasks, sometimes to our great surprise. Let me now share the short Christmas reflection that I have sent our with some Christmas cards:
This Advent and Christmas season is always a call into the fullness of life. Recently I read or heard it said that as Christians, we are being called to allow the Holy Spirit to take hold of the whole of our lives, allow God’s voice to penetrate the depths of our being. What took place over two thousand years ago is ever unfolding anew as we let the Holy Spirit touch and infiltrate into the whole of our lives.
As I was about to put this letter together, I prayed the Hail Mary, asking her intercession to guide my thoughts and the immediate inspiration was to use Mary as the model of what is to take place in each of our lives, her accepting God’s messenger to become the mother of Jesus. In Christ, God has entered fully into human history and wishes each of us to be vehicles of divine mercy and love. Deep down I suspect we know this because it gives the fullest meaning to our lives.
So, my wish for you this season is that, like Mary, you accept God’s invitation to allow the Holy Spirit to overshadow you, so that your own life brings forth Christ in all that you think, do and say each day. We have only to say: “Behold I am the servant to the Lord. May it be done unto me according to your word.” To do so, is to see the world full of divine light and life. Be assured of my prayer and let me ask your own that we may be true to our calling.
To this, for those who may be interested and have the time, I would
like to add a reading from the great theologian Karl Rahner and also a
homily given by a Sister of Loretto that I found very insightful and
packed with meaning for this Feast. Finally, let me wish that each and
all of you may experience the depth of divine Love this celebration is
meant to give.
Your brother in Christ, Michael
________________________-
December 24
HOLY NIGHT
By Karl Rahner
◊◊◊
Why do we call the feast we are keeping tonight a “sacred night”? Night
because a beginning, holy night because a blessed and unconquerable
beginning; of such a beginning we would have to say: holy night, sacred night.
And so the church sings “Silent night, holy night.” Everywhere in the world
these words are sung for this feast… For this hour is the holy and sacred night.
Faith tells the Christians: that was the beginning. There God himself
came gently forth from the terrifying radiance in which he dwells as God and
Lord, and came to us; he quietly entered the poor dwelling of our earthly
existence and was found as a man; he began where we begin, quite poor,
vulnerable, quite childlike and gentle, quite helpless. He who is infinite, distant
future which of ourselves we never reach because it seems to retreat farther and
farther away as we hurry towards it on the hard roads of life, he himself has
approached us, arrived among us, because otherwise we should never have
found our way to him. He has accompanied us on our way to him so that this
may find a blessed end, because the very end itself has become our beginning.
God is near; his eternal word of mercy is where we are; it is a pilgrim on
our paths, experiences our joy and our distress, lives our life and dies our death.
He has brought his eternal life quietly and gently into this world and its death.
He has redeemed us, for he shared our lot. He made our beginning his own,
followed the path of our destiny and so opened it up into the infinite expanses of
God. And because he accepted us irrevocably, because God’s Word will never
cease to be human, this beginning which is ours and his is a beginning of
indestructible promises…
The eternal future has entered our time. Its radiance still dazzles us, so
that we think it is night. But at all events it is a blessed night, a night in which
there is already warmth and light, which is beautiful, welcoming and secure by
reason of the eternal day which it bears hidden within it. It is a silent, holy night
for us, however, only if we admit the holy silence of this night into our inner
selves, only if our heart too keeps watch in solitude. It can do so easily. For such
solitude and quiet is not hard. For of course we are solitary. There exists in our
heart an interior land where we are alone, to which no one finds his way but
God. This innermost, unfrequented chamber of our heart is really there – the
only question is whether we ourselves avoid it foolishly out of guilty fear,
because no one and no familiar things of this earth can accompany us if we enter
most ardent song. And it can have confidence that he hears it. For this song no
longer has to seek a beloved God beyond the stars in that inaccessible light in
which he dwells and which makes him invisible to all.
Because of Christmas, because the Word was made flesh, God is near and
the quietest word in the stillest room of the heart, the word of love, comes to his
ear and his heart. And those who have entered into themselves even when it is
night, hear in this nocturnal quiet in the depth of the heart God’s gentle word of
love… Let us enter quietly and shut the door behind us. Let us listen to the
unutterable melody which sounds in the silence of that night. For the ultimate
is only spoken in the silence of the night, now that…through the gracious
coming of the Word, there has come to be Christmas, holy night, silent night.
