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OMELIE / Omelie EN

25 dic 2019
25/12/2019 – Nativity of the Lord

25/12/2019 – Nativity of the Lord

Night               Isaiah 9,1-3.5-6          Psalm 95/96    TI 2,11-14       LK 2,1-14
Dawn              Isaiah 62,11-12          Psalm 96/97    TI 3,4-7           LK 2,15-20
Day                 Isaiah 52,7-10            Psalm 97/98    HEB 1,1-6       JN 1,1-18

 

O God, who wonderfully created the dignity of human nature and still more wonderfully restored it, grant, we pray, that we may share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity! This prayer introduces us to the Readings of the “Mass during the day” of this Solemnity. The angels' songs and the shepherds' joy are preparing us to let us be covered by the unreachable mystery of the event we are celebrating.

Isaiah, with different expressions, tries to awaken in us the joy, an unstoppable joy, the joy of he who finally has been reached by the news he has been waiting for for a long time, and even fuller and more beautiful than the ones he always imagined and hoped for. How beautiful are the feet of him who brings glad tidings in this day: the nightmares coming from the requests of kings and rulers are over, because has taken the throne nobody less than “your God”, the one who loves you without reservation! The sentinels join together their joyful cries: the one who had always been far away, they can see finally close, now He is coming. Not only the people exults, but even all the ends of the earth: the celebration is for all the peoples, for all religions, for the entire world!

The psalm echoes this joy arisen by the prophet and invites to use all the possible musical instruments in order to show the joy of the entire earth.

The letter to the Hebrews and the Gospel according to John continue to make us reflect in order to discover the meaning of the event we are celebrating, in order to understand its importance for each one of us, for the whole people and the whole world. They do that by helping us to look at the entire history filled with the Father’s love, who wants to <<save>> us at all costs, pulling so to speak the hidden Adam, frightened, red for shame, as we are, out of this situation, taking his sin off him.

Again, the letter to the Hebrews introduces to us the Son, Jesus, as the final try on God’s part to talk to men, meeting them at their level. It is through Him that the Father makes His dream of love come true! The first page of the letter, which we can hear today, makes us stop to contemplate the beauty and the greatness and the importance of the Son. He is the “heir of all things”, so everything is his by birthright! He is “the refulgence of his glory”, so He makes visible God’s beauty and superiority; “sustains all things by his mighty word”, so nobody can ignore Him! He has “accomplished purification from sins” and “he took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high” receiving the authority and the right-duty to judge. If He is the one to judge, we are lucky, because He will do anything to save us. Of Him has been even written: “Let all the angels of God worship him”! Therefore, we would like to see too this Son, we would like to become part of His life.

John, in the introduction to his gospel, is even deeper and more precise. The “only” Son is revealing us the Father, since He is “at the Father’s side”. He therefore is the “fullness” of God, His presence, and He lets us enjoy “grace and truth”: these two words summarise and describe what is happening today. The God's selfless love pours onto human society. We are loved without having done anything to deserve it. We are and we remain sinners, but even then God has covered us in love. This is the grace: the grace is Jesus, the child weak and fragile in a young mother's arms, whose culture is all in words pronounced by the angels. Also the truth comes to men. The truth is not a more precise recollection of the news of the day, but the manifestation of what in the men's eyes remains hidden. Men cannot see God, they cannot feel His love and His plans. Now that the Son is here, here it is, the truth is not hidden anymore: we can know the eternal plans, we can enjoy the divine communion, we can feel in the small and great events of our days the closeness of the God of love and peace!

The truth is light, the truth is life for us, it is friendship from God even if we are sinners and darkness. The darkness wants to overcome the light, but it cannot: the light wins over the night! Life and Light are other names for that Son we get closer to without being able to own Him fully, because He is the Word, the desire of a God who loves and wants to give Himself to the man. He is the Word that is in God’s heart, and therefore is God, fullness of love!

The apostles' words submerge us, nay, they immerse us in the depth of the mystery, but we know it is a mystery of love, and therefore we enjoy it immensely and we try to show through small acts of love this endless novelty!

Let everyone come to worship the Lord!