Make This Christmas A Special One

CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FOR THE 24^TH OF DECEMBER, 2016

THEME: MAKE THIS CHRISTMAS A SPECIAL ONE

Isaiah 9:6 says; for to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called “Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” This child that is spoken of is the reason for the season. A God who has chosen to be with us as a son will arrive within the family. This is the reality of Christmas. Christmas is the joy and the love that exists between a young woman and the child who had been placed in her arms. That Child was Jesus, and in time he made way for another child who needed love, and that child was you and I. He grew and redeemed us so that he could welcome us into the life he lived here on earth. He welcomed us into the very family he created for himself.

Jesus did not come into this world alone. He came into this world by the way of a family, and he brought us salvation so that we could share membership in the family of God. That’s the very meaning of salvation and the meaning of Christmas; John 1:12 says “but to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God (members of his family).” If we don’t understand Christmas from this perspective then we don’t really understand what Jesus did by becoming one like us, been born into a family inorder to save us.

As we celebrate this season, we must not forget to reflect upon this fact that there is a family dimension to all the saving mysteries-from the Lord’s passion and death to his institution of the sacraments and the church-and this clearly seen in the story of the birth of Jesus.

The Christmas story is one of the most popular and great stories told in all of history. We might say it doesn’t have its outstanding heroes and memorable villains as does other enduring stories of centuries gone by; but I will draw our attention very quickly to its villains and heroes which are very easy to identify. (a villain is the main bad character in a story, or play. He is a person who is morally bad or responsible for causing trouble or harm.)

First on the list is the bloodthirsty King Herod who didn’t want any other king to rule or reign except himself and plotted to kill the baby Jesus. We recall in his quest to kill the baby Jesus, he killed many innocent children as the gospel of Matthew 2:16-18 tell us. When Saint John speaks symbolically about the Messiah’s birth, in Revelation 12, he informs us that the archvillain is Satan himself who is portrayed as the murderous dragon. The soldiers who killed the baby were the instruments employed by the Bloodthirsty King Herod to carry out his wicked intentions.

But the hero of the Christmas story is no other person than Jesus! He is the reason for the season. He is the Christ we strive to keep in Christmas. It is his story we hear and then go out to “tell it on the mountain.” (could the choir please sing for us hymn 174-go tell it on the mountain).

Jesus is at the center of the drama, but he doesn’t behave like the conventional hero. He doesn’t fit the classical model. He is not acting alone. He is not intruding himself to change the course of events. In fact, he is hardly acting at all. He is passive: nursed and placed to sleep in a manger, found on his mother’s lap by the Maggi, carried away in flight to Egypt. Like any baby, he exercises a powerful attraction-drawing love from those who draw near. Yet he is visible only because other arms are holding him.

The Christmas story has an unconventional hero-not a warrior, not a worldly conqueror, not an individual at all, but rather a family. The details of the story always lead us back to that fact. We see the swaddling bands and know they are for a baby, but someone had to do the swaddling. So we have a mother and child. We also have a father. We have a household. We hear tell of the manger-crib where he lay, but someone needed to pace him there. We read of the child’s exile in Egypt, but someone had to take him there-but someone had to protect him from thieves along the desert roads-and someone had to work hard to support the mother and baby in a foreign land.

The scenes of Jesus’s early life-that is Mary’s crisis pregnancy, Joseph’s provident decisions, Herod’s persecution-are dramatic precisely because they involve the intersection of so many individual lives. Indeed, the other details of the story derive their meaning from the Gospel’s primary focus on the family: the Holy Family. The evil King Herod is clearly anti-family, anti-child-murdering Bethlehem’s offspring, devouring them. History tells us that King Herod slaughtered his own sons, and the Gospel shows him commanding his soldiers to turn their swords upon the children of Bethlehem.

Beloved in Christ, the family is the Key to Christmas. The family is the key to Christianity. Pope Saint John Paull II noted in his letter to families (familiaris Consortio) on the Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, that everything good-history, humanity, salvation-“passes by way of the family.” When God came to save us, he made salvation inseparable from family life, manifest in family life. Since the family is the ordinary setting of human life, he came to share it, redeem it, an perfect it. He made it an image and sacrament of a divine mystery. Salvation itself finds meaning only in familial relations.

The truth of Christmas begins with a family. The events turned historically on the decisions of a husband and father, a wife and mother. We know of these events only because that mother pondered them in her heart and chose to share them with her son’s disciples (Luke 2:19, 51).

