The Nativity of Our Lord, Christmas Day 2022

GOSPEL: Luke 2:1-14 (vigil Mass)

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

 

GOSPEL: Luke 2:1-14 

Caesar Augustus issued a decree for a census of the whole world to be taken. This census – the first – took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria, and everyone went to his own town to be registered. So Joseph set out from the town of Nazareth in Galilee and travelled up to Judaea, to the town of David called Bethlehem, since he was of David’s House and line, in order to be registered together with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

While they were there the time came for her have her child, and she gave birth to a son, her first born. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them at the inn.

In the countryside close by there were shepherds who lived in the fields and took it in turns to watch their flocks during the night. The angel of the Lord appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone round them. They were terrified, but the angel said,

‘Do not be afraid. Listen, I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. And here is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’

And suddenly with the angel there was a great throng of the heavenly host, praising God and singing: ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and peace to men who enjoy his favour.’

The Gospel of the Lord.       Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

 

1. Just as Mary cares for the child and wraps him in protection, so we too need to protect the gifts of the faith and our relationship with God.

On this solemnity of Christmas, we read the Gospel for the vigil Mass. Mary wraps the child in swaddling clothes and lays him in a manger, because there is no room for them at the in. The angels announce the glad tidings to the shepherds, repeating the same description regarding the swaddling clothes and manger. The repetition shows us that there is something here that demands greater reflection. Mary is prepared and wraps her child to protect him. The gifts of the faith also require protection. If the faith is not nurtured it will wither. Our relationship with God requires care and attention.

 

2. Our faith always has a dual aspect, just as the birth of Christ had a dual aspect, care and rejection, persecution and glory.

Then the child is laid in a manger. The Greek text has words typically used to describe deposition in a tomb. In Eastern iconography, the manger is depicted as a tomb. In any case, a manger is not a proper place to leave a newborn child, with noises of animals and lack of normal hygiene. He is cared for, but circumstances ensure that he also suffers deprivation. This interplay between care and deprivation/rejection will continue throughout his life. The angels will sing for him, but a sovereign will persecute him. One day, the people will acclaim him as king, but shortly afterwards will be put on the cross by the same crowd. Our faith always has these two aspects, rejection and glory, death and resurrection, intimacy with God and isolation from the world.

 

3. Humanity is driven by disordered appetites. Jesus is laid in the place of food. He will cure our appetites and give us lasting satisfaction.

Those who go to visit the child are given these two contrasting descriptions: cared for by his mother, but deposited in the place of food for animals. Normally a child has need to eat, but this child is placed in a manger as if he is the food. And of course he becomes bread for the world. “My body is real food and my blood real drink,” he will say one day. Humanity is fixated with satisfying its appetites. This child brings a solution to the disordered appetites of Adam.

 

4. It is no accident that migrants and nomads welcome Jesus. All of us are in a constant journey and we will be restless until we meet God.

Mary, who is rejected by the other guests of the inn, is welcomed by the shepherds. It is not the owners of great herds but the poor guardians of the sheep by night that have this wonderful experience. They live a sort of nomadic existence. All of the great figures of the Old Testament were shepherds – Abraham, Moses and David. As an adult, Jesus will say that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. These migrant represent the restless part of our hearts, the part that is awake, that seeks salvation. Whenever man thinks that he has arrived, that he has reached his destination, he is wrong. Jesus reveals to us that we are in a constant journey towards heaven. At Christmas, we have the revelation of the new life that is being offered to us, the life of children of God, who refuse to be slaves of their appetites, who refuse to seek a permanent and secure base in this life, who refuse the mediocrity of a self-referential existence. How beautiful is the life brought to us by Jesus, who seeks to take away the hunger of others. This is the life of a pilgrim, of one who seeks the Father in all things, who journeys and grows in every action of his life.

