Daily Retreat 12/25/07
2007 Dec 25 Tue:THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD S. Holy Day of Obligation.
Midnight Mass: Is 9:1-6/Ps 95(96)/Ti 2:11-14/Lk 2:1-14.
Mass at Dawn: Is 62:11-12/Ps 96(97)/Ti 3:4-7/Lk 2:15-20.
Mass During the Day: Is 52:7-10/Ps 97(98)/Heb 1:1-6/Jn 1:1-18
From today’s readings: “Do not be afraid, for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.....”
For some people in our “camera-phone” culture, one of the disappointing things about the four Gospels is the fact that nowhere in their pages is there any description of what Jesus Christ looked like. Everything we know about Jesus is presented only in the written word: what He said, and what He did. Yet think about it: without a single picture, we bond with this individual Who significantly and substantially, uniquely and ubiquitously changed the mental and moral climate of twenty centuries of civilization.
Perhaps the best way to appraise and appreciate the unparalleled influence of Christ is to try to imagine the world without Him, to picture, if you can, what the world would be like if He had not been born that first day we now call Christmas! For if a person wanted to escape the influence of Christ, he would have to shy away from the shadows of all the colossal cathedrals, leave untouched shelf after shelf of illuminating literature, shield the eyes from the gaze of the most famous paintings, and plug the ears to all the magnificent music inspired by Christ Himself. One would have to blot out the great names whose ingenious minds were shaped by the Light of the Galilean carpenter, and never cross the threshold of all the institutions of compassion and the many universities of learning that were erected on the premise of Christian ideals. As a matter of fact, such a person could not address a letter, write a check or sign a contract without referring to how many years have passed since the birthday of Jesus Christ, for history, whether pagan or religious, was split in two on the roof of a Bethlehem barn!
Potent and powerful, inconceivable and incredible are words that describe the influence of Christ on civilization. Who in the world, in fact, is there that can completely escape the full gravity of His divinely dynamic influence? As committed Christians, we think as we think, we believe as we believe, and we behave as behave because Jesus Christ was born on Christmas Day.
But what I want to emphasize today is not the fact of it, but the force of it; not the mystery, but the means and the method of His influence. For it was a miracle of modesty that God should use the way of humility and lowliness to come to humankind! Talk about a “low profile” - God made absolutely no frontal assault on the minds of men, nor did He employ His power to bring pressure upon anyone. As it has been poetically pointed out in the past, He was born in obscurity with neither wealth or prestige, He never traveled more than a few hundred miles in any direction, His recorded words can be read in less than one hour, He was deserted by His closest friends, and He was executed by his enemies as a common criminal. God’s method was more miraculous than mysterious, for it is contrary to all the rules of common sense that Jesus Christ should ever wield any influence on earth at all!
Certainly, had God consulted us first in His plan to send the Messiah, a military man would have briefed Him on a different strategy, a public relations expert would have organized a more effective campaign, a Madison Avenue advertiser would have arranged a more successful approach. At the very least, we would have had Him born in a better place than on the edge of the Sinai Desert - how about a plush promontory on the French Riviera? or in Rome, with its imperial palaces, suburban villas and helmeted legions? or in Athens, with its profound philosophies and marble art? or in Alexandria, with it busy bazaars and colorful harbor? If God would have only waited for world-wide cable television or internet to carry His dramatic arrival in Bethlehem live and in color! And to be truly effective, God should have proclaimed His Divinity in tones of unmistakable clarity and unambiguous transparency in order to apprehend and arrest the world’s attention and to demand and command the world’s respect and regard. If only God would have moved in the right circles . . .
But instead, what do we have? We have omnipotence in bonds, and divinity in chains! We have a delicate and fragile baby! We have an apprentice carpenter in his dad’s woodshop! We have a penniless prophet surrounded by Palestinian peasants! We look for the power of God, and we see a helpless infant in the straw...
All the anxious hopes of recorded history, all the trembling predictions of gray-bearded prophets, all the yellowed parchments of inspired Old Testament scripture, all the centuries of waiting, watching and wondering - to think it should all finally leads to a straw-filled manger in a midnight cave in the middle of a rejected Roman Province!
It is really difficult to believe, isn’t it, that one little “Stranger in a Manger” should hold so much influence . . . and to think this influence has traveled the centuries of time and has enriched even our area in space. Has their ever been anyone else like Jesus Christ for whom the royalty and majesty of the distant East tip-toed into a stable and presented treasures of gold, frankincense and myrrh at the foot of a baby’s crib?
In the Garden of Eden, man was made in the image and likeness of God. In the cave of Bethlehem, God was made manifest in the image and likeness of man. God could not make Himself greater to impress us, so, paradoxically, He made himself smaller to attract us. Who could help loving a defenseless Infant? Nobody now has a valid reason for running away from God, so let us come and adore Him, for even at this late date, the influence and the light from Jesus Christ can lighten our burdens and brighten our days and can illuminate thoughts and motivate our lives as the mystery and miracle continues....
