Prepare before and celebrate after the Birthday of Jesus!
Homily preached December 11, 2022
by Monsignor Michael Deering
For several events in our life ...
there’s a time for Preparation and a time for Celebration ...
and it’s wise to take time for each ...
taking time in Preparation ... and taking time in Celebration.
Here’s an example of how this works so well.
Getting married is a significant milestone in people’s lives.
It’s a milestone that engaged couples undertake knowing that it will involve
a good deal of preparation.
That Preparation includes, buying a Wedding Dress and renting a Tuxedo ... scheduling a Photographer, ordering Flowers, reserving a Limo and Banquet Hall, planning their Honeymoon, meeting with their Wedding Coordinator and
attending some planning Marriage Prep classes with their Priest or Deacon!
Yes, all this is done to Prepare them for their Big Day!
And while their excitement continues to grow as that big day approaches,
they patiently wait to celebrate until the actual day of their Wedding.
That’s when the celebration begins ... on the day of the Wedding ...
with a beautiful Mass and a fun Wedding Reception ...
for all their family and friends.
And that rolls right into getting away for a week or two on a Honeymoon ...
to revel in all that has just occurred …
that they have bonded themselves to one another for the rest of their lives ...
and have opened a new channel of God’s Grace to help their new union.
Wow ... much preparation first ... and much celebration to follow!
Well, this sequence of events that is so common for Weddings is similar to the sequence of events that the Church endorses for the celebration of ... the two greatest Feast Days of the Year: the Birth of Jesus & the Resurrection of Jesus!
Yes, the pattern of patient preparation ... followed by joyful celebration ...
is the model not only for Weddings, but also for Christmas and Easter!
Preparation takes place in the Advent & Lenten Seasons that precede these Feasts Celebration takes place in the Christmas & Easter Seasons that follow these Feasts.
Hopefully, for the past two weeks and now for the next two weeks ...
you’ve been preparing for Christmas.
Which is why the songs we sing at Mass during Advent have titles such as:
“O come, O come Emmanuel” … “My Soul in Stillness waits”
“Prepare the way of the Lord” … “Soon and very soon”
This is also why the Scripture Readings and the Homilies at Mass have been encouraging you to prepare...not just your homes...but your hearts for Christmas.
Suggested Preparations include:
adding 5 minutes of prayer to your daily routine w/ the Blue Advent devotionals.
reading Scripture or the Magnificat or any of countless spiritual books
attending Daily Mass in the morning, at midday or at the end of the day.
going to Confession on any day ...
or during the formal parish service from 5 to 7 pm on Thursday December 22nd.
These and more are preparations that can make the arrival of the great day of Christmas especially joyful and spiritually rewarding.
As a Wedding is one of the biggest events to take place in the life of a person,
the Birth of Jesus is one of the biggest events to take place in the life of the world!
And so celebrating it demands some preparation.
Christmas, which marks the Birth of Jesus,
was the fulfillment of hundreds of years of God promising to send us a Redeemer!
Yes, God promised to send us a Savior.
Who would have ever thought that it would be His Son …
a God-man … who was fully human and fully divine?
In our Gospel today, John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus w/ the question,
“Are you the one who is to come or should we look for another?”
Imagine the anticipation that John must have felt wondering if he was actually
getting to see the one who God promised would come to save all of mankind!
John was familiar with the writings of the Prophets, such as Isaiah,
who foretold in today’s reading, what the Savior would be like.
He says, “the eyes of the blind will be opened, the ears of the deaf will be cleared, the lame will leap like a stag and the tongue of the mute will sing.”
How perfect was the way that Jesus responded to John’s question, saying:
“Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight,
the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised
and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.”
So profound is this news … that indicated that the Savior had indeed come into our world … to be with us and save us from eternal separation from God …
that we’ve continued to celebrate this event every year ... for 2022 years!
Christmas is a very big deal!
And so just as you’d prepare to celebrate a big event in your personal life,
the Church asks you to prepare to celebrate this big event in the life of the world
… the commemoration of the Birth … of the Savior of the world.
Now just as a Wedding celebration fully begins on the actual Wedding Day,
please let the celebration of Jesus’ Birth fully begin on Christmas Day.
And just as the Wedding celebration continues for the many days of Honeymoon, let Jesus’ Birthday celebration carry on for many days of the Christmas Season.
Don’t deprive yourself of receiving the fullness of the grace of the Season
by shifting off of Christmas … on the day after Christmas.
Rather, follow the wisdom of your Church & celebrate the Birth of our Lord from December 25th all the way to the Baptism of the Lord on Monday, January 9th
That’s a total of 16 days … that would be a wonderful Honeymoon with Jesus.
One tradition has it that you leave up your Christmas decorations at least until the Feast of Epiphany, the Wise Men adoring the Savior, on Sunday, January 8th.
As we enter the 3rd week of Advent,
let your thoughts and actions be as if you were approaching your wedding.
You’d be all about getting ready for that great day.
You’d be patiently preparing before the event …
and getting ready to celebrate after the event.
Let’s do Christmas the same way …
patiently preparing our spirits through prayer & the reception of the Sacraments … so that we’re really ready to celebrate that great day …
when God came to be with us … as a man!
This is very different from the
This may be a new concept to you. It certainly is not the practice of our culture.
They think Christmas ends at midnight December 25th.
For example, this past week while I was making some photo prints in the CVS Pharmacy, I overheard one sales lady say to another, “I’m taking it down and moving it out the day after Christmas.” So at the register, I asked her what she was referring to and she said, “I’ll be taking down the Christmas stuff and getting ready for Valentines Day!”
Can you believe it? The Birthday of the God-Man gets preempted by a man-made holiday.
What’s the hurry? Valentines Day on 14th of February is a full 7 weeks after Christmas!
Valentines Day is just about love …. a recollection of the presence of love
Christmas Day is about Love Himself.
That clearly shows that we really don’t understand the magnitude and significance of what happened 2007 years ago. Sadly, many don’t really comprehend how extraordinary and essential the Birth of Jesus into our world really was.
Well the Bishops of the United States are very concerned over this lack of understanding and have asked each Pastor to distribute a special Prayer Booklet to assist all the faithful in celebrating the Great Feast of Christmas for the entire Christmas Season. Copies of this booklet will be in the vestibule for you to pick up after Mass and take home and spend time with them in prayer and reflection.
Let’s commit to keeping the joy of Christmas alive in our hearts as long as possible.
Elvis Presley referred to this very beautifully in one of his songs called,
“Why can’t everyday be like Christmas?”
It’s there that he sings the refrain,
“For if every day could by like Christmas, what a wonderful world this would be.”
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