December 22nd 2019. Fourth Sunday of Advent

GOSPEL: Matthew 1:18-24

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio

 

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Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

GOSPEL: Matthew 1, 18-24

This is how Jesus Christ came to be born. His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph; but before they came to live together she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph; being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity, decided to divorce her informally. He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you must name him Jesus, because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.’ Now all this took place to fulfil the words spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son
and they will call him ‘Emmanuel,’
a name which means ‘God-is-with-us’.

When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do: he took his wife to his home.

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

 

1. How does salvation work? Not by us taking the initiative and pursuing our own ideas! Rather, God takes the initiative and speaks to our hearts. If we are open to his action, and prepared to abandon our own plans, then he can achieve great fruits through us.

On this fourth Sunday of Advent we read from the first chapter of Matthew – the story of Joseph’s dream and his adhesion to the will of God. There are many details in this story. What key should we use for interpreting this text as we get ready to welcome the Lord? The passage begins: “This is how Jesus Christ came to be born.” Then we hear how a girl was with child through the work of the Holy Spirit. It is God who takes the initiative in our lives. So there is this girl who is pregnant through the activity of God and we have this man, Joseph, who is confronted with the situation and must find a solution. He comes up with various possible solutions, more or less noble, but then God again takes the initiative and speaks to his heart through a dream. This dream is an image of the profound interior spiritual life of this man. Joseph is told not to fear. This is how the Lord works. He takes the initiative and speaks to our hearts, helping us to enter into the events of the history of salvation. It is always possible to see the events of our life on two levels: on the purely biological level of cause and effect; or with an openness to the work of God. This dream of Joseph, and the faith in the depths of our hearts, tells us that there is something more, that the providential will of God is operating in things. We always run the risk of looking at things only on the surface, not seeing the invisible, that which is hidden.

 

2. We must believe in that dream, that inner voice that tells us that we have a place in God’s plan. Just as the Lord needed Joseph, so too he wishes to use all of us.

It is at this point – the moment when Joseph sees the seed of God in the depths of the event – that this man becomes a father and participates in the greatest event in the history of salvation. Each one of us can participate in such great things when we surrender to the invisible. How often life is pregnant with the providential work of God and we must learn to welcome it with a willingness to abandon our own projects and plans. Let us prepare for Christmas by opening ourselves to what the Lord wishes to do with us. Jesus always comes in unexpected ways. He was born in circumstances not considered apt for the Messiah, and right up to his death he had a form that was not welcomed by everyone. We must believe in that dream, that inner voice that tells us that we have a place in God’s plan. Just as the Lord needed Joseph, so too he wishes to use all of us. If we welcome the work of God in our lives, then it will reach its fruition. Just as Joseph named the child, an act of naming that was part of his paternal role, giving the child nobility and identity, so too we have the role of telling the new generation that they are salvation, that they are the handiwork of God. They were not born by chance. To welcome, to nourish, to protect the work of God, this is what we are called to constantly. God saves us, not in the way we think, but in the way he thinks, according to his sublime plan of love.

 

ALTERNATIVE HOMILY

When God enters history, he does so in ways that are difficult for us to comprehend. If the Lord confined himself to doing things that we understood or approved of, then he would end up acting in very mediocre ways! In the Gospel, Joseph finds himself with an apparently impossible decision to make. He believes that he must divorce Mary, but he does not want her to suffer the terrible consequences. An angel appears to him in a dream and addresses him as a “son of David”. Joseph is of noble lineage, even if he is a mere carpenter! It is Joseph who will have the honour of naming Jesus, and it is through this act that Jesus will be legally of the line of David. It is Joseph who confers on Jesus the Davidic dynasty by welcoming him as his son! There is a message here for all of us. If we, like Joseph, welcome the action of God in our lives, then we too, like Joseph, will recognize that we too are of noble lineage. We too can permit God to work wonders in our lives, as Joseph did. Like Mary, Joseph welcomes the power and action of God in a virginal way. He gives Jesus his identity. Jesus’ body was generated in the womb of Mary, but was nourished by the bread that Joseph earned. For our present generation, which has  a crisis of fatherhood, it is good to look at the figure of Joseph who welcomes Jesus, recognizes him, gives him an identity and nurtures him. Like Joseph, we too must be open to God. Like him we must be ready to say, “I am here Lord. Do with me whatever you will. I will put my name and my signature on the things that you ask me to do. I will expend myself for your sake”. This is the wonderful calling that the Lord has for all of us.

