OMELIE / Omelie EN

25 dic 2018

25/12/2018 - Nativity of the Lord - C

25/12/2018 - Nativity of the Lord - C 

Night   IS 9,1-3.5-6    Psalm 95/96    TI 2,11-14       LK 2,1-14

Dawn    IS 62,11-12   Psalm 96/97    TI 3,4-7           LK 2,15-20

Day    IS 52,7-10        Psalm 97/98    HEB 1,1-6      JN 1,1-18

Sing to the Lord a new song! Among the readings, the Psalm invites us to renew our song, the reasons to be joyful and the way to express it. The song needs to be new because the life is changed, because it can count on new foundations, it can see new horizons.

The reading from Isaiah in fact is describing the new world, that during the night has taken place, as a luminous place that takes the place of the deep darkness. The word “Light” is repeated, a synonym of joy, a Joy that makes you sing. All this novelty comes from the Child “born for you”, a son who “is given us”. He is the news that nobody can describe nor understand completely. We know more than what Isaiah knows, even if maybe we rejoice less than him. He was living in expectation, hoping; he was suffering of the dark situation, but he was announcing God’s faithfulness that was going to show itself in a simple way, and at the same time very evidently, to everybody, in amazing ways, lasting ones. He is talking about a Child, but “Prince of Peace”, about a son, but “Wonder-Counselor”, even “God-Hero”!

We know Him, or, at least, we say we know Him, but we end up living like He is not among us, continuing to bend down onto our problems, firm in our choices, decisive and convinced of our certainties. Tonight maybe we let ourselves to be moved a little. In front of this Child, who is going to become great, we will abandon a little of our pride, of our positivity. We will be able to begin a new song, first of all wordlessly, then with sentences echoing those coming from the angels.

The angels heard by the poor, the outcast, the shepherds keeping watch in the night, begin the new song. They come to our rescue: they do not need a Savior, however they are happy for us. They are moved by a blessed jealousy, because they see God busy to give such a great love to us men, moreover sinners, while they, the angels, will not derive any benefit from it. In their amazement they sing the song telling who is the one who is born: He is the glory of God.

God receives glory from that Child: He will be the one to make known the true face of the Father, He will be the one to make it dear to all men, He will be the one bringing on Earth His forgiveness and His mercy, He will be the one to introduce us to the faithfulness of His love. It will be that Child to spread on earth the Spirit of the blessed God and to submerge men in it. He is the true glory for the true God. This glory reaches the highest heavens, the deepest corners of the life the man is waiting for and his aspirations that touch and penetrate eternity.

And again the angels, helped by the prophecies, can see already the earth surrounded by peace. Earth is always a source of wars, disagreements, litigations, disharmonies, because on it is moving in many different ways men’s selfishness. On this Earth comes God’s glory, and therefore on it starts running love. Love is in the Father’s heart, and on Earth it comes from faith, first of all from the faith that the Child has in His Father. Men are loved by God, even if they do not know it: now they begin to realize it: they are loved!

How many sufferings and how much emptiness are in men’s hearts and souls: they come from lack of love from the parents, from lack of affection in the individual’s story, in the story of the families and communities. How many peoples, that are not aware to have ever been loved, suffer from this wanting and they carry the consequences of it, that shape their life making it difficult to live together at every level! Well, here comes today the peace, here comes the One that can fill the gaps of love in every single heart of whoever is crouching on himself because he has never been loved, here comes the One who fills the lack of love of whole families and of those peoples that have always served heartless gods, unable to give or to ask for love. Today the light shows the true face of God, therefore we see Him as Father, and the same light makes human faces bright, so much so they see themselves as brothers. Tonight the Child grants many to embrace each other again, because after years and years, after centuries, they see each other as brothers in the light that He enkindles in the world!

We make ourselves as little as the shepherds, in order to listen to the song and take part in the angels’ joy. Like the shepherds we let our life to be changed: Saint Paul is advising us to do so. If the Child is born, if He is the glory of God and the peace, we can no longer act like kids. We need to become ambassadors of the light and of the peace, letting both light and peace shine from our face on the life of whoever passes by us.