A Homily for the Sunday within the Octave of Christmas

​+ If the familiar Christmas ‘story’ and its associated customs have induced feelings of comfort and of relaxation in these days, the Holy Gospel of this Mass is a sharp wake-up call. For the sweet child lying in a manger surrounded by Joseph and Mary and angels and lowing beasts, we are told by the just and devout Simeon, is destined for the ruin or the resurrection of many in Israel. He is to become a sign of contradiction amongst men, and the Virgin Mary, herself, is to suffer a sword piercing her soul.
 
With but a few words of Simeon, the Church has taken us from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from the stable in which wonders surrounded a new-born child to the hill of calvary on which unspeakable suffering was brutally put on show for all the world to see. Our happy Christmas has been interrupted by the grim realities which await us.
 
And yes, the Christ-child, the God-given saviour, is about the ruin or resurrection of many. He is a sign of contradiction. His provocation of men will lead to His intense suffering and humiliating death, a suffering that will indeed penetrate the souls of those closest to Him, none more than the Blessed Virgin Mary.
 
Simeon’s prophecy was not wrong. Whilst its sobering details can be somewhat startling in this Octave of Christmas, we should not forget that Simeon’s words are in fact words of great hope and consolation: the Christ is to be the cause of the ruin or resurrection of many. The new-born is the Messiah, He is He Who saves, Emmanuel, God with us.
 
That the Saviour is a sign of contradiction in a world (then and now) which has long-since forgotten God and has abandoned His ways is, after all, to be expected. Jesus of Nazareth is not a prophet or a philosopher with a set of possibly helpful sayings and ideas to help us make sense of our existence, as perhaps are some other religious figures in history. No: He is the definitive revelation of God in human history. He is “the way, and the truth, and the life.” “No one comes to the Father, but by Me,” He insists. (Jn 14:6)
 
These assertions contradict much, including (then) the Jewish authorities’ stranglehold on God’s Law and Covenant, and (now) the moral relativism and religious syncretism and indifference that pervades societies and governments throughout the world, even (especially?) in formerly Christian countries. At times, even the Church suffers from these viruses. It is no wonder that the greetings of this season have been reduced to “happy holidays” or “joyous feasts of the end of the year”—to wish someone “Happy Christmas” is to recognise Christ, it is to remind them that He has come to save us from ruin and to offer us a share in His resurrected life. It is to call others to make a choice and take a stand. It is to invite them to faith in Christ and by persevering in that faith come to share in His ultimate contradiction of the world and all the suffering it can inflict: His glorious resurrection bodily from the ignominious death inflicted upon Him by the potentates of this world.  
 
Thus, as Simeon saw, the coming of the Christ brings both discomforting contradiction and true hope to mankind. This was the mission of the Saviour born of Mary. This is the mission of His Body, the Church He founded, in the world to the end of time. It is our mission as baptised members of that Body, all the more so if we have a ministerial vocation within it.
 
We must contradict the world, firmly and clearly, above all by the integral witness of our lives and, if the opportunity or responsibility is given to us, by our teaching. If we are wounded, when we suffer, or should we fall in battle – even by our own wrongdoing – we must not lose hope. The Christ-child was destined to be scourged, to collapse beneath the weight of the cross and to cry out in anguish and in apparent despair. But God did not abandon Him, as the light of Easter morning shows forth for all to see –  a light that shines today through the Church’s Sacred Liturgy and sacraments rendering perseverance possible.
 
My brothers and sisters, Simeon’s words are in many ways quite alarming, as are the realities that face each of us in the world in our times. But the realities made present in our world in and through the Christ-child are greater than any suffering this world can inflict. We may freely choose to conform ourselves to the world, or to contradict it. We may opt for ruin or for resurrection. May our choice, made in the will and lived in the daily fabric of the circumstances of our lives, render this a truly happy Christmas! +

Click here to support the monastery. 
Your contribution, howsoever modest, is truly helpful.
​God bless you!