Dear friends in Christ: With the children of this parish, we have just revisited what is still “the greatest story ever told”: great, and true!

If there is one day in the year when skepticism melts away and the believer inside us resurfaces, that day is probably Christmas. In our very secular world – perhaps not so different from that of Charlie Brown and his friends, who were already in 1965 bemoaning the “commercialization of Christmas” – it is so easy for the story of the birth of Christ, the “true meaning of Christmas” to get lost. In the crush of parties and shopping, of pre-Christmas and Boxing Day sales, we have made a choice to be here this evening, in Church. To listen to St. Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus - with Mary and Joseph, with shepherds and angels – and to allow it to touch something deep inside us. To cultivate the heart of a child.

A few weeks ago, on December 1^st, Pope Francis visited the Umbrian hill town of Greccio, where in 1223, his namesake Francis of Assisi inaugurated the tradition of the praesepio: la crèche vivante, the Nativity scene, the forerunner of all the Christmas pageants held in churches, schools and village squares over the past 800 years! To highlight the importance of this tradition, he wrote an apostolic letter addressed to the entire church: Admirabile signum, “Wonderful sign”. In this letter, he encourages us to retain and develop the beautiful family tradition of preparing the nativity scene, of building it up gradually, of investing imagination and creativity to make it a living sign of Christ’s presence in our homes, our churches, our town squares, all those places where Christ is waiting to be welcomed anew. He says these words to us:

With the simplicity of this sign, Saint Francis carried out a great work of evangelization. His example touched the hearts of Christians then, and continues today to offer a simple yet authentic means of portraying the beauty of our faith. (…)

Why does the Christmas crèche arouse such wonder and move us so deeply? First, because it shows God’s tender love: the Creator of the universe came down to share in our littleness. The gift of life, in all its mystery, becomes all the more wondrous as we realize that the Son of Mary is the source and sustenance of all life. In Jesus, the Father has given us a brother who comes to seek us out whenever we are confused or lost, a loyal friend ever at our side. He gave us his Son who forgives us and frees us from our sins.

Setting up the Christmas crèche in our homes helps us to relive the history of what took place in Bethlehem. The Gospels remain our source for understanding and reflecting on that event, but its portrayal in the crèche helps us to imagine the scene. It touches our hearts and makes us enter into its history as contemporaries of an event that is living and real for us today, in our broad gamut of historical and cultural contexts.

From the time of its Franciscan origins, the nativity scene has invited us to “feel” and “touch” the poverty that God’s Son took upon himself in the Incarnation. It summons us to follow him along the path of humility, poverty and self-denial that leads from Crib to Cross, from the manger of Bethlehem to the hill of Calvary. It asks us to meet him and serve him by showing love and mercy to our brothers and sisters in greatest need.

Pope Francis reminds us here that the Gospel account of the birth of Jesus is not just a nice story we tell once a year, a children’s play we act out, making us feel warm and sentimental in the moment, so that we can return to business as usual on December 26. Might it be possible that our annual remembrance of the birth of Jesus: born of the Father before all ages, born in the flesh into the family of Joseph and Mary, fully human and fully divine, should be the herald of a personal message from God to you and me – right here, right now, in the particular circumstances of my own messy and confusing life? Can we hear in Christmas the call to a new birth, new awareness, an experience of the God who has come to dwell in you, and in me?

We often hear of the importance of putting “Christ back into Christmas.” We see Internet memes of people ranting over being wished “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, but they seem to be fuelled by anger and resentment, rather than the humble, self-effacing love of the one whose birth we celebrate. The Canadian Oblate priest and spiritual author Ron Rolheiser suggests that the real obstacle here is not so much our secular and multicultural society, but a pervasive busyness and obsession with activity:

No room at the inn! Maybe this is the real reason why there is so little of Christ left in Christmas. It is not so much our shopping, decorating, or partying that deprive Christ of a place, as it is our busyness, our preoccupations, and our agendas. These fill the inn, and leave no place for him. Our hearts and lives are too full for Christ to have a place. Most of us are not bad or inhospitable. Beneath all the hurry and pressures, our hearts are warm and welcoming. There is no room, because we haven’t got the time. Because we don’t make the time. There just isn’t enough space in our lives for Christ.

We have jobs to do, deadlines to meet, tasks to complete. The mortgage must be paid, the work projects completed, the kids must be fed, the meetings must be run, the supper must be cooked, the bus needs to be caught, the shopping has to be done, the kids must be picked up, there are all these things to do. The show must go on. In all this, in doing so many things which seemingly have to be done, Christ begins to disappear. We lose the time and space to be hospitable, unselfish, and welcoming.

To be these things takes real time and real space. Love and hospitality are not abstract. To have Christ in our lives, to put him back into Christmas, demands more than protesting commercialism. It involves creating time for him: time together for family, time for the poor, time for hospitality, time for celebration, time for prayer, time for the homeless couple who show up unannounced on a busy night. To make Christmas holy again, we must create some room in the inn!

