DAY 4: This is the last of the Advent Devotions. Wishing you all a blessed Christmas! Scripture: Exodus 16:6,7; Psalm 24:1; Matt 1:18-21 Sermon Excerpt: Christmas has always been subject to many misunderstandings. Superficialities, taking refuge in familiarity, idyllic playing around with Nativity scenes, and so forth, have displaced our view from the tremendous event this holy day represents. This year the temptations toward a picturesque Christmas are probably reduced. The harshness and coldness of life have hit us with a previously unimaginable force. Some of us, whose homes cannot even offer the cold shelter of the stable in Bethlehem anymore, perhaps begin to forget the picturesque little ox and little donkey and to approach the question of what Christmas is really all about. Is the world more beautiful and life healthier because of that first Christmas? Because the angels finally and publicly sang their Gloria? Because the shepherds, awestruck, ran and adored? Because King Herod panicked and murdered the children? Well, here, the question is basically already obsolete. After all, that cruelty and those murders happened only because it was Christmas. Yet, indeed, we will seldom pray a word so earnestly, honestly, and longingly as this respirare asking for breath at the close of the Christmas Eve Vigil: Lord, give us breath. Let us draw a deep breath because the stones have fallen from our hearts; because life is on solid ground again; because our perspective is free again; because the decision applies again; because the relative safety life normally affords is no longer devoured by the uncertainty that was inflated far beyond the norm. Respirare! To be completely honest, I would like very much to do that soon myself. How wholeheartedly I prayed the words: “citius liberentur [speedily liberated]”. Every morning I have to mobilize myself for the day, and every evening I have to mobilize myself for the night. In between, I very often kneel or sit before my silent tabernacle and talk over my whole situation with Him. Without this continual contact with Him, I would have lost the ability to cope with the case and the situation long ago. Well, here I can ask myself, personally and concretely, the same question that generally, and just as concretely, applies to Christmas. What is different, now that the Sacrament is in this narrow cell; now that the Mass is celebrated; now that someone prays and weeps; now that God is known and believed and called upon here? What is different because of it? At given times keys screech in the lock and hands are imprisoned in irons, and at given times released, and so it goes for us, the same day after day. What has all this to do with the “respirare” that the mystery of God brings about? What about that sitting and waiting for salvation?. . . For how long? And to what end? And here we have arrived at the heights upon which the respirare—the sigh of relief, the new breath—can happen and may happen and should happen. The world continues on its course, but it has become the barque of the Lord God that no storm can overturn and no flood can tear asunder. The same principles and tensions of life continue to apply, but the Lord God has subjected Himself to these tensions and entered into them. He bears them with us, thereby increasing the potential for strength and independence of all of mankind. Lastly, man is no longer alone. The monologue was never a healthy or satisfying way of life. Man’s life is authentic and healthy only in dialogue. Yet, because enduring the tensions of existence and the burdens from God calls man into dialogue with Him, it conquers the most terrible human ailment, loneliness, finally and truly. Now there is no more night without light, no prison cell without genuine conversation, no solitary mountain path or dangerous ravine without accompaniment and guidance. God is with us: that was the promise, and we have wept and pleaded for it. And it has been realized in accordance with each individual’s capacity, and each life’s capacity: completely different, much more fulfilled, and, at the same time, much simpler than we thought. We should not avoid the burdens God gives us. They lead us into the blessing of God. To those who remain faithful to the ascetic and hard life, the interior springs of reality will be unsealed, and the world is not silent as we might have thought. The silver threads of God’s mysteries within everything that is real begin sparkling and singing. The burden is blessed, because it has been recognized and carried as a burden from God. God becomes man. Man does not become God. The human order remains and continues to be our duty, but it is consecrated. And man has become something more, something mightier. Let us trust life because this night must lead to light. Let us trust life because we do not have to live it alone. God lives it with us. (From the Meditation from the Christmas Vigil, written in Tegel Prison, Berlin, 1944.) Reflection: Will you offer thanks on this Holy night for the light that leads to light because we know that God lives with us and that the world is not silent because our lives are in dialogue with him? Regardless of circumstance and the burdens you bear, do you see the silver threads of God’s mysteries sparkling and singing with the joy of God with us this Christmas Eve?
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 00:34:27 +0000
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