Christmas (Text Only)

Dec 26, 2021

From the 1pm Mass on Christmas Day, 2021 at Our Lady of Sorrows in Farmington.

So... I worked my tail off preparing for Christmas Mass. I spent over an hour just practicing proclaiming the Gospel (the first chapter in the Gospel of John is seriously one of the best written parts in the whole Bible, and I wanted to read it well). I worked really hard at the homily. When it was came time for Mass, I was just "in the zone," and I thought I offered the holy sacrifice of the Mass as well as I ever did. But, after Mass, I realized... I had forgotten to hit the record button!!! Hence, there is no recording of this homily.

I went back and forth on this decision. The spoken word is not the same as the written word. With the spoken word, the delivery accounts for so much, and we lose most of that when the message appears in writing. But, ultimately, as you see, I have decided to post my notes for the homily. I have gone through and touched them up a little bit so that they are as close to what I said as I can remember.

Sorry about forgetting to hit the record button (actually, the recorder is set to record automatically for all the Sunday Masses, so I normally never have to hit the record button. But Christmas was on a Saturday...).

Anyways, below is the text of the homily. Have a Merry Christmas!

The Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ – 2021

1pm – Our Lady of Sorrows, Farmington

Intro:

• Merry Christmas!
  • Today is the day of our freedom, our release from slavery
  • Today, a Savior has been born

Body:

1. The Bad News:

• In the Gospel that was read at Midnight Mass, the angel tells the shepherds: “Behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy!”
  • “Good news of great joy!”
• We will get to this
  • But honestly, it’s tough to understand just how good this news is, if we don’t first understand the bad news

• A few years back, I was preaching about families, and the parents’ role to protect their children
  • I explained that the priest does an exorcism on the baby at baptism
    • The next day, in school, a child said how it was funny how I said that the priest does an exorcism on a little baby
      • “Funny,” what do you mean?
    • “My parents told me you were joking”…

• I was not joking!!!
  • Exorcism prayer from baptism: “Almighty and ever-living God, who sent your Son into the world, to drive out from us the power of Satan, the spirit of evil, and bring the human race, rescued from darkness, into the marvelous Kingdom of your light: we humbly beseech you to free this child from Original Sin, to make him the temple of your glory, and to grant that your Holy Spirit may dwell in him. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
• I was explaining this to a woman one time
  • The woman rolled her eyes at me and said: “Come on! A baby… this big?”
• Put yourself in the shoes of the devil
  • Do you think the devil is saying: ‘Awe! He’s so cute! I’ll wait.’?
    • If so, you believe in a really nice devil!
  • We exorcise the baby because the devil is real and he is not kind, he is not gentle!

• At a Baptism, the priest prays to God: “We humbly beseech you to free this child…”
  • This really captures what’s going on
• The devil is the ultimate human trafficker
• He is the ultimate enslaver
  • With him, we are not free, we are slaves

• When we sin, we often think: ‘I’m doing it my way’
  • ‘I know the Church says this, but I’m going to do it my way’
• But if we go back to the Book of Genesis
  • Who tempted Adam and Eve to do it “their” way?
  • Whose idea was it in the first place?
• The devil’s

• In life, I do things two ways
  • Either I do it God’s way
  • Or I do it the devil’s way
• If I do something the devil’s way, guess what? I am following the devil
  • Stepping into his hands
  • Stepping into prison/slavery

• What chance does a baby have against the devil?
  • By himself, nothing! No chance!
• And the same goes for you and me
  • By ourselves, we have absolutely no chance
    • The devil has us, and there is nothing we can do about it
    • We are not stronger than the devil
      • That’s why you never fool around with the demonic

• This is the Bad News
  • God created us out of love
    • But the devil was envious of us
    • Wanted to get back at God
      • The devil is too smart to attack God directly
      • So he attacks God indirectly, by attacking God’s favorite creature—you and me
    • When Adam and Eve sinned, they sold the human race into slavery to the devil
      • All of the devil's wrath was directed against them, against us
      • They had absolutely no hope of overcoming the devil and setting themselves free

• Only a few years ago, another priest pointed out to me how much we sing about this in Christmas carols
  • (I’m talking about real Christmas carols—not Grandma Got Runover by A Reindeer. I like that song, but it's not exactly a theological powerhouse…)
• God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
  • “God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay,
  • “Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day;
  • “To save us all from Satan’s power when we were gone astray…”
• The First Noel
  • Jesus “with his blood mankind hath bought.
  • “If we in our time shall do well,
  • “We shall be free from death and hell”
• O Come, All Ye Faithful
  • “O come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.”
• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
  • “Join the triumph of the skies”
• What is there to “triumph” over?

