OMELIE / Omelie EN

26/6/2016

25/12/2016 – Birth of Jesus

25/12/2016 – Birth of Jesus

Night          Isaiah 9,1-3.5-6          Psalm 95/96       Titus 2,11-14       Luke 2,1-14

Morning      Isaiah 62,11-12           Psalm 96/97       Titus 3,4-7           Luke 2,15-20

Day            Isaiah 52,7-10             Psalm 97/98       Hebrew 1,1-6       John 1,1-18

“The people who walk in darkness saw a great light”: with this prophecy, we have the start of the announcement of the mystery, which today fills us with joy. The arrival of the light for who is in darkness is a huge event. Imagine a group of miners who are entrapped in a mine, all is black, without any kind of hope. The arrival of a little light is a sign that someone has reached them, that the moment of their own freedom and liberation is near. And this is the life of men on earth: it is the walking slowly in the dark, where no one gives hope nor sureness. These can only come from the outside. And they arrive. Today a great light has appeared, in what the shepherds saw during the night while they were pasturing in Bethlehem. That light is a surprise. It announces the arrival in this word of the Son of God, the savior. Yes, Jesus us truly a surprise, it is a surprise which is truly desired and wanted. Have you ever encountered it when you were in the darkness? Have you ever been reached when you were in the absolute uncertainty? The presence of Jesus changes the perspectives, the ways of seeing, destroys our judgements, substitutes our desires.

“I will announce to you a great joy, that will be for all the people”, the angel says, and whose voice convinces the shepherds to do one thing: to go up to Bethlehem in the heart of the night to see…and they see him who is “the glory” of God in the heavens and the “peace” on earth for all men. A child? Yes, a child wrapped in swaddling clothes and laying in a manger.

The fact is very simple, but the mystery which it reveals is great, it is so great that it bigger than our minds. Everyone of us has had the possibility to analyze with his own intelligence this fact, and every time one discovered that he is not able to succeed wholly. Something greater remains, that cannot be contained, that it requires the ability of wisdom and science greater than our own. The evangelists tried to contemplate it, but they left the Holy Spirit to enter and do himself the work on our own lives.

Saint John, whom we hear during the morning mass, underlined this in a very particular way. He himself started this meditation using the image used by the prophet: the light that illumined in the darkness. That light is only a light which leaves us to see that which exists? No, it is itself the light because it is the life, not the biological light, but it is the light which touches the mystery of God: infact it renders man son of God. That light is the light that shines in the darkness. The darkness are in opposition, they are enemies of the light and thus of Life.

The coming of the light, of Life, initiates the hostility and animosity that there is already and which operates continuously. This too is a mystery which we cannot understand. How can that there are enemies of joy and peace of men? Can men be the enemies of their own joy? It is the other enemy, the father of darkness, the mystery of iniquity! We may call him Herod, we may call him jealousy, we can give him a lot of names, because in many ways and in many faces he comes near us to disturb and destroy peace. However we cannot be afraid of him: light is with us, it became a child. God is with us in that cave where Joseph continues to be in awe and in recognition, serving and being awake. God is with us, he who lets himself be taken care of, be letting Mary cradles him, the silent mother, who keeps in herself and in her heart the great mysteries. God is with us, and from today we are not any more afraid! We see him in need of our own love: God accepts to be loved by us, do be kept present in our thoughts and desires, as he is in the heart and mind of his Mother.

It is truly a great mystery. We have understood it and we want to re-meditate and to represent also visibly with many cribs created by the fantasy of thos who love and want God to be loved, he who came in form of a child! What do these figures made of cardboard or chalk which represent people who work, women who carry everyday objects, children who gets near the crib? They tell us that God came into, thanks to that baby, in our daily life. There is not only a moment in the day which cannot be lived without him. It is him who gives light and life to our living, to our work, to our time. Your crib is a long gospel pagem it is the announcement of the Gospel which enterd in your house and in your life to illuminate it and to give significane t everything and every minute, every fatigue, every move. Stop infront of your own and other cribs in silence to say: you are with me, Jesus, you are with me everyday, and I am yours, your friend on whom you can count.