  December 11th 2022. Third Sunday of Advent

GOSPEL: Matthew 11:2-11

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio

 

Don Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...

 

GOSPEL: Matthew 11:2-11

When John the Baptist heard in prison of the works of the Christ, 
he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question, 
“Are you the one who is to come,
or should we look for another?”
Jesus said to them in reply, 
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: 
the blind regain their sight, 
the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, 
the deaf hear, the dead are raised,
and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”
As they were going off,
Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John, 
“What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind?
Then what did you go out to see? Someone dressed in fine clothing?
Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.
Then why did you go out? To see a prophet?
Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
This is the one about whom it is written:
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way before you.
Amen, I say to you, among those born of women 
there has been none greater than John the Baptist; 
yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ

 

Christ saves us in ways we do not expect. Even John the Baptist was surprised at the kind of salvation Christ brought. It did not consist in castigating everyone so that they would behave better. Rather, Christ saves by entering into our weakness and transforming it.

This third Sunday of Advent is called “Gaudete Sunday”, the Sunday of Joy. Advent in fact is oriented to the coming joy. We hear in the Gospel that John has doubts. He expected a Messiah who would castigate people and put things in order. Jesus replies with a list of his works (which are not the works the Baptist expected) and says, “Blessed is he who takes no offence at me”. The fact is that salvation is always different to what we expect. The last line of the passage is very revealing. Jesus tells us that John is the greatest man ever born, but that the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is still greater. John stands at the frontier between the Old and the New Testaments. He is the greatest of the prophets, but yet we are called to live something that greater than that which the entire Old Testament bore within itself. The Gospel of Matthew was written for a Jewish-Christian audience. They too risked being scandalised by the fact that Jesus represents a completely unexpected sort of fulfilment of the promises of the Old Testament. The observance of the Law, the entire story of the old covenant was being radically challenged.

 

Each one of us has a greater dignity than all the prophets and great leaders who came before Christ. We are greater in the sense that Christ touches us, saves us and raises us up.

The signs of the new order were, according to Jesus, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking, lepers being cleansed. In this new order, each one of us through the grace of Christ bears the divine nature, in this sense making us greater than John the Baptist himself – this is what is difficult to accept. These Christians of the first century who heard the Gospel of Matthew were asked to consider themselves greater than any of the prophets. Each Christian is greater than Isaiah, Jeremiah, Moses or Abraham because he bears within himself the salvation that these men longed for. We are invited to consider the greatness of our own dignity. How blessed we are to hear what others longed to hear and see that which generations before the advent of Christ longed to see! We have the sacraments, the announcement of the mercy of God, which is greater than the old Law. When we accept Christ as our Messiah, mercy and truth encounter each other, and in our flesh we become an announcement of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

We are all crippled, blind and deaf on an existential level. Christ enters and touches our condition, transforming it, operating salvation through us so that we become signs of his Kingdom.

It doesn’t matter if we are blind, lame, or deaf, God accepts us as we are and operates in us. This is the greatness the Church has. How many saints during history have come from situations of poverty and sin but have yet been borne to the greatness of the Kingdom! Each one of us is crippled on an existential level, each one of us suffers from interior blindness and deafness. Like lepers, we are isolated from others in our own self-insulation. This is where the Messiah enters our lives! He comes for the sick, not the healthy. He doesn’t come for the perfect, like John the Baptist, greatest born of woman, but Christ comes for the poorest of the poor. That is why the smallest in the Kingdom is greater than John the Baptist – he has the dignity of being saved by Christ! Let us allow God to save us! Let us stop pretending to be perfect. No matter how perfect we may appear in ourselves, it is nothing to what we are when the Lord is operating through us.