In order for this to happen, we need to think of Christmas not just as the remembrance of a past event, but the celebration of a living relationship. The renewal of the Church is not ultimately about getting everyone to obey all of the Church’s teachings or for our churches to become magically full every Sunday. It will happen when believers like you and me can bear witness to the personal experience of an encounter with Jesus which transforms our lives. It is not just about the intellectual affirmation, “I believe in God,” but the conviction that “God believes in me, and I know this through my relationship with his Son, Jesus Christ: who loves me, who gave himself for me, in whom I have received the gift of total love and eternal life.”

Christmas invites us to move from the head to the heart, from speculation to experience, from external observation to inner transformation. How can we do this? How will we touch Divine Love this Christmas, so that beyond the competitive gift-giving, the shopping and partying, the disappointed expectations, we open our lives to what Christmas is intended to be: a life-changing encounter with Jesus, the Prince of Peace, the Human Face of God, the living sign of God’s unconditional and infinite love for all his creation – and for me personally?

In 2018, the German director Wim Wenders made a documentary film about Pope Francis entitled “A Man of His Word”. (You can find it on Netflix, along with another delightful take on Pope Francis and his immediate predecessor Pope Benedict, aptly named The Two Popes!) He draws out the ways in which his ministry has been inspired by diverse aspects of the life of his namesake saint, Francis of Assisi: simplicity of life, outreach to the poor and marginalized, reverence and care for creation, openness to dialogue with other religions and with the secular world, and ongoing reform in the life of the Church. In each of these areas, Pope Francis is making his mark, and he has encountered a lot of resistance as well, in both the church and the world. But it doesn’t seem to sway him from his purpose.

Pope Francis knows he isn’t perfect. He describes himself as a sinner, but one who has been looked upon with love and mercy. He knows who he is, he knows to whom he belongs, he believes in Christ’s power to transform us, to heal our broken world, to help us become all that God had in mind when he created us in love. He says:

“The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin and sorrow, from inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ, joy is constantly born anew. (…) Encountering Christ, letting yourself be caught up in and guided by his love, enlarges the horizons of experience, gives you a firm hope that will not disappoint.

Faith is not a light that scatters all our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and accompanies us on the journey. To those who suffer and struggle, God does not provide arguments which explain everything; rather, His response is that of an accompanying, loving, luminous presence.”

It isn’t easy to stay in touch with this joy. It often feels very far from our experience. If Christmas brings out the best in us – positive memories of love, of family and friends, of faith renewed – it can equally awaken in us fears, resentments, and disappointments. Christmas is often when we feel most acutely the loss of loved ones – whether through death, geographical distance, divorce or human estrangement – and that can be intensely painful, especially when you are expected to “eat, drink, and be merry”, when your sadness or struggle makes you an uncomfortable guest.

It helps to remember that it was precisely to poor, outcast shepherds that angels appeared to herald the Good News of a Saviour’s birth. Even today, Jesus dwells in unexpected, marginal places: in hospitals and palliative care centers, in prison cells, in refugee camps, on the streets of our own city, in those who come to our churches not just for handouts or Christmas baskets, but for a place of warmth and welcome, of true hospitality and welcome. I was struck recently by the powerful nativity scene at a church in California, not far from the Mexican border: three separate iron cages – one for Joseph, one for Mary, one for the Baby Jesus. Who will welcome him? Is there room at our inn for Jesus, for his family, for those who need protection?

The blessing, as Jean Vanier and Mother Teresa and so many others have taught us, is that when we welcome Jesus in the poor and outcast, we experience a Jesus who welcomes us in our own poverty and vulnerability. In the words of the haunting hymn by John Bell:

To the lost Christ shows his face,

To the unloved he gives his embrace,

To all who cry out in pain or disgrace,

Christ makes with his friends a touching place.

Dear friends, this is our challenge. Instead of thinking of God or Jesus as someone outside of me, an object of faith or doctrine, let us enter into the experience of Jesus, who reveals to each of us our true identity: God’s own beloved child. Ponder a God who does not judge you and find you wanting, but who desires only to embrace and hold you, in your brokenness and fears and attachments, who asks only that you surrender to his infinite and unconditional Love.

In Jesus, the Word made flesh, we encounter a God who enters the world in weakness and vulnerability, who entrusts himself to our care. Jesus, the Light of the World, becomes our child to bear: an infant dependent on his mother’s breast for nourishment, on his father’s care for protection, on the hospitality of strangers for a home. The One who cares for us comes to us also in those we are called to offer loving care and support. The circle of love is unbroken. All are welcome.

This is my prayer for each one of us: that our hearts and homes, our families and parishes, our city and our entire world may become a place where the presence of the living Christ is welcomed, honoured, and celebrated; whose doors and hearts are open to love; whose members are empowered to live as bearers of the hope, peace, and compassion embodied by Jesus, the Word made flesh, the human face of the Father’s mercy.

And in the immortal words uttered by the prophet Linus: “And that’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown!”

So on behalf of all of us here at St. Monica’s, we wish you a peaceful and joyful Christmas, a happy and blessed New Year. May divine love and tenderness take root in your hearts and homes, and may Jesus Christ make you messengers of hope, bearing His love and mercy to all you meet.

Joyeux Noel! Buon Natale! Feliz Navidad! Merry Christmas!