The truth of Christmas was passed on by way of families. Ancient pilgrims found their way to the cave of the nativity, not because there were historical markers and directional signs along the dirt roads of Bethlehem, but because the earliest Christians-some of them perhaps eyewitnesses, or the children of eyewitnesses-had pondered the local events and passed on their account to the next generations.

For centuries, their faith was illegal. In Bethlehem, as elsewhere, they met for worship not in grand churches, but in family homes. And they considered all who met together to be one common family. That, indeed, is one of the most profound implications of the Christmas story: that God had made his dwelling place among men, women, and children, and he called them-he calls us-to become his family, his holy household.

Beloved in Christ, if this is what Christmas entails as Scott Hann tells in his book “Joy to the world-how Christ’s changed everything (and still does)” we too must make this Christmas a special one for ourselves.

Christmas is not about committing the highest or most grave of all sins, its not about the clothes, shoes, wrist watches, or been very materialistic, and vain, it is about sharing sincere and true love and been at peace with everyone. God has allowed us to be part of his family, so we too must also allow ourselves be on the first hand part of the divine family and on the other hand make others part of our families. With this we shall be making this Christmas a special delight, a special one and memorable experience both for ourselves and others.

Beloved in Christ, permit me to share with you some high points that could be of great benefit to us if we must celebrate this Christmas well, and make it a special delight for ourselves.

1. First on the list is the season of Advent: from the Latin word “adventus” meaning arriving or coming. It is the beginning of the Liturgical year; it is the four weeks before Christmas. It is a period of joyous, devout and expentant anticipation and preparation for both the celebration of Jesus’ birth and his expected second coming. The scripture readings focus our attention on God’s promise to send a saviour to deliver us from sin and death. It is a time to take life a little more slowly, and to focus on what we need to do to allow God to more fully enter our heart.

Traditionally, this period is symbolically marked with an advent wreath with four candles; three purple candles and one pink. But some wreaths have an additional white candle to represent the birth of Christ. That white candle we lighted shortly before the mass began.

The traditional four candles represent the period of waiting during the four Sundays of Advent, which themselves symbolize the four centuries of waiting between the Prophet Malachi and the birth of Christ.

Each Sunday during Advent a purple candle is lit however, the pink candle is lit on the third Sunday (Gaudete Sunday or Rejoice Sunday-the day we had our Christmas 9 lessons and carol.)

The first purple symbolize Hope, the second purple candle symbolizes peace, the pink candle symbolize Joy and the fourth purple candle symbolize Love.

We too can do this at home-get a tray with a wreath and four white candles or if you can afford it you get the same colour used in the church from the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus Religious article centre at Toyin Street Ikeja; and then place it right by your altar at home. Each time the candle is lit in church, the father of home will do the same and if the father is no more, the mother will perform that rite with the prayers contained in the bulletin.

