Homily - The Nativity of the Lord, at Mass During the Day

Each year this Gospel seems to us an odd one to proclaim on Christmas. Where are the oxen and sheep? Where the shepherds? Where, even, are Mary, Joseph and the Child?

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets; in these last days, he has spoken to us through the Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2).

We know John the Baptist to be the last of the prophets who “came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him” (John 1:7). Who, then, is this light?

John prepared the way for Jesus Christ, “the true light, which enlightens everyone” (John 1:9), through whom we have received “grace and truth” (John 1:16).

The True Light, Jesus Christ, is also the Word who “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). The Father has spoken to us through his Son, the Word, the Light, who now sits “at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Hebrews 1:3).

It was not enough for us to hear the voice of God; it was not enough for him to speak to us in partial and various ways. In the birth of Jesus Christ, no longer will we simply hear his voice; now we can see him and touch him. Now – because of the mystery of Christmas – the Word, the Reason and eternal Meaning behind all of creation – “has made himself tangible to our senses and our intelligence. Now we can touch him and contemplate him (cf. I John 1:1).”[1] It is him whom we come today to adore.

Today, the glory of the Son, who is “far superior to the angels,” is hidden in human flesh (Hebrews 1:4).

In the child Jesus, the defenselessness of God is apparent. God comes without weapons, because he does not wish to conquer from outside but desires to win and transform us from within. If anything can conquer man’s vainglory, his violence, his greed, it is the vulnerability of the child. God assumed this vulnerability to conquer us and lead us to himself.[2]

Can there be anything more vulnerable or defenseless than a newborn child? Yet it is precisely this that the Son of God becomes for us to manifest the depth of his great love.

As we consider this Word made Flesh, this True Light, let us direct our eyes heavenward – for just a moment – and look upon the statue of our heavenly patron, Saint Anthony of Padua. He holds in his arms the Christ Child. How could he hold the “newborn King of the Jews” if he lived some twelve hundred years after the mysterious birth in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:2)?

The story is told to us that one day Saint Anthony was staying in the home a man named Tiso. He was given “a room in an isolated part of the property so that he might be undisturbed in his study and contemplation.”[3] Anthony’s holiness was already well known and Tiso wanted to be certain to take care of his blessed guest. To do so, he frequently passed by the room in which the Saint was staying. At one point he peered through the window and saw

a most beautiful and joyous baby appear in the arms of Blessed Anthony. The Saint hugged him and kissed him, gazing into his face with ceaseless affection. The man was awestruck at the beauty of that baby. He wondered where such a beautiful child came from.[4]

The baby, of course, was Jesus, the Christ Child. This must surely have been the most profound experience of Anthony’s life. We know the joy of kissing a human baby, but to kiss God himself?

Why would the Child appear to Saint Anthony? The reason is found in the Gospel proclaimed today. Saint Anthony is known as the Evangelic Doctor, the Doctor of the Gospels, because of his deep knowledge of and love for the Scriptures, and of the Gospels especially. Through his prayerful reading of the holy Gospels that night, the Word truly became flesh and was held in Anthony’s hands.

If we look again to the statue above us, we see that the Christ Child holds his hand out toward us. It is an invitation for us to take his hand and to allow him to grasp our hand, as any child does. It is this hand that “has won victory for him, his holy arm” (Psalm 98:1); it his hand that will guide us (cf. Isaiah 11:6).

But why was Saint Anthony given the grace to hold the Child in his arms? The answer is given us in what he holds in his other arm: lilies. The lily in Christian art represents purity, which is why Saint Joseph – who also holds the Child – holds a lily. The Child for whom we have all awaited and prayed (cf. I Samuel 1:27) comes to those who are “clean of heart” (Matthew 5:8).

The Roman poet Virgil has given us a well-known phrase: omnia vincit amor, “love conquers all;” but whereas we end his phrase there, he went on to say, et nos cedamus amori, “let us, too, yield to love.”[5]

As we gaze upon the Christ Child we see God himself, God who “is love” (I John 4:16). When a child reaches out to grasp our fingers, who pulls their hand away? None of us do. We let the baby grasp our fingers and play with them. How could we do differently when it is God who reaches out to us?

When the newborn Son of God reaches out to grasp our hand, will we pull away, or will we let him take us by the hand and lead us along the paths of purity, holiness and grace?

As we approach today the manger of Bethlehem, let this holy infant take your hand; let yourself this day be conquered by love! Amen! A merry Christmas to you all!

[1] Pope Benedict XVI, Wednesday General Audience, 17 December 2008.
[2] Joseph Ratzinger, Images of Hope: Meditations on Major Feasts. John Rock and Graham Harrison, trans. (San Francisco, California: Ignatius Press, 2006), 12.
[3] The Book of St. Anthony’s Miracles, 22. Virgilio Gamboso, ed. (Padua, Italy: Edizione Messagero Padova, 2004), 39.
[4] Ibid., 40.
[5] Virgil, Bucolics X, 69. Quoted in Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est, 4.

