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Full text of the homily and video of the entire Midnight Mass in several languages at:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/be...istmas_en.html
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VATICAN CITY Just as there was no room for Mary and Joseph at the inn, so in todays frenetic societies people increasingly think they have no room for Christ, leading to social exclusion, discord and violence, Pope Benedict XVI told thousands of pilgrims at Christmas Midnight Mass. In his homily in St. Peters Basilica, he also warned of the consequences to society of rejecting God and religion, prayed for peace in the Middle East, and called on Christians and Muslims to build up their countries side by side, in Gods peace. The Pope began his homily by stressing the beauty of Lukes Gospel on the birth of Jesus that touches our hearts: a beauty that is the splendor of truth. |
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/be...istmas_en.html
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Dear Brothers and Sisters! Again and again the beauty of this Gospel touches our hearts: a beauty that is the splendour of truth. Again and again it astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we may dare to love him, and as a child trustingly lets himself be taken into our arms. It is as if God were saying: I know that my glory frightens you, and that you are trying to assert yourself in the face of my grandeur. So now I am coming to you as a child, so that you can accept me and love me. I am also repeatedly struck by the Gospel writers almost casual remark that there was no room for them at the inn. Inevitably the question arises, what would happen if Mary and Joseph were to knock at my door. Would there be room for them? And then it occurs to us that Saint John takes up this seemingly chance comment about the lack of room at the inn, which drove the Holy Family into the stable; he explores it more deeply and arrives at the heart of the matter when he writes: he came to his own home, and his own people received him not (Jn 1:11). The great moral question of our attitude towards the homeless, towards refugees and migrants, takes on a deeper dimension: do we really have room for God when he seeks to enter under our roof? Do we have time and space for him? Do we not actually turn away God himself? We begin to do so when we have no time for God. The faster we can move, the more efficient our time-saving appliances become, the less time we have. And God? The question of God never seems urgent. Our time is already completely full. But matters go deeper still. Does God actually have a place in our thinking? Our process of thinking is structured in such a way that he simply ought not to exist. Even if he seems to knock at the door of our thinking, he has to be explained away. If thinking is to be taken seriously, it must be structured in such a way that the God hypothesis becomes superfluous. There is no room for him. Not even in our feelings and desires is there any room for him. We want ourselves. We want what we can seize hold of, we want happiness that is within our reach, we want our plans and purposes to succeed. We are so full of ourselves that there is no room left for God. And that means there is no room for others either, for children, for the poor, for the stranger. By reflecting on that one simple saying about the lack of room at the inn, we have come to see how much we need to listen to Saint Pauls exhortation: Be transformed by the renewal of your mind (Rom 12:2). Paul speaks of renewal, the opening up of our intellect (nous), of the whole way we view the world and ourselves. The conversion that we need must truly reach into the depths of our relationship with reality. Let us ask the Lord that we may become vigilant for his presence, that we may hear how softly yet insistently he knocks at the door of our being and willing. Let us ask that we may make room for him within ourselves, that we may recognize him also in those through whom he speaks to us: children, the suffering, the abandoned, those who are excluded and the poor of this world. There is another verse from the Christmas story on which I should like to reflect with you the angels hymn of praise, which they sing out following the announcement of the new-born Saviour: Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased. God is glorious. God is pure light, the radiance of truth and love. He is good. He is true goodness, goodness par excellence. The angels surrounding him begin by simply proclaiming the joy of seeing Gods glory. Their song radiates the joy that fills them. In their words, it is as if we were hearing the sounds of heaven. There is no question of attempting to understand the meaning of it all, but simply the overflowing happiness of seeing the pure splendour of Gods truth and love. We want to let this joy reach out and touch us: truth exists, pure goodness exists, pure light exists. God is good, and he is the supreme power above all powers. All this should simply make us joyful tonight, together with the angels and the shepherds.... |