 

ALTERNATIVE HOMILY

On this “Gaudete” Sunday, what reason do we have to be joyful? The passage from the Gospel answers this question in a clear manner. John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus to ask if he really is the Messiah or not. John was living a frugal life of prayer and penance. His message to the people was that they must change their behaviour and live righteously. Perhaps John was disconcerted to find that Jesus was doing things in a different way? Maybe he had begun to wonder if Jesus was really the Christ after all? Jesus responds to the question in a surprising way: he tells John’s disciples to go and tell him what they have witnessed – that the blind see, the deaf hear, lepers are cleansed and the dead are raised to life. John was telling people to change their behaviour but Jesus was transforming people from the inside. This is the reason that we rejoice on Sunday. The Good News is not about a Saviour who lines us all up and demands obedience under threat of punishment. Jesus saves us in a completely different way. He draws us to him by his integrity and by his fidelity to the Father. He does not demand rote actions from us but he relates to us personally and heals us within. I am the blind man who cannot see the glory of God, cannot hear what the Lord has to say to me. I am the lame man who does not move beyond myself. I am the leper who lives in isolation from others, the dead man who cannot be raised by human means. Jesus acts on me from within and heals my vision, my ability to listen. He cleanses me of my impurity and brings me into communion with others. He raises the dead man within me. The key is that I must be the poor man who knows how to rejoice in the Good News. While I remain with the attitude of the rich, I will be so full of myself that I cannot accept this message.

 December 4th 2022. Second Sunday of Advent

GOSPEL: Matthew 3:1-12

Translated from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini broadcast on Vatican Radio

 

Don Fabio’s homily follows the Gospel

GOSPEL: Matthew 3, 1-12

John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea
and saying, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!"
It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said:
A voice of one crying out in the desert,
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
John wore clothing made of camel's hair
and had a leather belt around his waist.
His food was locusts and wild honey.
At that time Jerusalem, all Judea,
and the whole region around the Jordan
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River
as they acknowledged their sins.

When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
coming to his baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
And do not presume to say to yourselves,
'We have Abraham as our father.'
For I tell you,
God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Even now the axe lies at the root of the trees.
Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
I am baptizing you with water, for repentance,
but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I.
I am not worthy to carry his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand.
He will clear his threshing floor
and gather his wheat into his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

The Gospel of the Lord: Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ

 

1. Advent is not so much an invitation for us to get close to the Lord as it is the revelation that he has made himself close to us. Advent is not about us worrying about what we have to do, but a contemplation and openness towards what he is doing in us

On this second Sunday of Advent, we hear the precious announcement of John the Baptist, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” This might sound like a threat. Indeed, the entire passage can be read with a certain tension, but the Kingdom of Heaven is a joyful thing that had been so long awaited by the people of Israel. Consider the key term of this passage, “The Kingdom of Heaven is near”. We might think of this as a topographical closeness, as if the Kingdom as an entity is physically near, but in the original Greek, it really reads, “The Kingdom of Heaven is approaching”. In other words, it is God that has taken the initiative. Our King is coming to us. Advent is not so much an invitation for us to get close to the Lord as it is the revelation that he has made himself close to us. Advent is not about us worrying about what we have to do, but a contemplation and openness towards what he is doing in us. “Make straight the way of the Lord” is not an exhortation to make straight our own path, but to make the Lord’s path straight, to remove those obstacles that prevent him from entering our lives. We often try to turn the faith into something small and portable, something that fits in with our way of life, but Advent is calling us to be open to the Lord, what he wants to do, which is always different to our plans and expectations.

 

2. The strange characteristics of the Baptist signify that God is resetting history. John, dressed in this primitive manner, announces that history is going to have a new beginning. What we have to realise is that the Christian faith is not something that depends on our initiative, but on the new thing that God is doing.

