Fr. Roger J. Landry

Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan

Mass for December 24

December 24, 2021

2 Sam 7:1-5.8-12.14.16, Ps 89, Lk 1:67-69

 

To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:

https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/catholicpreaching/12.24.21_Homily_1.mp3

 

The following points were attempted in the homily: 

* The essence of the human response to the Christmas mystery is to get ready to respond to what Zechariah calls the “tender compassion of our God,” the mercy he promised to the Jews through so many covenants, the mercy that would dawn for Zechariah in Jesus in the womb in his own house, the mercy that his own son John the Baptist would announce, “salvation through the forgiveness of their sins.” On this last day of Advent, we enter into this mystery of God’s merciful action, as John the Baptist his Son, even at eight days old, completes through his father’s words the task of making straight the paths for us to embrace our Merciful Savior.

* In today’s first reading, a millennium before the angels would sing “Hark!” in Bethlehem, King David tells the prophet Nathan that he is intending to build a temple, a fitting house for the Lord, asking Nathan to confirm that that would be pleasing to God. Nathan’s first reply was simply to have David go for it, that of course such a construction project would please God. But the Lord came to Nathan and told him to return to David saying that rather than have David build a house for the Lord, the Lord himself would mercifully establish a house for David, saying, “I will raise up your heir after you, sprung from your loins, and I will make his Kingdom firm. I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me. Your house and your Kingdom shall endure forever before me; your throne shall stand firm forever.” One-thousand years later, God would make good on that promise. When the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary, he said, “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his Kingdom there will be no end.” The Lord had spent a millennium preparing to give us that gift! David intended to do something for God and God far outdid David’s intended generosity.

* At the time of Christmas, those of us who remember that Jesus is the reason for the season, often make all types of good plans and resolutions about what we will give to God. We imitate the Shepherds in going with haste to the manger. We emulate the Magi in giving the Lord the best we have and falling down before him in prayerful homage. We model ourselves on Mary and Joseph in loving him. We echo the angels in announcing him. We strive to make loving crèche displays in our homes and convents and Churches as a sign of our loving expectation, receptivity and response in the temple we have become through baptism. But to all of this work, God says to us as he said to David, “Should you build me a house to dwell in?” God, in response builds us a house, builds us a dwelling place in him, a dwelling that will be secure forever. Christ has come in order to build that house so that where he is we may be with him (Jn 14:1-6). And the house he builds for us is even greater than the house he builds for David. Jesus would say 30 years later that John the Baptist was the greatest born of woman but the least in the Kingdom of Heaven is greater than he. The Lord wants to build us something even greater than what he did for David. The Messiah and Son of God doesn’t descend from us according to the flesh, but by baptism he makes us spiritual sons not of an earthly King but of the King of Kings.