The Patron at work

Yesterday evening my friend Rob - who popped in for a visit on Saturday - called to say that he couldn't find his cell phone and thought he must have left it in the rectory.

When I returned to Effingham, I scoured the house and couldn't find his phone, so he I whispered a prayer to St. Anthony of the Padua, the Finder of Lost Things.

This morning Rob e-mailed me to say that he found the phone:

Hey man…. Sorry fell asleep last night…. Cath found the phone late last night… it was in her jacket… no idea how….

I know how the phone came to be in her jacket.

The Paduan on preaching

Saint Anthony of Padua has a few excellent words on what people expect from homilies. Even though he spoke and wrote them some eight hundred years ago, he is still quite right:

Nowadays, preachers and congregations are so shallow that if a sermon is not full of polished and studied phrases [read "cliches"], and a dash of novelty [read "I'm OK, you're OK"], they are too critical to take any notice of it.

Homily - 13 June 2007 - Memorial of St. Anthony of Padua

In 1946, Pope Pius XII declared Saint Anthony of Padua a Doctor of the Church giving him the title of the Evangelic Doctor. It is an eminently fitting title for this son of Saint Francis of Assisi who loved his education and knowledge, but who loved Christ Jesus more.

Having encountered the bodies of five Franciscans martyred in Morocco, Anthony was filled with a great desire to give his life for the Gospel in the same way. He left the Augustinians -whom he joined ten years earlier - and entered the Order of Friars Minor upon condition that he would be sent to Morocco to die there a martyr’s death.

Yet, as is so often the case, the gift that Anthony wanted so desperately to give was not the gift that the Lord would ask of him. Falling ill upon arrival in Morocco, Anthony boarded a ship headed back to Portugal and, after enduring heavy storms at sea, found his way to Sicily instead.

The excellent knowledge he acquired with the Augustinians – and his own deep intellect – he kept secret from the Franciscans, never speaking of it. It happened that his great gift was discovered at the ordination of Augustinian and Dominican priests in Forli. Apparently nobody was selected to preach. The Bishop then asked one of the Order of Preachers to preach but each of those present refused. The Franciscan superior ordered Anthony to preach whatever the Spirit told him. He opened his mouth and all were amazed at what they thought was an uneducated and simple man.

As the friars increased in number they needed someone to teach their brothers before being sent out to preach. Having discovered his very effective gift, they asked Anthony to teach the brothers. He refused to do so without the permission of Saint Francis. Francis wrote to his brother:

To Brother Anthony, my bishop, Brother Francis sends greetings. It is agreeable to me that you should teach the friars sacred theology, so long as they do not extinguish the spirit of prayer and devotedness over this study, as it is contained in the Rule. Farewell.

Anthony sought Francis’ permission Francis distrusted academics. Too often they lost their focus and turned from Christ Jesus to intellectual pursuits and pleasures, a reality with which we still live.

Each of us is educated and seeks to continue our learning for service to the Church. The risk we share is to devote ourselves too much to our studies and so neglect the spirit of prayer to which each of us is called and to neglect our pursuit of the virtues. There is also another risk which education offers us, that of over-confidence and pride. The more that we know and understood the more we can be tempted to trust in our own intelligence and aptitude.

Anthony succumbed to neither of these temptations because he knew, with Saint Paul, that "our qualification comes from God" and not from ourselves or our achievements (II Corinthians 3:5).
His great intellect and knowledge were both a gift from the Lord and not of his making.

When God unleashed Anthony’s tongue, the ministry of the Spirit was glorious indeed (cf. II Corinthians 3:8). His words moved people within the depths of their hearts because he followed the teaching of St. Francis who said, "The preacher must first draw from secret prayers what he will later pour out in holy sermons; he must first grow hot within before he speaks words that are in themselves cold."

This Anthony did in his study of the Scriptures and through them he came not only to know Christ Jesus, but also to play with the Child Jesus and to hold him in his hands. As God bent low to embrace Anthony, so Anthony bent low to embrace God. In the embrace of God Anthony experienced his greatest joy. "What greater pleasure or joy can there be for the human mind," he asked, "than to be ‘before him’ with whom, and in whom, is all that is true; and without whom everything that seems to be is nothing, and all abundance only a lack?" Let us, with the Evangelic Doctor, seek our greatest joy not in intellectual pursuits but in Christ Jesus.

Just a thought

"Just as a loving mother of a little child, when he wants to climb the stairs, takes his hand in hers so that he climb after her, so the Lord takes the hand of the humble penitent with the hand of love, that he may climb by the ladder of the cross to the state of perfection, so as to become worthy to see him who is desirable in appearance."

-Saint Anthony of Padua