John the Baptist is wearing a garment made of camel’s hair with a leather belt. His food is locusts and wild honey. The primitive garment recalls the clothing sewn by the Lord for Adam and Eve after they had made themselves naked by stripping themselves of their relationship with God. John the Baptist marks a new beginning in humanity’s relationship with the Lord. The locusts recall the plagues of the Old Testament and the journey towards the Promised Land. In summary, these characteristics of the Baptist signify that God is resetting history. John, dressed in this primitive manner, announces that history is going to have a new beginning. What we have to realise is that the Christian faith is not something that depends on our initiative. It is not that God created the world and now we simply follow his rules and pursue our own lives. No, God is always creating, always putting into action our salvation, searching us out in every event of our lives. Even the most difficult and painful aspects of our lives can be openings to salvation. In these things the Lord is knocking on the door.

 

3. The happy news of Advent is that it is a time to chop away and be liberated from that which is unfruitful in our lives. This year, let us allow the Lord to enter and to strip away that which is useless, that which does not belong to the Kingdom of Heaven. If our life circumstances are stripping us of something, maybe it is something that is not so essential after all.

Advent wants to transport us to a completely new beginning, a radical availability to what the Lord wishes to accomplish in us. John the Baptist insults the Pharisees by calling them a race of vipers. They wish to reduce religion to rituality. In fact, they will go on to reject Christ because he does not conform to their way of doing things. This is the risk we all run: we deify our vision and make an idol of our way of thinking, remaining closed to what the Lord wishes to do with us. How many times it happens that it is at a moment of suffering or difficulty that we begin a new way of life. In these situations, people feel impoverished, unable to resolve the difficulty themselves. Then, finally, they become open to the way of the Lord, what the Lord wishes to do with them. In the Eastern tradition, John the Baptist is always depicted with a tree nearby and an axe at its base. The happy news of Advent is that it is a time to chop away and be liberated from that which is unfruitful in our lives. This year, let us allow the Lord to enter and to strip away that which is useless, that which does not belong to the Kingdom of Heaven. If our life circumstances are stripping us of something, maybe it is something that is not so essential after all. Jesus says that we should have our treasure in heaven where the thief cannot steal and the moth cannot destroy. Whatever the thief can steal, whatever the corruption of this world can take from us, let them have it! For whatever it is, it is not of eternity, it does not belong to the deepest truth of who we are.

 

ALTERNATIVE HOMILY

During their sojourn of forty years in the desert, the people of the Israel learned that life was precarious and that they needed to place their trust in the Lord. When John the Baptist appears, it is in the desert and he is dressed in the manner of a pilgrim. He is challenging all of us to enter the desert, shed what we do not need and turn back to the Lord. What is the Advent of the Lord? It involves an axe and a fire coming into my life. There are many things in my life that must be shed. We must be ready to be pruned and to accept losses. Those who have major difficulties in discernment are those who are not willing to lose anything. The Lord is good and beautiful; therefore I must be ready to lose that which is not good and beautiful; I must be ready to shed that which is ambiguous in my life. We must be freed from the chaff that does not bear fruit, from branches that are stupid and useless. Advent is a time to praise God who wants to do something in my life that is good, beautiful and fruitful. Let us allow the Lord to do this. Our hearts must be ready to be freed from that which is useless. We cling to the chaff that leads nowhere. The Lord wishes constantly to purify us. The theme of purification is essential in the spiritual life. That which weighs us down must be discarded. Our Saviour wishes to draw us into a life that is simple, sober, agile and free; a life that cannot be lost. The Holy Spirit comes as fire and frees the Church from its delusions, wastes of time and deceptions. He frees Christians from that which is non-Christian and frees humanity from what is inhuman. We must ask the Lord to strike us in this wholesome way, even if it hurts. And it will hurt, because we are attached to small and useless things. John the Baptist comes, dressed as a pilgrim, to bring us all on pilgrimage, to bring us into the desert of purification, to bring us to the light to the kingdom of God.