Dear friends,

Last week, facing the hard news of another pandemic wave, fuelled by yet another new variant, our Archbishop Christian Lepine published a pastoral letter entitled “The Door of the Manger is Always Open”.  He speaks to us:

We have been battling COVID-19 for almost two years now. This is our second Christmas during the pandemic. We are tired. We thought we had taken measures that would enable us to move forward, and we were taking things in stride. And now the Omicron variant hits…  

We will not be able to celebrate Christmas the way we had anticipated. The vaccinated are confronted with new restrictions, and the unvaccinated are confronted by more closed doors. Are we going to defeat COVID or will it defeat us? The question posed is not simply a medical one.

What is happening within each of us as we live through this pandemic?  Within me, a child of God who wants to walk in the footsteps of Jesus Christ? Within my family, the hub where we gather, share and experience joy?

To society, the world in which we live, seek justice and peace? And to the Church, where we celebrate, worship and profess our faith in Jesus?

Two thousand years ago a family was confronted with closed doors. They were Mary and Joseph. There was no room for them in the inn. The doors were closed, but they chose to put their trust in God. They found a stable, the newborn was placed in a manger… and the history of the world changed…

The door of the Manger is always open. In the Manger, Jesus is the loving face of God gazing upon humanity …on the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.

Our battle is against the pandemic. It is a battle for health. It is not a battle against anyone.  We are all in this battle together: following the health measures; listening to one another; speaking about what we find hurtful, harmful, disappointing; together in our ongoing quest to forge a path fostering health and loving-kindness.

Defeating the pandemic means remaining steadfast in trust and prayer. It means following the health measures. It means walking together and seeking ways to unite people.  Throughout this pandemic, let us keep the door of our heart open; let us always seek to look lovingly upon our sisters and brothers, inspired by the loving look of Jesus gazing at us.

Indeed, this evening (this day) we celebrate the birth of Jesus: the Light of the world, shining in our darkness; the promise of hope to a world that had lost hope. Isaiah calls him Emmanuel, a name that means “God is with us.” And in spite of the never-ending pandemic, Christ comes to be born anew in the hearts and lives of all those willing to receive him, in all those who “make space at the inn” for the life and love he offers.

Indeed, many of us will be only too happy to say goodbye to 2021. And yet, we still can say “Merry Christmas!” Why? Because even now, especially now, the Son of God comes to us. Two thousand years ago, He came into our world in Bethlehem: in cold and darkness, in poverty; growing into adulthood and ministry, Jesus brought us a message and lived a life whose meaning is ever fresh and new: a message of hope and love, an example of healing and forgiveness, a witness of peace on earth and good will to all.  This is why we need Christmas: because we always need Christ!

And so, we dare to live our faith. None of us have come out of this pandemic unscathed. Over the past two years, we have lost so many loved ones.  In our relatively small community of priests serving our English-speaking parishes, we lost six, many well-known and beloved here at St Monica’s: Fr Adelchi Bertoli of course, but also Frs John Walsh, Ernie Schibli, Joe Cameron,  Brian Martin and Michael McKenna. Our religious communities, including the Jesuits and the CND sisters, were also hard-hit.  Here in this parish, we have lost beloved community members, without the chance to gather, to grieve and say goodbye properly.  All of us, in one way or another, have been affected by this pandemic: our families, friends, co-workers and neighbours. In our pain, loneliness, and grief, we stand in solidarity with one another.

But we are not giving up. Mary and Joseph found their plans for Jesus’ birth disrupted by a government-ordered census, and complicated by doors closed to them in their greatest need.  But instead of despairing or giving up, they adjusted. They took the hard road from Nazareth to Bethlehem: the “House of Bread”, the City of David.  And here, Mary gave birth to Jesus, who would be known as Son of David, as Bread of Life, as Messiah and Saviour.  

“Good News and great joy to all the world! Today is born for you a Saviour: he is Christ the Lord.”  Those words spoken to shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem are addressed no less to us today, inviting us to go and meet the One who awakens our faith, hope and love.  And like those shepherds, we are called to not just receive that message internally, but to act on it, to go and see for ourselves, and to share the Good News with others. 

Those of you who were here early watched “The Shepherd”, the Christmas story as seen through the eyes of a lame shepherd, rejected, living on the margins, but hungry for the coming Messiah. Eventually, he receives the privilege of taking the newborn Christ in his arms. It is a precious and intimate moment.  Yet very quickly, he hands the baby back to Joseph and Mary, and repeats: “I must go. People must know!”  With his fellow shepherds, he leaves the stable to share the Good News announced by the angels and confirmed in this encounter with the Christ-child. They are to become the first missionary disciples of the newborn Saviour.

This is what Christmas calls us to be: Missionary Disciples. Created in love, gifted by grace, called by name, we are sent forth in God’s name into the world. Pope Francis recently launched an invitation to the universal church to consciously strive, over the next two years, to build a synodal church. That is, a Church rooted in deep Communion, in which the gifts of all the faithful are welcomed and celebrated, empowering their full Participation in the life of the Church and in her God-entrusted Mission: to go out into the world as witnesses of Christ, as agents of healing, love and transformation. 

Dear friends, dare we imagine a world of peace, joy, and love?  Can God use the brokenness and fragility of this time, even of our own church, to bring Jesus’ teaching and example to birth in us?  The answer is YES.  Why?  Because Jesus is the answer: he is the Peace that surpasses human understanding, He is the Joy that sustains us in sadness and despair, He is Love triumphant over illness and death. Yes, even over pandemics.  Even more powerful than the Delta and the Omicron is the Alpha and the Omega!    

In spite of the disruptions of this past year, God has not abandoned us.  For Jesus, our “God-with-us”, comes to us anew. Can we make room for him in our divided hearts, our fractured families, our polarized church, our broken world?  He is waiting for us.  If we truly open to the grace that he offers, his birth awakens within us the desire to become that place of hospitality, welcome and acceptance the world so deeply craves and needs: whether we admit it or not, and whether the world recognizes it or not. 

In the week leading up to Christmas, I love praying the “O Antiphons”.  These are invocations of seven different titles for the coming Messiah, used at Evening Prayer with Mary’s song of praise, her Magnificat. You might recognize them as the verses of the beloved Advent hymn, O Come O Come Emmanuel.  In his beautiful sonnet O Emmanuel, Anglican mystic Malcolm Guite weaves them all into a powerful meditation on the kind of change this Child would bring into our world:

O come, O come, and be our God-with-us

O long-sought With-ness for a world without,

O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.

Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name

Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,

O quickened little wick so tightly curled,

Be folded with us into time and place,

Unfold for us the mystery of grace

And make a womb of all this wounded world.

O heart of heaven beating in the earth,

O tiny hope within our hopelessness

Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,

To touch a dying world with new-made hands

And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.

 

Jesus comes not only to be born, but to bear us to OUR birth.  We come to adore him, but in the sharing of that long, loving look, we are the Ones who receive love and healing beyond measure. “Behold God beholding you … and smiling.”   

In Jesus, the Word made flesh, God comes among us in weakness and vulnerability, entrusts himself to our care[M1] . The One who is God from God and Light from Light comes as 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 in those to whom we offer loving care and support. And so, the circle of love is unbroken. All are welcome. All. Without exception.

This is my prayer tonight: 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.

So on behalf of all of us at St. Monica’s (Holy Cross), we wish you a peaceful and joyful Christmas, a happy and blessed New Year. May our hearts and homes always keep their doors open: a place of welcome and loving-kindness, a haven in whatever storm – pandemic or otherwise – the world may be going through.  Come, Emmanuel!  Come, Lord Jesus!

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