• Of the Father’s Love Begotten
  • “That the race of Adam’s children, doomed by law to endless woe”

• If we really understood the bad news, we would have a much greater hatred toward sin
  • • Sin kills, enslaves, destroys, and ultimately brings about death 
  • And we would have a much greater love, compassion, and understanding toward the sinner
• The kid who shot up Oxford High School, he is not the enemy
  • He was merely duped by the enemy, gave into the enemy's lies, just like each and everyone of us, whenever we sin
• The devil is strong
  • Without help from above, we would be “doomed by law to endless woe”

2. The Good News:

• But that’s not the end
  • Collect: “O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it…”
    • God loved us when He created us, and then loved us even more when He saved us
      
      • And this is the “Good News”

• Someone who gets beat and abused as a child
  • Do they normally have high self-esteem, or low self-esteem?...
    • Low
  • Each and every one of us has been beaten and abused by the devil
    • Our self-worth is probably a lot lower in our eyes, than it is in God’s eyes
  • Look at it this way:
    • Ave Maria University
      • Tom Monaghan sold Domino’s Pizza in the 1990's for a little over $1 Billion, and used the money to start Ave Maria University
      • Between Tom Monaghan, Pulte Homes, Collier County… Ave Maria is about a $1 Billion project
    • I attended Ave Maria
      • Had a conversion
      • Met Jesus
      • Discovered my vocation
    • Some years after graduating, I ran into Tom Monaghan, thanked him
      • He responded: “You know, if it saves one soul, it was worth every penny.”
    • I thought to myself: ‘Wow! My soul is worth $1 Billion!!!’
  • Actually, my soul is worth far more than a measly $1 Billion
    • My soul is worth the Blood of God!

• Many of the Church Fathers, on Christmas Day, would preach about the Crucifixion and death of the Lord
  • Why?
    • Because that’s why Jesus came into the world
      • We all came into the world to live, Jesus is the only one Who came into the world to die
    • And He came to die for you!

• You ever think about that?
  • Have you ever had anyone go out on a limb for you?
    • Take a risk for you?
    • Stand up for you?
    • Suffer for you?
  • It will make you feel that you are worth something
    • Our God died for us
  • You love something according to what you are willing to give for it
    • God gave His only Begotten Son for you!

• *With this next statement, I do not mean anything political by it
  • (So please, do not twist it into something political):
• Kyle Rittenhouse
  • Many of you have seen the video of Kyle Rittenhouse when the judge was reading off the charges of not guilty
    • He was in tears
    • He was just about knocked off his feet
  • He was looking at years in prison, instead, he went free
• Us
  • Under the devil’s thumb, we were looking at eternity in hell, eternity in bondage, eternity in slavery
  • Instead, we were set free… our is eternity with God!!!

• This is what we celebrate on Christmas Day
  • We were doomed to “endless woe,” eternity in hell
  • But a Savior has been born
• That’s why we call the Gospel the “Good News”
  • It is the best news that humanity has ever received!!!

3. “Christmas Humility”:

• Today’s Gospel: “The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him.”
  • On Christmas Day, Jesus comes into the world to save us
• But our ability to reject Him is astounding!

• Throughout the Old Testament, the Israelites reject God
  • In the Book of Exodus, God rescues the Israelites from slavery to the Egyptians
  • Moses takes them out into the desert… and they want to go back!
    • They want to go back into slavery!!!
  • As a priest, I have been called to do anointings (a nurse or a more distant relative invites the priest)
    • I get there, and the family asks me to leave
      • ‘Nope! We left the Church years ago. We are not coming back now!’
    • Our ability to reject Jesus is astounding

• Over the last couple of weeks, this term keeps coming to me in prayer: “Christmas Humility”
  • I have never heard this term before, but I know what it means:
• *Only the humble find Jesus

• When Jesus was born
  • The Wise Men sought Jesus, and they found Him
    • Wise men know they do not know everything, they are humble
  • The Shepherds sought Jesus, and they found Him
    • Shepherds know they do not know anything, they are humble
  • Herod sought Jesus, never found Him
    • The others sought Jesus to worship Him
    • Herod sought Jesus to kill Him
      • He was not humble
    • Only the humble find Jesus

• John Vianney says: There are no prideful people in heaven, and there are no humble people in hell.

• It’s been put on my heart this Christmas, to pray for myself and to pray for everyone I minister to, for some “Christmas humility”
  • That humility to really accept Jesus into the depths of our hearts
    • “But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God”

Conclusion:

• To summarize and conclude my homily, I would like to quote a few lines from what might be the best written Christmas carol ever: O Holy Night
  • • As I go through these lyrics, remember the structure of my homily: 1. The Bad News; 2. The Good News; 3. Christmas Humility (or, how do we respond to Jesus?) 
  • "O holy night, the stars are brightly shining;"
  • "It is the night of the dear Savior’s birth!"
• Now the bad news:
  
  • "Long lay the world in sin and error pining,"
  • "Till he appeared and the soul felt its worth."
• We're getting into the good news:
  • "A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,"
  • "For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn."

• And how are we to respond:
  • "Fall on your knees, O hear the angel voices!"
  • "O night divine, O night when Christ was born!"

“God Love You!” and have a Merry Christmas!