Shawn The Baptist - Sunday Scriptures

The movie WALL-E provides a cautionary tale that we can get so used to life as it is that we miss the good news when it comes, like Herod.

Discover the history and importance of the 'Mother of God' title in the Catholic Church as we celebrate Christmas.

The Word Became Flesh

God was always a Trinity of persons from all eternity. The second person of the trinity, the Son, always existed. Yet, we celebrate at Christmas that he took on flesh and was born in time. This reminds us of an important truth. This world is good, so good that God himself entered into it and became one of us. He who was eternally begotten of the Father, and is now begotten of Mary and enters his own creation. However, Jesus comes into this world to lead us beyond this world. As good as this world is, it's not all there is. St. John reminds us today "Do not love this world or the things of this world." We have to keep things in perspective. Christmas us the we are good enough that God would become one of us, but it also reminds us that we are too good for this earth. We are made for heaven. Let us remember this Christmas that Jesus came to earth so that we might come to heaven.

In the Light with St. Thomas Becket

St. Thomas Becket is perhaps the most famous martyr of the middle ages. He was Lord Chancellor of England under King Henry II who later also named him Archbishop of Canterbury. Thomas did not want to be bishop and it soon became clear that he had only been named to this post because the king assumed he would be a pushover who would easily allow him to control the Church in England. For a while, Thomas was actually willing to go along with plan. However, the grace of ordination eventually caught up with him and, to his credit, Thomas responded. He stood up faithfully for the Church and defended her against the intrusions of the king. Thomas eventually gave his life rather than submit any more to the king's plan.

Today, maybe society isn't going to threaten us with martyrdom if we don't play along, but there are pressures. If you stand up the faith and refuse to give into the secular watering down of society then you will suffer. Jesus promised this. How do we allow ourselves to be played by society and merely used? Where are we being called to take a stand like St. Thomas and say that we've had enough. The readings continue to speak of light and darkness. Let' make sure that we continue to follow the path of light.

Who's Side Are We On?

It's hard to imagine that anyone could see a little baby as a threat, yet that is what we see recounted in our gospel today. When Jesus was born, the shepherds and magi see in the Christ Child a savior. Herod, however, sees only a rival to be feared and eliminated. The "Holy Innocents" we celebrate today are all those little babies that Herod had murdered in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill Jesus. Sadly, this event is not the first such occurrence in Scripture. When the Israelites grew numerous in Egypt, Pharaoh also sensed a rival and thus ordered all the babies to be thrown in the river. Despite this attempt, Moses, like Jesus, escaped the plot. The important point in these stories is to recognize that God's plan was brought about even in spite of these murderous efforts to thwart it. Many babies died in Egypt and Bethlehem and yet Moses and Jesus remained safe. God's plan was accomplished.

Sadly, some today continue to look upon children as an inconvenience just as Pharaoh and Herod did. Like them, people continue to make the mistake of thinking that killing babies will eliminate our problems. No, the Scripture shows us clearly that God's will is done. The readings speak today of light and darkness. The magi are in darkness, and yet they see the star and follow the light. They are willing to go out of their way, to change their lives to conform to God's guidance. The magi find their way to the light. We too are often given the choice between light and darkness.

This day which commemorates the sad slaughter of so many innocent children in Bethlehem is somewhat ironically a feast day on our calendar, a day for celebrating. We celebrate the fact that Herod's plan failed. Not only did Jesus survive, but the lives of the little babies were not snuffed out as Herod had planned. Rather, these children now live forever in heaven where they intercede for us. Yes, we rejoice to see that God's plan is triumphant even in the face of great opposition and evil. Light will always be triumphant over darkness. The only question that remains is, "Who's side are we going to be on?"

Reflect on the struggles of the Holy Family and how they inspire us to create loving and holy families in our own lives.

The people at the time of Isaiah knew they needed a savior. To experience the full joy of Christmas we too must recognize our desperate need.

A House for God

The Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament represented the presence of God to the Israelites. It was his dwelling place. As they journeyed through the wilderness they kept the ark in the tabernacle, the meeting tent. Upon arriving in the promised land, David decided to build a more permanent structure. His son, Solomon, would eventually build this great temple to be God's house. Yet at Christmas we celebrate something even greater. God no longer dwells in tents or buildings. Rather we celebrate that God took on flesh and became incarnate. Our own flesh became God's house when Jesus became man. This is a greater wonder and a more glorious dwelling then anyone ever imagined. This is what we celebrate at Christmas.

Unplanned Pregnancies Saved the World

Today's gospel tells of the birth of John the Baptist. You might remember the gospel from a few days ago in which little John was described as "leaping for joy" in the womb of Elizabeth when Mary arrived carrying the baby Jesus in her womb. It should be perfectly clear from Scripture that no Christian could ever hold to the lie that babies are nothing more than "tissue" before they are born. These two little ones were not only alive in a natural sense, but even alive in the spiritual sense, responding to the grace of the Holy Spirit.

It is a great irony to think that after Jesus is born, this little baby would be seen as such a threat that Herod would have all the baby boys in Bethlehem murdered. How can a baby threaten anyone? Yet, Herod found the birth of this new "king" to be an inconvenience to his own plans. Jesus would have brought Herod happiness that he never could have planned for; instead he planned to have Jesus killed. Fear and selfishness sometimes cause us to do irrational and even diabolical things.

Unfortunately, the crime of Herod was not the first such incident in history. Pharoh had done a similar deed at the time of Moses. Nor was Herod the last to have such ideas. Tomorrow, on Christmas Eve, on the very night when Christians everywhere will gather in prayer to celebrate the birth of a little baby, the United States Senate will instead be meeting to plot for the first time in history to force all tax payers to cooperate in the murder of millions of little babies through the forced public funding of abortion. Not much has changed in 2000 years.

It remains a great sadness today as it was in the time of Moses and Jesus to ever think of a little baby as a threat that needs to be killed. However, the line from the Gospel today that most saddens me with regard to abortion is the observation of the crowd at the birth of John the Baptist, "What then will this child be?" I often pose this question to parents at baptisms. I wonder about the futures of all the little babies lost to abortion. What good were they created to do? What medical cures and scientific discoveries have been lost? Perhaps someone destined to be one of the greatest saints in the Church has been aborted.

In history God has often used the birth of a baby to bring about his plans. Often this was through what we would call today an "unplanned pregnancy." To Mary and Joseph, no preganacy could have seemed more unplanned that Jesus', yet God had planned it from all eternity. The same is true of any baby conceived today. When faced with an unplanned pregnancy we need to ask, "What then will this child be?" Let's pray that the Senate will change their minds and go home for Christmas to celebrate the birth of a little baby who saved the world.

Christmas and the Solstice

For those of us in the northern hemisphere, one of the rather nice connections with Christmas and the natural world is that the celebration of Our Lord's birth takes place just after the annual winter solstice. This is the darkest day of the year. Christmas is therefore just after this darkest time when the the light is just starting to increase each day. Obviously, the all of our brothers and sisters in the southern hemisphere things are quite different, but up north this connection with light and darkness is a nice addition.

However, a problem arrises when people claim that the celebration of Christmas was all made up as a replacement for pagan celebrations of the winter solstice. The truth is that the exact reason for December 25th being the day of Jesus' birth is not completely clear. There is, however, some good evidence to show that long before the celebration of Christmas, the Church celebrated the Annunciation on March 25th. Add nine months and the you can see that the date of Christmas was set based on this (I always assumed it was the other way around). Whatever the reason for the date, we celebrate the true light coming into the world as God became man. Now that's a lot more to celebrate than just the revolving of the earth around the sun.