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Pope Benedict XVI- Homilies |
"God Is Important, by
Far the Most Important Thing in Our Lives"
H.H. Benedict XVI
December 24, 2009
Christmas Vigil Homily
Dear Brothers and Sisters!
"A
child is born for us, a son is given to us" (Is 9:5). What Isaiah
prophesied as he gazed into the future from afar, consoling Israel
amid its trials and its darkness, is now proclaimed to the shepherds
as a present reality by the Angel, from whom a cloud of light
streams forth: "To you is born this day in the city of David a
Saviour, who is Christ the Lord" (Lk 2:11). The Lord is here. From
this moment, God is truly "God with us". No longer is he the distant
God who can in some way be perceived from afar, in creation and in
our own consciousness. He has entered the world. He is close to us.
The words of the risen Christ to his followers are addressed also to
us: "Lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age" (Mt 28:20).
For you the Saviour is born: through the Gospel and those who
proclaim it, God now reminds us of the message that the Angel
announced to the shepherds. It is a message that cannot leave us
indifferent. If it is true, it changes everything. If it is true, it
also affects me. Like the shepherds, then, I too must say: Come on,
I want to go to Bethlehem to see the Word that has occurred there.
The story of the shepherds is included in the Gospel for a reason.
They show us the right way to respond to the message that we too
have received. What is it that these first witnesses of God’s
incarnation have to tell us?
The first thing we are told about the shepherds is that they were on
the watch -- they could hear the message precisely because they were
awake. We must be awake, so that we can hear the message. We must
become truly vigilant people. What does this mean? The principal
difference between someone dreaming and someone awake is that the
dreamer is in a world of his own. His "self" is locked into this
dreamworld that is his alone and does not connect him with others.
To wake up means to leave that private world of one's own and to
enter the common reality, the truth that alone can unite all people.
Conflict and lack of reconciliation in the world stem from the fact
that we are locked into our own interests and opinions, into our own
little private world. Selfishness, both individual and collective,
makes us prisoners of our interests and our desires that stand
against the truth and separate us from one another.
Awake, the Gospel tells
us. Step outside, so as to enter the great communal truth, the
communion of the one God. To awake, then, means to develop a
receptivity for God: for the silent promptings with which he chooses
to guide us; for the many indications of his presence. There are
people who describe themselves as "religiously tone deaf". The gift
of a capacity to perceive God seems as if it is withheld from some.
And indeed -- our way of thinking and acting, the mentality of
today's world, the whole range of our experience is inclined to
deaden our receptivity for God, to make us "tone deaf" towards him.
And yet in every soul, the desire for God, the capacity to encounter
him, is present, whether in a hidden way or overtly. In order to
arrive at this vigilance, this awakening to what is essential, we
should pray for ourselves and for others, for those who appear "tone
deaf" and yet in whom there is a keen desire for God to manifest
himself. The great theologian Origen said this: if I had the grace
to see as Paul saw, I could even now (during the Liturgy)
contemplate a great host of angels (cf. in Lk 23:9). And indeed, in
the sacred liturgy, we are surrounded by the angels of God and the
saints. The Lord himself is present in our midst. Lord, open the
eyes of our hearts, so that we may become vigilant and
clear-sighted, in this way bringing you close to others as well!
Let us return to the Christmas Gospel. It tells us that after
listening to the Angel's message, the shepherds said one to another:
"‘Let us go over to Bethlehem’ … they went at once" (Lk 2:15f.).
"They made haste" is literally what the Greek text says. What had
been announced to them was so important that they had to go
immediately. In fact, what had been said to them was utterly out of
the ordinary. It changed the world. The Saviour is born. The
long-awaited Son of David has come into the world in his own city.
What could be more important? No doubt they were partly driven by
curiosity, but first and foremost it was their excitement at the
wonderful news that had been conveyed to them, of all people, to the
little ones, to the seemingly unimportant. They made haste -- they
went at once. In our daily life, it is not like that.
For most people, the
things of God are not given priority, they do not impose themselves
on us directly, and so the great majority of us tend to postpone
them. First we do what seems urgent here and now. In the list of
priorities God is often more or less at the end. We can always deal
with that later, we tend to think. The Gospel tells us: God is the
highest priority. If anything in our life deserves haste without
delay, then, it is God's work alone. The Rule of Saint Benedict
contains this teaching: "Place nothing at all before the work of God
(i.e. the divine office)". For monks, the Liturgy is the first
priority. Everything else comes later. In its essence, though, this
saying applies to everyone. God is important, by far the most
important thing in our lives. The shepherds teach us this priority.