1. Retreat/pilgrimage: this is a time the church affords us an ample opportunity to reflect on our activities during the year and see how we can make amends and become better Christians. We must however note that the readings during these periods point our attention to been vigilant, awake and ready for the Lord’s return. Retreats and pilgrimages are not optional rather they are what make for been a good Catholic Christian where we are encouraged through the help of the Priest who has been invited to facilitate the retreat-to reflect and prepare ourselves worthily by means of prayer, reflection on the word of God to inspire, guide and direct us and help pattern our lives as it pleases the Lord.
2. Confession: this is very important in order to have a joy filled Christmas. It is an Old Catholic practice for Catholics to go for Confession before the celebration of the Mass of Nativity that is Christmas Vigil Mass and the Mass during the day.
3. Christmas Greeting Cards: giving a Christmas card is a sign of love and a direct message to communicate to the other that I love you and have you in mind and wish you the very best during the celebration of the birth of our Lord.
4. Christmas Gifts: even if you are tight on cash, you can still help your favourite charities by giving of yourself. Donate your time or unused items to a worthwhile Christmas charity effort such as the church. Buy a Christmas hamper and give to those who have played significant roles in your life during the year for example your priests (how many of you remembered Fr’s. Wisdom and Bertrand this Christmas by saying fathers please have this for Christmas???), the sisters, your boss in the office, the head of your HR, your top business associates and the likes. Don’t say there is recession. If you are charitable recession or no recession, you will give something.
5. Share the Christmas Love: some things are just better shared with neighbours and friends or in a group. Try and include other people in some of your family’s traditions, and you will find yourself reaping the benefits ten-fold.
6. Christmas Carolling: gather folks together for carolling. It may feel a bit unusual but once you get started, you will find it to be a joyous event. If you can’t go from house to house do it right in your sitting room.
7. Attend the vigil and morning mass with your family: this creates an atmosphere of love having to unit with the larger family the church. Join in the singing, and dancing in order to praise the Lord. Receive Holy Communion and give generously towards the growth of the church.
8. Decorate your family Christmas Tree: everyone has different method for decorating the tree. Some people want it to be a spectacular themed display; others might use ornaments the kids have made over the years. When decorating the tree, share the stories behind the ornaments or why you picked them. For instance: do you remember this one, you made it in your nursery two with the help of your teacher. Something like this will live on for years afterwards.
9. See a nice movie together: this creates bond and lasting memory when we sit together in our living rooms and see a movie while eating popcorn, cake and a bottle of coke or for the big guys a nice drink like your Gulder, Heineken, wine or your favourite drink.
10. Go to the mall or supermarket together: even if you don’t have something fantastic to buy just been together creates a good lasting memory in you.
11. Bake, and cook together and do that by singing: it could be cake, chin chin, candy or cookies. Each person playing a part. Someone may do the flour mixing, another the egg beating, another shredding the nutmeg, slaughter the goat and chicken together etc. singing while this is going on makes it merry.
12. Say your family prayer together: sharing the grace this season is one way to inspire in you and your children the love of the lord like the apostles of old did. The father of house in unison with the mother of the House is to pray for the children, your family business, work, children’s school, health and all that concerns you. It is also of great necessity that you appoint the children to pray for both parents and don’t forget to pray for the priests and sisters.
13. Find time to sit before the crib in silent mediation upon the mystery of our salvation. God’s entrance into our human history. He came to his own but his own did not recognize or accept him but to them that believe, he gave them the power to become sons and daughters of the Lord. He came silently but spoke mightily in his silence. His silence attracted strangers from the east who saw his star and came to do him homage. A baby yet a king placed in the hearts of the Maggi to do him homage an act of reverence and adoration-a gesture which we perform at mass.

Been born in the manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes and this has great theological interpretation. The child wrapped in bandages is seen as prefiguring the hour of his death: from the outset, he is the sacrificial victim. The manger, then, was seen as a kind of altar.

Augustine drew out the meaning of the manger using an idea that at first seems almost shocking, but on closer examination contains a profound truth. The manger is the place where animals find their food. But now, lying in the manger, is he who called himself the true bread come down from heaven, the true nourishment that we need in order to be fully ourselves. This is the food that gives us true life, eternal life. Thus the manger becomes a reference to the table of God, to which we are invited so as to receive the bread from God. From the poverty of Jesus’ birth emerges the miracle in which man’s redemption is mysteriously accomplished.

Beloved in Christ, no representation of the crib is complete without the OX and the Ass which also has a great theological interpretation. The manger, indicates animals who come to it for food. In the gospel there is no reference to animals at this point. But prayerful reflection, reading Old and New testaments in the light of one another, filled this gap at a very early stage by pointing to Is 1:3; “the ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib; but Israel does not know, my people does not understand.”

The Greek version of Hab 3:2 gives us some contribution here where it says “in the midst of two living creatures you will be recognized…when the time has come, you will appear.” The two living creatures would appear to refer to the two cherubs on the mercy-seat of the Ark of the Covenant (cf. Ex. 25:18-20), who both reveal and conceal the mysterious presence of God. So the manger has in some sense become the Ark of the Covenant, in which God is mysteriously hidden among men, and before which the time has come for “ox and ass”-humanity made up of Jews and Gentiles-to acknowledge God.

Through this remarkable combination of Is 1:3. Hab 3:2, Ex 25:18-20 and the manger, the two animals now appear as an image of a hitherto blind humanity which now, before the child, before God’s humble self-manifestation in the stable, has learned to recognize him, and in the lowliness of his birth receives the revelation that now teaches all people to see.

Beloved in Christ we must find time to mediate upon this wonderful crib which speaks so mightily of God’s presence in our midst. It is worthy that after your silent prayer you also give an offering there as a symbol of your appreciation for what God has done for you by making himself poor in order to make you rich

At this juncture let us sit and reflect on how the lord has been so good to us, enabling us to celebrate yet another Christmas. After the litany of thanks (I wish you all a merry Christmas. Then the choir leads in praises.)