Midnight Mass: Is 9:1-6/Ps 95(96)/Ti 2:11-14/Lk 2:1-14.
Mass at Dawn: Is 62:11-12/Ps 96(97)/Ti 3:4-7/Lk 2:15-20.
Mass During the Day: Is 52:7-10/Ps 97(98)/Heb 1:1-6/Jn 1:1-18
From today’s readings: “Do not be afraid, for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.....”
For some people in our “camera-phone” culture, one of the disappointing things about the four Gospels is the fact that nowhere in their pages is there any description of what Jesus Christ looked like. Everything we know about Jesus is presented only in the written word: what He said, and what He did. Yet think about it: without a single picture, we bond with this individual Who significantly and substantially, uniquely and ubiquitously changed the mental and moral climate of twenty centuries of civilization.
Perhaps the best way to appraise and appreciate the unparalleled influence of Christ is to try to imagine the world without Him, to picture, if you can, what the world would be like if He had not been born that first day we now call Christmas! For if a person wanted to escape the influence of Christ, he would have to shy away from the shadows of all the colossal cathedrals, leave untouched shelf after shelf of illuminating literature, shield the eyes from the gaze of the most famous paintings, and plug the ears to all the magnificent music inspired by Christ Himself. One would have to blot out the great names whose ingenious minds were shaped by the Light of the Galilean carpenter, and never cross the threshold of all the institutions of compassion and the many universities of learning that were erected on the premise of Christian ideals. As a matter of fact, such a person could not address a letter, write a check or sign a contract without referring to how many years have passed since the birthday of Jesus Christ, for history, whether pagan or religious, was split in two on the roof of a Bethlehem barn!
Potent and powerful, inconceivable and incredible are words that describe the influence of Christ on civilization. Who in the world, in fact, is there that can completely escape the full gravity of His divinely dynamic influence? As committed Christians, we think as we think, we believe as we believe, and we behave as behave because Jesus Christ was born on Christmas Day.
But what I want to emphasize today is not the fact of it, but the force of it; not the mystery, but the means and the method of His influence. For it was a miracle of modesty that God should use the way of humility and lowliness to come to humankind! Talk about a “low profile” - God made absolutely no frontal assault on the minds of men, nor did He employ His power to bring pressure upon anyone. As it has been poetically pointed out in the past, He was born in obscurity with neither wealth or prestige, He never traveled more than a few hundred miles in any direction, His recorded words can be read in less than one hour, He was deserted by His closest friends, and He was executed by his enemies as a common criminal. God’s method was more miraculous than mysterious, for it is contrary to all the rules of common sense that Jesus Christ should ever wield any influence on earth at all!
Certainly, had God consulted us first in His plan to send the Messiah, a military man would have briefed Him on a different strategy, a public relations expert would have organized a more effective campaign, a Madison Avenue advertiser would have arranged a more successful approach. At the very least, we would have had Him born in a better place than on the edge of the Sinai Desert - how about a plush promontory on the French Riviera? or in Rome, with its imperial palaces, suburban villas and helmeted legions? or in Athens, with its profound philosophies and marble art? or in Alexandria, with it busy bazaars and colorful harbor? If God would have only waited for world-wide cable television or internet to carry His dramatic arrival in Bethlehem live and in color! And to be truly effective, God should have proclaimed His Divinity in tones of unmistakable clarity and unambiguous transparency in order to apprehend and arrest the world’s attention and to demand and command the world’s respect and regard. If only God would have moved in the right circles . . .
But instead, what do we have? We have omnipotence in bonds, and divinity in chains! We have a delicate and fragile baby! We have an apprentice carpenter in his dad’s woodshop! We have a penniless prophet surrounded by Palestinian peasants! We look for the power of God, and we see a helpless infant in the straw...
All the anxious hopes of recorded history, all the trembling predictions of gray-bearded prophets, all the yellowed parchments of inspired Old Testament scripture, all the centuries of waiting, watching and wondering - to think it should all finally leads to a straw-filled manger in a midnight cave in the middle of a rejected Roman Province!
It is really difficult to believe, isn’t it, that one little “Stranger in a Manger” should hold so much influence . . . and to think this influence has traveled the centuries of time and has enriched even our area in space. Has their ever been anyone else like Jesus Christ for whom the royalty and majesty of the distant East tip-toed into a stable and presented treasures of gold, frankincense and myrrh at the foot of a baby’s crib?
In the Garden of Eden, man was made in the image and likeness of God. In the cave of Bethlehem, God was made manifest in the image and likeness of man. God could not make Himself greater to impress us, so, paradoxically, He made himself smaller to attract us. Who could help loving a defenseless Infant? Nobody now has a valid reason for running away from God, so let us come and adore Him, for even at this late date, the influence and the light from Jesus Christ can lighten our burdens and brighten our days and can illuminate thoughts and motivate our lives as the mystery and miracle continues....
posted by FrPitstick | 12/24/2007
<< Home