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Homily of December 24 - Christmas Eve

Church St Etienne - Entrammes - 22:30

Friday, December 24, 2010 Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord - Midnight Mass

(Texts: Is 9.1-6 - Psalm 95 - 2.11-14 Tt - Luke 2 1-14)

Welcoming remarks:

Love, peace, joy, happiness, these are the words that come to mind when we think of Christmas. Gathered this evening around the Infant God, we just tap into the source of love, to feed our own hearts that love and radiate around us.

Homily:

Brothers and sisters,

tonight Gathered around the Child Jesus is a dive into the sources of our faith that we are invited. Yes, because if we are constantly celebrating the anniversary of the birth to the world of the Son of God over 2000 years later, is that by this unprecedented event inaugurated God's redemption of mankind.

Jesus, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, comes in the midst of humanity, just walk on our roads has come to share our condition human. And he's not here to pretend! When the Son of God, the eternal Word made flesh, he is born as a baby, to live within our human condition.

Most years that Christ spent on our land in our midst, were silent for years: from his birth until the beginning of his public life, about 30 years, Jesus lived a life simple and ordinary human in the middle of the inhabitants of Nazareth with Mary and Joseph. That's what he yad'étonnant: 30 years of hidden life, 3 years of public life, education, healing, leading to the death and resurrection. Why all this time of Nazareth, we might almost seem a waste of time? Why is it that God wanted to spend all these years to live normally, as one of us?

is that God's love for us goes far: the deepest desire of love is to become the other, while remaining himself, and Jesus Christ, this is done perfectly. Jesus is true God and true man ... In him, one of the Trinity has come among us, in him, one of us ascended into heaven and resides in of the Trinity. For human nature of Jesus is not like a dress that would bear on Christmas Eve to raise for 33 years and throw it at the time of the Ascension. No, since its passage on this earth among us, and eternity, Jesus the Son of God is true God and true man. And his resurrected body tells us something of what our own body in the resurrection.
Jesus shows us the way because, as St. Athanasius said, "God became man so that man might become God. 'Imitating Christ, we are truly his adoptive brothers and we enter into the intimacy Holy Trinity ...

Imitating Christ ... that is how we can enter into communion with God. And what is the heart of Christ's life, except love for God and all mankind? Thus, the path that lies before us in this celebration of Christmas is still and always a journey of love, and love in deed and in truth. For love is not seen, but what we can see, these are acts of love. By becoming incarnate, becoming man, teaching us, dying on the cross, by reviving and sending us his Holy Spirit at Pentecost, God showed us how far will his love for us.

And we, what are the things we do for God to show our love for Him? What can we do? "It's the love you have for each other that all will know as my disciples", "Love ye one another as I have loved you", "what you did for one of these least brothers of mine, it's me that you did. " Christ's answer is clear: as a testament of my commitment to Him is how I behave with those around me. Any person must be the face of Christ for me: every gesture of affection, assistance and support, I ask for someone, it is a gesture of love to God that I am, at the same time. And conversely, every gesture, every word of rejection, hatred, malice, jealousy, ... I do to another is at the same time I draw a barrier between me and God.

Sometimes they say "I, my father, I am non-practicing Christian," which generally implies that the person believes in God but do not attend many churches. These are religious, of the Sacraments, which is an essential element of Christian life. But the Christian practice, be a practicing Christian, this is not just coming to church: being a practicing Christian is to pray, alone and with others, it also read the Word of God, and finally, be a Christian practitioner is trying to make a lifelong love of praise to God. That's what it means to be Christian to pray, read the Word, love in deed and in truth.

Brothers and sisters, to live like that, we need each other, we we need to support us through prayer, through words and deeds. May this festival of Christmas is to remind us that our vibrant and warm life finds its meaning only if we love in the first place.

Amen.

David Journault †