From them we should learn not to be crushed by all the pressing
matters in our daily lives. From them we should learn the inner
freedom to put other tasks in second place -- however important they
may be -- so as to make our way towards God, to allow him into our
lives and into our time. Time given to God and, in his name, to our
neighbour is never time lost. It is the time when we are most truly
alive, when we live our humanity to the full.
Some commentators point out that the shepherds, the simple souls,
were the first to come to Jesus in the manger and to encounter the
Redeemer of the world. The wise men from the East, representing
those with social standing and fame, arrived much later. The
commentators go on to say: this is quite natural. The shepherds
lived nearby. They only needed to "come over" (cf. Lk 2:15), as we
do when we go to visit our neighbours. The wise men, however, lived
far away. They had to undertake a long and arduous journey in order
to arrive in Bethlehem. And they needed guidance and direction.
Today too there are simple and lowly souls who live very close to
the Lord. They are, so to speak, his neighbours and they can easily
go to see him. But most of us in the world today live far from Jesus
Christ, the incarnate God who came to dwell amongst us.
We live our lives by philosophies, amid worldly affairs and
occupations that totally absorb us and are a great distance from the
manger. In all kinds of ways, God has to prod us and reach out to us
again and again, so that we can manage to escape from the muddle of
our thoughts and activities and discover the way that leads to him.
But a path exists for all of us. The Lord provides everyone with
tailor-made signals. He calls each one of us, so that we too can
say: "Come on, ‘let us go over’ to Bethlehem -- to the God who has
come to meet us. Yes indeed, God has set out towards us. Left to
ourselves we could not reach him. The path is too much for our
strength. But God has come down. He comes towards us. He has
travelled the longer part of the journey. Now he invites us: come
and see how much I love you. Come and see that I am here. Transeamus
usque Bethlehem, the Latin Bible says. Let us go there! Let us
surpass ourselves! Let us journey towards God in all sorts of ways:
along our interior path towards him, but also along very concrete
paths – the Liturgy of the Church, the service of our neighbour, in
whom Christ awaits us.
Let us once again listen directly to the Gospel. The shepherds tell
one another the reason why they are setting off: "Let us see this
thing that has happened." Literally the Greek text says: "Let us see
this Word that has occurred there." Yes indeed, such is the radical
newness of this night: the Word can be seen. For it has become
flesh. The God of whom no image may be made -- because any image
would only diminish, or rather distort him -- this God has himself
become visible in the One who is his true image, as Saint Paul puts
it (cf. 2 Cor 4:4; Col 1:15). In the figure of Jesus Christ, in the
whole of his life and ministry, in his dying and rising, we can see
the Word of God and hence the mystery of the living God himself.
This is what God is like.
The Angel had said to
the shepherds: "This will be a sign for you: you will find a babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger" (Lk 2:12; cf.
2:16). God’s sign, the sign given to the shepherds and to us, is not
an astonishing miracle. God’s sign is his humility. God’s sign is
that he makes himself small; he becomes a child; he lets us touch
him and he asks for our love. How we would prefer a different sign,
an imposing, irresistible sign of God’s power and greatness! But his
sign summons us to faith and love, and thus it gives us hope: this
is what God is like. He has power, he is Goodness itself. He invites
us to become like him. Yes indeed, we become like God if we allow
ourselves to be shaped by this sign; if we ourselves learn humility
and hence true greatness; if we renounce violence and use only the
weapons of truth and love.
Origen, taking up one of
John the Baptist’s sayings, saw the essence of paganism expressed in
the symbol of stones: paganism is a lack of feeling, it means a
heart of stone that is incapable of loving and perceiving God’s
love. Origen says of the pagans: "Lacking feeling and reason, they
are transformed into stones and wood" (in Lk 22:9). Christ, though,
wishes to give us a heart of flesh. When we see him, the God who
became a child, our hearts are opened. In the Liturgy of the holy
night, God comes to us as man, so that we might become truly human.
Let us listen once again to Origen: "Indeed, what use would it be to
you that Christ once came in the flesh if he did not enter your
soul? Let us pray that he may come to us each day, that we may be
able to say: I live, yet it is no longer I that live, but Christ
lives in me (Gal 2:20)" (in Lk 22:3).
Yes indeed, that is what
we should pray for on this Holy Night. Lord Jesus Christ, born in
Bethlehem, come to us! Enter within me, within my soul. Transform
me. Renew me. Change me, change us all from stone and wood into
living people, in whom your love is made present and the world is
transformed. Amen.
© Copyright 2009 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana
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at the One they Pierced!
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