CHRISTMAS EVE HOMILY
December 24, 2024 – Eileen Custy
This evening we begin our celebration of the incarnation, God’s choice to live in our midst in
the person of Jesus. What a wonderful gift to us. But I would like to look at the incarnation
from another angle. I invite you to close your eyes if you wish, and go back in time 13.7
billion years ago to where there was nothing, no light, no universe, only total darkness.
Suddenly there is an explosion, a bursting forth of energy and light, God’s energy, God’s
love because God is love. Scientists call this the big bang. Without God’s energy/love there
would be nothing and we would not know God because we only know God through creation,
through what we can see. It is as though God could no longer contain such immense love
within God’s self and had to share it with all creation.
That burst of energy generate particles of matter which began to merge together into the
various elements like light, water, and soil. Notice that these small particles work together to
form substances. Plant life begins, tiny creatures emerge from the water and creep out on to
the land, animals begin to develop and finally humans come on the scene. Humans are
unique in that they are conscious of their own existence and intelligent enough to manage it,
unlike animals that act on instinct.
To me, the most amazing part of creation is the way all of these things come about because
those tiny particles relate to and unite with each other. A prime example is in your own
formation as human beings. Each person in this room started out life with two very small
cells. Those cells multiplied quickly and each one knew what it had to do – this group comes
together to form the heart; other groups form the liver or brain or facial features. Each of us
is basically a bundle of quarks, protons, electrons and atoms, each of which knows what it is
supposed to do and keeps us moving.
This array of cells working together is characteristic of all of nature – trees, soil, mountains,
birds, clouds, elephants. Add to that planets, stars and hundreds of galaxies in space., We
can learn a lot from mother nature about relationships and working together.
So right about now you must be asking yourself why the science lesson on Christmas Eve.
It is important because science now gives us a totally different picture of creation than that
which our ancestors described in scripture and it changes the way we see God. I grew up
with a God who was out there in the heavens somewhere, taking notes on who is naughty
or nice, ,not a God who is right here, within you and me, a God who surrounds us on every
side. Barbara Taylor Brown, a contemporary theologian, describes it this way:
“ Where is God in this picture? God is all over the place. God is up there, inside
my skin and out. God is the web, the energy, the space, the light – (not captured
in concepts and dogmas,)- but revealed in the singular vast net of relationships
that animates everything that is.”
If God is already totally immersed in our lives, where does Jesus fit in: Jesus is God’s
special gift to us, a teacher sent to show us a better way to live. His relationship with God
was deep, and manifested early in his life when as a young boy he was found questioning
the religious leaders in the temple. He prepared for his mission by spending time with God
in the desert and he often went aside to be alone with God during his public life.
What did he teach us? He taught us two basic commandments, to love God and to love our
neighbor as ourselves. He set the example by reaching out to people on the edge of society
like tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers, but also to the rich, poor, women, men, basically
everyone. The religious authorities did not condone his behavior because it went against
their power over the people. His popularity with the people was a threat to them. Eventually
they got rid of him. Jesus knew what he was getting into but was willing keep at it, knowing
it could cost him his life. That was how much he loved us.
Finally, we ask, where do we fit in? We are asked to love as Jesus did. We are asked only
to be the best that we can be by loving and caring for ourselves and one another. In the
Loretto Community we are called to act for peace and work for justice. This is not easy.
Loving our neighbor may involve speaking out against war, the death penalty, human
trafficking, racism, corporate greed, poverty, and inequality. Like all of nature, we are meant
to be in relationship with one another, working together, supporting one another, being good
neighbors. We are called to love unconditionally.
Tonight we celebrate the incarnation of God into humanity. We remember the birth of Jesus
and the gift that he is to us, but more than that we celebrate our God who has always been
right here in our midst, in the very core of our being, since the beginning of time. We marvel
at the breadth and depth of God’s love for us and for all creation. Like the shepherds we are
filled with joy. It makes our sunsets brighter, the sky bluer, our hearts lighter, and our love
for one another stronger. Tonight, let us sing our praise and give thanks as we celebrate the
presence of God right here in our midst.