We welcome everyone to our Christmas
celebration here at the Catholic community of Yazoo City and Belzoni. Christmas is a time of year when many
visitors and family members come to worship with us, to celebrate Christ’s
birth into our world. As we welcome all
of you to our Eucharistic celebration this evening, we hope you will feel the
warmth and hospitality of our community of faith.
Each Christmas, we hear the story of
Jesus’ birth from the Gospel of Luke, so there are no surprises in the story we
hear tonight. We are all familiar with
Mary and Joseph traveling to the city of Bethlehem due to a census being taken
by the Roman empire, in how they were forced to spend the night in a poor,
humble stable because there was no room for them in the inn. Jesus, the Son of God made incarnate in the
world by being born by the Virgin Mary, came into his earthly existence not in
some grand palace or in a mighty castle, but in the place where animals live.
Shepherds and animals were present at his birth, not kings, not noblemen, not
the rich and powerful of society. Jesus
was not born in a comfortable bed with fine linens, but instead in a
manger. Jesus being born in a manager,
in the food trough where the animals ate, foreshadows the way that Jesus’ body
will become the spiritual food that nourishes us in the Eucharist, as we partake
of his body and blood that are transformed from the bread and the wine that we
altar to God on the altar.
If you look at a lot of the spiritual
writings on the internet or in Catholic magazines this time of the year, there
is a lot being written about how we have the need to rediscover Advent and
Christmas in our lives, because Christmas has been so overtaken by our secular
world. If you look at the message that
is being put out by our modern society, Christmas has been transformed into a
secular holiday where shopping and presents and Christmas parties seem to take
the focus away from the religious and spiritual significance of this
event. Christ was born in that humble
stable in Bethlehem more than 2000 years ago, but how is he born in our hearts,
in our lives, today? Is he being born in
Black Friday sales and trips to Target and the mall, or is he being born in the
way we reach out to others in this holy season and in the way the values of our
faith permeate our lives? How exactly are we helping to proclaim Christ’s
message to our world? If being a
disciple of Christ does not have an affect on our lives, if we do not reflect
the Gospel in the way we live, then I don’t think that Christ’s birth has much
a significance at all for us.
It is important for us to realize that
we are celebrating Christ the light in our lives tonight. But it is not a light that came to our world only
once upon a time so long ago. It is a
light that shines tonight here with us in our Church at Christmastime, a light
that is to shine for all of eternity.
But, in order to feel the true meaning of Christmas, we need to feel
that light shining in our lives, to feel the responsibility to bring that light
to others.
As you all know, prison ministry is
something that is near and dear to my heart.
I usually love going out to the prisons, sharing our faith with the
inmates, and celebrating mass with them.
However, an incident occurred one afternoon when I went out to one of
the prisons that shook me up and that made me feel like I never, ever wanted to
go out there again. It took all the
courage I could muster to go back into that prison, to confront my fears, and
to continue that ministry. But, when I
go in there, I really see the light of Christ shining in the men who come to
our masses and Bible studies, who struggle with their demons and who search for
Christ’s presence in the midst of all their suffering. I see the light of the Baby Jesus who was
born in Bethlehem shining in their lives, in the relationship I have with those
guys. Isn’t that what this Christmas
season is all about?
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